EU vows to push for two-state solution in Middle East conflict

Palestinian, Israeli Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian officials to attend talks in Brussels

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The EU has renewed pressure on Israel to accept a two-state solution despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there is “no space” for a Palestinian state.

“Which are the other solutions they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill off them?” the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday ahead of a meeting of the bloc’s 27 Foreign Affairs Ministers.

“From now on I will not talk about the peace process but about the two-state solution process. We are serious about that,” Mr Borrell told reporters.

Top diplomats from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will attend the talks to discuss how to de-escalate fighting in Gaza and how the enclave should be governed in the future.

Both the EU and the US have said that Hamas, which controlled Gaza since 2007, should have no role in its future governance.

The Israeli operation has killed more than 25,000 people in retaliation to Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7 that killed around 1,140 Israelis.

No concrete outcome is expected of the meetings. European diplomats have said that it is already an achievement that so many foreign affairs chiefs from the Middle East have come in person to Brussels.

The last in-person attendance of a high-ranking Israeli government member at a meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers dates back to a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2017.

In what a senior EU official has described as a “complex ballet,” EU foreign affairs ministers will meet Israel’s Israel Katz in the morning before holding talks with his Palestinian National Authority counterpart Riyad Al Maliki.

Mr Borrell said he supported comments made on Sunday by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres describing the Israeli government’s rejection of a two-state solution “unacceptable.”

The US has also attempted to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution but with little apparent impact on Mr Netanyahu.

Israel’s attempt to destroy Hamas in Gaza has failed and is likely to become an obstacle for peace in the region, added Mr Borrell. “The way to destroy Hamas is not the way they are doing it,” he said. “They are seeding the hate for generations.”

In a speech on Friday, Mr Borrell accused Israel of financing Hamas in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority, a statement which has been voiced by historians but had rarely been echoed by politicians. The Israeli government has denied such accusations in the past.

The EU’s external action service, headed by Mr Borrell, has reportedly prepared a ten-point plan for Gaza which it will present to foreign affairs ministers. This includes “an independent Palestinian state, iron-clad guarantees for Israel and full normalisation of Israel with Arab countries,” said the EU official.

The EU on Friday imposed sanctions on six people for funding Hamas, which the bloc designated as a terrorist organisation. It is preparing similar measures against right-wing Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Attacks by Houthis against commercial ships in the Red Sea, which the Yemeni group has linked to the war in Gaza, are also expected to be on the agenda.

Sources have said that EU diplomats have agreed to expand on an existing French-led naval mission in the region but no final decision is expected on Monday.