Israel at war: What comes next? Recalibrating Western position

The brutal terror attack perpetrated by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) against Israel left many dead and injured, while 200 civilians were taken as hostages during the ongoing clashes. The series of attacks on Israeli cities and civilians led to the revenge operation of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, the main stronghold of Hamas.

On the third day of Israeli air raids on Gaza, the local media confirmed that air raids killed another high-level commander of Hamas’s commando forces’ who led the murderous attacks on southern Israeli communities.

The IDF continued to urge Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee to the south of the coastal enclave while stressing its top priority would be rescuing the hostages held by Hamas and its affiliations. Following Hamas' attack, declarations of support to Israel poured in.

The European Commission president Ursula von der Layen affirmed that the EU "fully support Israel's right to defend itself", while German chancellor Olaf Scholz declared "the only place is by Israel's side". Nevertheless, some EU member states moved beyond expressing support for Israel and took moves to halt assistance to Palestinians.

As the bloc continues to provide solid political backing for Israel, it should also be using its diplomatic channels to prevent dangerous regional escalation. But it must be clear that this isn't a blank check for a war of annihilation on Gaza — which all prior experience indicates would be counterproductive in addressing the threat posed by Hamas — and the collective punishment of all Palestinians.

In the wake of the worldwide support, Israel’s ultranationalist government vowed to erase Hamas supporters from Gaza, though the intensive air raids keep hammering civilian settlements. According to the health authorities of Gaza, at least 2,750 Palestinian civilians have been killed during Israeli air raids.

Consequently, critics say there has been mixed messaging from EU leaders as the Israeli assault on Gaza intensifies, and the mounting Palestinian death toll exposes divisions in the European response. The EU's position looks contradictory due to the fact that Israel cut the water and energy supplies of Gaza, while local hospitals need the energy to assist injured civilians.

As such, the EU’s foreign policy high representative, Josep Borrell, declared that Israel’s cutting off of water, electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip may violate international humanitarian law, thus urging the EU to provide more, not less, support to the Palestinians.

The differences on display at the highest levels of the EU reflect longstanding rifts among and within European countries over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could barely be stifled for a momentary show of unity after Hamas’s barbaric assault.

Hard-left parties in France and Spain refused to call Hamas's actions "terrorist" and mainly criticised the Israeli response. The crisis, which has sparked 100 acts of antisemitism in France since October 7, according to the interior minister, may trigger the breakup of the uneasy leftwing French opposition alliance.

Undoubtedly, the current dramatic events in Israel and Gaza are challenging for European leaders in terms of international law principles. For example, the EU fully supports Ukraine's territorial integrity while criticising Russia for its brutal missile attacks on civilian infrastructure in densely populated areas.

However, the EU leaders avoid demonstrating similar sentiments regarding civilian death tolls in Gaza. According to the United Nations, an estimated one million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been displaced in the first seven days of conflict with Israel.

Ironically, the current deadly escalation in the region could be the right moment to break away from the EU's past inadequate policies on Palestine. It offers an opportunity for the EU to lead the international community towards an approach that would both de-escalate the conflict in the short term and address its root causes in the mid- and long term.

Unlike Israel, which does not necessarily need the Western military and financial assistance relying on its guardian superpower, Palestinians in Gaza require continuous humanitarian aid. Indeed, there is a crying need for more effective European diplomacy in a world where multilateralism is increasingly being shunted aside by great power competition, leading to more armed conflicts and trade wars.

The moderation of negotiations between conflicting parties in volatile regions, including the Middle East, is insufficient to reach the ultimate goal or consensus, bringing both parties to a final peace. In this regard, the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and the brutally assassinated Israeli civilians by Hamas militants suggest that the global security cataclysms will not be addressed in the future.