The EU likes to think of itself as a normative power — a community of values, committed to upholding international law, promoting peace, protecting civilians and building a rules-based global order. These are not just lofty ideals; they are enshrined in EU treaties, declarations and Council conclusions. But when it comes to the brutal, drawn-out destruction of Gaza and the continued illegal occupation of Palestine, these principles seem to have become hollow rhetoric. Worse, they are being actively undermined by the craven inaction of the EU’s institutions and the blockage of governments like Germany, Italy, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The European Commission has been shamefully absent as well. Only as a result of recent pressure from many Member States did it propose the most tepid of measures by asking the Foreign Affairs Council to suspend access for Israeli SMEs that have applied for financial support under the dual-use technology EIC Accelerator window of Horizon Europe. Even this minor proposal of the Commission has so far been blocked by several EU countries, including Germany and Italy, thereby failing – again – to enforce the existing conditionality clauses of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which require respect for human rights and international law.
While hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are being killed, maimed, starved and displaced, the European Union dithers. The International Court of Justice has not only issued provisional measures towards Israel because of the plausible risk of genocide in Gaza – orders the Netanyahu government has flatly ignored – but also declared that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and constitutes the crime of segregation or apartheid. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN, human rights organisations, as well as most former Israeli top military and intelligence officials, have sounded the alarm about Israel’s catastrophic actions in Gaza and its dehumanising policies in the West Bank.
The time for hand-wringing and empty declarations is over. The EU has ample tools at its disposal to pressure Israel to end its brutal war in Gaza, dismantle the occupation, and move towards a viable two-state solution, with an independent and democratic Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel.
What individual states can do
If the European Union remains unable to muster the political will for collective action to apply EU-wide restrictive measures, such as suspending the Association Agreement, banning trade with Israel’s illegal settlements, applying sanctions on government officials and military commanders, halting arms supplies or suspending Horizon Europe, then the moral, political and legal burden falls on individual Member States.
Countries like Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have already taken encouraging steps in recognising the State of Palestine and demanding accountability for Israeli crimes. But so much more is needed now. European countries that claim to support human rights and uphold international law must lead by example and start acting within their own prerogatives. This can include actions such as unilaterally suspending or revoking arms export licenses to Israel under their own national export control laws, including for dual-use equipment and technology.
Secondly, with respect to Horizon Europe, any Member State can stop funding national co-financed projects involving Israeli entities or withdraw from joint research agreements with Israeli institutions. Universities and research bodies can also be directed not to cooperate with certain Israeli institutions.
In the absence of a collective EU response, individual countries should establish coalitions of the willing that take matters into their own hands.
Moreover, Member States can impose their own national sanctions regimes on human rights grounds, including visa bans and asset freezes. While the UK and some Nordic countries have such laws, others could use anti-money laundering or counterterrorism laws to freeze assets. States can also deny entry to individuals under national immigration law, as done by France and Slovenia.
While a comprehensive trade ban on settlements falls under exclusive EU competence, Member States can exclude settlement-linked companies from public procurement and state investment funds. State-owned enterprises or sovereign wealth funds can divest from settlement-linked companies, as done by Norway. Furthermore, national authorities can ban port calls or airspace use for Israeli military vessels and aircraft.
Lastly, Member States with universal jurisdiction provisions (such as Germany, Spain, Belgium, France and Sweden) can prosecute suspected Israeli and Palestinian war criminals if they enter their territory, or in some cases even in absentia. The Baltic countries and the Czech Republic can apply sanctions for human rights violations even outside the EU’s global human rights framework. All Member States are, of course, obliged to support the ICC in arrest warrants and investigations.
In the absence of a collective EU response, individual countries should establish coalitions of the willing that take matters into their own hands. This would not only neutralise European spoilers but also create a critical mass of support within the EU and beyond, including in the Arab world and wider Global South, in the pursuit of protecting and enforcing international law.
Undermining European unity and standing
And yet, the EU itself remains frozen — paralysed by the political obstruction of a few Member States and an indefensible unwillingness to confront Israel’s government with meaningful consequences. This failure to act is not only a betrayal of the Palestinian people. It is a direct threat to Europe’s own credibility and standing in the world. How can the EU expect to be taken seriously when it demands accountability for Russian war crimes in Ukraine, while shielding Israel from any form of sanction, scrutiny or effective pressure?
This hypocrisy is not lost on the international community — particularly the Global South, where memories of colonialism and double standards run deep. African, Latin American and Arab leaders see the EU’s selective outrage for what it is: a continuation of Eurocentric foreign policy that privileges geopolitical allies and punishes adversaries, regardless of the principles at stake.
Europe’s image as a principled, reliable and rules-based actor is being destroyed, not by autocratic Russia and China, or other adversaries with dictatorial regimes, but by its own refusal to enforce international law when the perpetrator is an ally.
Both Ideserve leaders – and international partners – who spare no effort to work towards justice and peace, not perpetual domination and a never-ending cycle of violence.
At the heart of this disgraceful paralysis are governments that have chosen to side with impunity. While Germany undoubtedly has a historical responsibility to protect Jewish life and the security of the Jewish people, this in no way justifies placing the actions of the Israeli government above international law. Under the highly problematic political premise of unconditional support for Israel as part of Germany’s ‘Staatsräson’, Berlin has become the Israeli government’s chief enabler in Europe, delivering weapons, blocking EU measures and silencing domestic dissent. It was only thanks to growing public pressure – two-thirds of Germans want their government to take effective measures against Israel – that on 8 August, Chancellor Merz announced the unprecedented step of temporarily stopping the supply of weapons that the IDF can use in Gaza. However, he later underlined that Germany would not support commercial sanctions against Israel.
If the German government were truly serious about securing Israel’s future and preventing another 7 October from happening, it would have to work tirelessly to end the illegal occupation of Palestine and the ongoing genocidal military campaign in Gaza. Berlin could even help rescue the remaining Israeli hostages from their terrible fate by pressuring Netanyahu to resume meaningful negotiations with Hamas towards hostage release, ceasefire and massive entry of humanitarian aid — negotiations that the Israeli Prime Minister abandoned in March only to salvage his own political survival when threatened by the openly racist far-right parties of his coalition.
Germany is unfortunately not alone in its embarrassing lack of engagement and action among EU Member States. Under Meloni’s far-right government, Italy has become an echo chamber for the Israeli war narrative. And Hungary and the Czech Republic, for far too long loyal to nationalist authoritarianism, have consistently obstructed EU consensus on Palestine.
At least 56 people have died and 80 are missing after a sudden rainstorm in Indian Kashmir, the second such disaster in the Himalayas in a little over a week.
The incident in the town of Chashoti, Kishtwar district, occurred at a stopover point on a pilgrimage route. Days earlier, a flood and mudslide engulfed a village in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
The flood washed away a community kitchen and a security post in the village, a pit stop along the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple, according to an official. “A large number of pilgrims had gathered for lunch and they were washed away,” they said.
The Machail Yatra trail is a popular route up to the high-altitude Himalayan shrine of Machail Mata, which honours the Hindu goddess Durga, and pilgrims trek to the temple from Chashoti, where the road for vehicles ends.
“The news is grim and accurate, verified information from the area hit by the cloudburst is slow in arriving,” Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of India’s federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, said in a post on X.
Television footage showed pilgrims crying as water flooded the village.
Mohammad Irshad, a top disaster management official, said 56 bodies had been recovered from the site before rescue efforts were halted for the night.
He said 80 people had been reported missing and 300 had been rescued, 50 of whom were severely injured and had been sent to nearby hospitals.
Local officials said the death toll was likely to rise.
The disaster occurred at 11.30am local time, Ramesh Kumar, the divisional commissioner of Kishtwar district, told ANI news agency, adding that local police and disaster response officials had reached the scene.
“Army air force teams have also been activated. Search and rescue operations are under way,” Kumar said.
A cloudburst, according to the Indian Meteorological Department, is a sudden, intense downpour of more than 100mm (4in) of rain in just one hour that can trigger sudden floods, landslides and devastation, especially in mountainous regions during the monsoon.
The local weather office in Srinagar predicted intense showers for several regions in Kashmir on Thursday, including Kishtwar. It urged residents to stay away from loose structures, electric poles and old trees as there was a possibility of mudslides and flash floods.
ISLAMABAD — The Taliban will shower Kabul with flowers from helicopters to mark the fourth anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan, an official said Thursday.
The Taliban seized control of the country on August 15, 2021, weeks before the U.S. and NATO withdrew their forces after a costly, two-decade war.
Defense Ministry helicopters will perform “beautiful aerial displays” above the Afghan capital on Friday to “shower the city” with colorful flowers, according to a note from Habib Ghofran, the spokesman for the Information and Culture Ministry. There will be sports performances from Afghan athletes from the afternoon until the early evening, said Ghofran.
The festivities come as Afghanistan struggles with a massive influx of refugees from neighboring countries, a faltering economy and cuts in foreign funding, especially from the U.S. Almost 10 million people face acute food insecurity and one in three children is stunted.
Black and white Taliban flags were displayed across Kabul on Thursday.
Ahsan Ullah Khan, from northern Sar-e-Pul province, encouraged the Afghan diaspora to return so they could see how peaceful the country was and how happy people were.
But Kabul resident, Zafar Momand, said Afghans needed more than peace.
“Along with peace we need employment and education opportunities. If these problems are solved then Afghanistan is the best country to live,” Momand said. “Women are also an important part of society. They should also have education and work opportunities.”
Females are barred from education beyond sixth grade, many jobs and most public spaces. It was not immediately clear if women would be present at or permitted to attend Friday’s festivities.
Last year’s takeover anniversary celebrations were held at Bagram Airfield, once the center of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
Women were barred from that event, including female journalists from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
“Usqut, Anas (Shut up, Anas),” the Israeli agent would say in Arabic when he called the Palestinian journalist’s mobile. He was not the only one. Other journalists in Gaza getting such calls had chosen silence or fled the strip. But Anas al-Sharif, a 28-year-old Pulitzer-prize winning correspondent in Gaza with a global following of hundreds of thousands on social media, was different. He spoke of the need to give Gaza a voice and ploughed on regardless.
More than 100 aid organisations working in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have accused Israel of dangerously “weaponising aid” in its application of new rules for registering groups involved in delivering humanitarian assistance.
The letter represents the latest broadside from the international aid community against Israel after the EU, Britain and Japan on Tuesday called for urgent action to stop “famine” spreading in the Gaza Strip.
The letter was published as Gaza’s health authority reported continuing deaths from malnutrition in the besieged Palestinian territory, and amid threats by Israel to take full military control of the coastal strip with reports in Hebrew media suggesting the country may be planning to mobilise up to 100,000 reservists for the new offensive.
The letter, signed by organisations including Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières and Care, was written in response to registration rules announced by Israel in March that require organisations to hand over lists of their donors and Palestinian staff for vetting.
The groups contend that doing so could endanger their staff and give Israel broad grounds to block aid if groups are deemed to be “delegitimising” the country or supporting boycotts or divestment.
The registration measures were “designed to control independent organisations, silence advocacy and censor humanitarian reporting”, they said.
The letter added: “This obstruction has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s ministry for diaspora and combating antisemitism said it had revoked the work permits of 10 NGOs that had applied for authorisations.
Under the new rules, which are vague and broad-reaching, a team led by the diaspora ministry can refuse registration to aid groups if they or their members published calls to boycott Israel in the past seven years; if there is “reasonable basis to assume” that they oppose Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state; or if they “actively advance delegitimisation activities against the state of Israel”.
The aid groups’ letter said the rules violated European data privacy regulations, noting that in some cases aid groups had been given only seven days to comply.
“Instead of clearing the growing backlog of goods, Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organisations are ‘not authorised to deliver aid’,” the letter added, saying that 60 requests from 29 organisations were denied in July citing this justification.
Cogat, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, denied the letter’s claims, adding without evidence that aid groups were being used as cover by Hamas to “exploit the aid to strengthen its military capabilities and consolidate its control”, despite the fact that Israel already claims to control 75% of Gaza.
The aid groups stressed on Thursday that most of them had not been able to deliver “a single truck” of life-saving assistance since Israel implemented a blockade in March.
The vast majority of aid is not reaching civilians in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been killed, most of the population has been displaced and famine is taking hold. UN agencies and a small number of aid groups have resumed delivering assistance, but say the number of trucks allowed in remains far from sufficient.
The letter was published as Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, backed plans for a major settlement development outside Jerusalem, which he said would represent the “final nail in the coffin” of Palestinian ambitions for their own state.
The E1 settlement plan for more than 3,000 housing units – which critics, including much of the international community, say would split the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem – is highly likely to be approved by a planning body next week. But it still remains uncertain whether the plan, which has been frozen for more than five years, will advance, given the likely international fallout.
While his support for the plan was announced by Smotrich at a press conference on Thursday, it remains uncertain how much backing it has from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as does the attitude of Donald Trump’s White House.
Smotrich’s comments come after many countries said they would recognise a Palestinian state in September.
“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” said Smotrich, whose extremist party has experienced a collapse in support.
Wildfires raging across Spain have killed a third person as intense heat continues across vast swathes of Europe, forcing overwhelmed governments to call in support from their neighbours.
A volunteer firefighter died after battling a blaze in Castile and León, authorities said on Thursday, after the death of a fellow volunteer in the same region on Tuesday. A man died on the outskirts of Madrid on Monday as he tried to save horses from a burning stable.
“Death strikes us again with the loss of a second volunteer who has lost their life in León,” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Thursday. He thanked the “heroes” protecting people from fires and said “the threat remains extreme”.
In Patras, Greece’s third-largest city, firefighters pushed back a wildfire that had burned through the outskirts of the port and forced the evacuation of a children’s hospital and a retirement home. Local media reported that a 19-year-old man who had allegedly confessed to starting the blaze was among a number of arrests made in connection to it.
The aftermath of the wildfire near Patras. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The Greek fire service spokesperson, Vasilios Vathrakoyannis, said the general situation had improved on all fronts after an all-night battle, but that a very high fire risk was still predicted for most areas of the country.
“Today is expected to be a very difficult day,” he said.
Spain has become the fifth country in a week to activate the EU’s civil protection mechanism to fight the fires. The European Commission announced that two planes stationed in France were expected to be deployed in Spain on Thursday.
Greece is expected to receive two Swedish helicopters stationed in Bulgaria under the mechanism, which it activated on Tuesday, while Bulgaria, Albania and Montenegro – where a soldier died fighting a fire near the capital – have also received support from firefighters from several EU countries.
The EU’s civil protection mechanism, which coordinates responses during wars and other crises, has been activated 16 times during the current fire season. The number of activations in 2025 is already the same as the figure for the whole of the 2024 fire season, the commission said.
Volunteers run from the flames of a wildfire in Ourense province in north-west Spain. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Wildfires have burned more than 400,000 hectares in Europe so far this year, an increase of 87% compared with the average over the past two decades. France experienced its largest wildfire since 1949 last week.
The two Spanish firefighters who died were using brush cutters to slow the spread of a fire when they were engulfed by the flames on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Spanish daily El País. The fire is poised to become one of the largest in the country’s history.
Strong and variable winds spread flames that trapped the two men, the newspaper reported. One man died within a few hours, while the other, who suffered 85% burns, died after a day in hospital.
Six people remain in hospital in the region with burns and serious injuries, local media reported.
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Firefighters work to extinguish a wildfire near the city of Patras in western Greece on Wednesday. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
The deadly fires come as southern Europe suffers intense heat that has broken temperature records across the continent – made worse by fossil fuel pollution that traps sunlight and heats the planet – and which has dried out vegetation.
“It’s obvious that climate change is exacerbating the severity of fires,” said Eduardo Rojas Briales, a forestry researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and former deputy director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. “But it’s not responsible to wait for greenhouse gas emissions to drop … as the sole approach to addressing the problem.”
He called for additional policies such as ensuring dead plant material is kept at manageable levels, creating gaps in vegetation, for instance through reversing rural abandonment, and using prescribed burning.
“There is no alternative but to build landscapes … that are truly resilient to fires,” he said.
A report published on Thursday by XDI, a climate risk analysis group, found that the climate crisis has doubled the risk of infrastructure damage from forest fires in France, Italy, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria since 1990. It predicted risk would increase further still in future.
“We’re all asking ourselves, how much worse can it get?” said Karl Mallon, XDI’s head of science and technology. “According to our latest analysis, a lot.”
CAIRO (AP) — Cholera is spreading rapidly in Darfur, killing 40 people and infecting over 2,300 over the past week alone due to water shortages and a collapsed healthcare system have left communities vulnerable amid the ongoing war in Sudan, Doctors Without Borders said in a report Thursday.
The group, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the outbreak was the worst the North African country has seen in years.
As of Monday, a total of 99,700 suspected cases and over 2,470 related deaths have been reported in Sudan since the cholera outbreak began in July 2024, according to MSF.
While some vaccination campaigns that kicked off at the time managed to contain the disease, more people have been infected over the past few months due to poor hygiene measures and new waves of people being displaced amid intensified fighting in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
The civil war erupted in April 2023 in Khartoum before spreading across the country. The fighting between the Sudanese military, its allies, and its rival paramilitary the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed over 40,000 people, displaced as many as 12 million, caused disease outbreaks, and pushed many to the brink of famine.
The World Health Organization describes cholera as a “disease of poverty” because it spreads where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. The diarrheal disease is caused when people eat food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is easily treatable with rehydration solutions and antibiotics, but in severe cases the disease can kill within hours if left untreated.
“The situation is most extreme in Tawila, North Darfur state, where 380,000 people have fled to escape ongoing fighting around the city of El Fasher, according to the United Nations,” MSF said Thursday.
The medical group added that Tawila Hospital was overwhelmed by some 400 cholera patients earlier this month, when it only had the capacity for 130 people. Many had to be treated on the floor.
North Darfur’s capital city of el-Fasher and its surrounding areas have seen repeated waves of violence recently. On Monday, the RSF attacked the famine-stricken displacement camp of Abu Shouk outside the city, killing 40 people and injuring at least 19 people.
On Monday, the RSF denied targeting civilians in el-Fasher, but didn’t mention attacks in Abu Shouk camp in a statement on its Telegram channel. The paramilitary accused Islamic Movement militias and “mercenaries of the armed movements” of endangering the lives of civilians and using them as “human shields in a desperate attempt to hinder” forces’ advancements.
“The Rapid Support Forces reaffirms its commitment to continuing to open safe corridors for the departure of civilians from El Fasher to other, safer areas,” the group added.
More than 360 people fell ill in Indonesia’s town of Sragen in Central Java after consuming school lunches, an official said on Thursday, in the largest food poisoning case to hit President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meals programme.
Since its launch in January, the free school meals programme has been marred by mass food poisoning cases across the archipelago, affecting over 1,000 people.
Sragen government chief Sigit Pamungkas told Reuters that 365 people fell ill and a food sample was being tested in a lab. The government would pay for any medical treatment if needed.
Wizdan Ridho Abimanyu, a ninth grader at Gemolong 1 middle school, told Reuters he was woken at night by sharp pain in his stomach.
He had a headache and diarrhoea, which he deduced had been caused by food poisoning after seeing schoolmates’ social media posts complaining of the same.
The likely contaminated lunch was turmeric rice, omelette ribbons, fried tempeh, cucumber and lettuce salad, sliced apple and a box of milk, cooked in a central kitchen and distributed to several schools.
“We have asked to temporarily stop the food distribution from that kitchen until the lab results are back,” Sigit said.
The government’s National Nutrition Agency, which oversees the programme, has raised the standards of kitchen operations and delivery in the aftermath of previous food poisoning cases, its chief Dadan Hindayana told Reuters.
The free meals programme has been rapidly expanded to over 15 million recipients so far. Authorities plan to reach 83 million by year-end, budgeting a total cost of 171 trillion rupiah ($10.62 billion) this year.
In a food poisoning case in a city in West Java in May, more than 200 students fell ill, and a lab found the food was contaminated with Salmonella and E. coli bacteria, according to media reports.
