DaysofPal- United Nations human rights experts called on European Union member states to immediately suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement, citing a sharp escalation in documented human rights violations they say have reached the level of “serious crimes,” including genocide in Gaza.
In a joint statement, the experts said Tuesday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers on 21 April presents a decisive moral test as they consider whether to suspend the agreement in full or in part amid growing public pressure across Europe for accountability.
They noted that a European Citizens’ Initiative demanding the complete suspension of the agreement in light of the Israeli human rights record has already gathered more than one million signatures.
“The European Union cannot credibly claim to support human rights while maintaining preferential trade relations with a state whose conduct multiple international bodies have found to amount to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the experts said.
As Israel’s largest trading partner, the EU grants Israeli goods, including key agricultural products, preferential access to its markets under the Association Agreement, the experts pointed out.
They argued that Israeli gross and continuous violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law should long ago have provided sufficient legal grounds for suspension.
The experts cited provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and issued binding orders requiring Israeli occupation to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and prevent irreparable harm to Palestinians, where these orders, they said, have been repeatedly ignored.
They also recalled the ICJ’s advisory opinion of July 2024, which concluded that Israeli
occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and violates the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
The UN experts further referred to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
UN human rights treaty bodies, commissions of inquiry, special procedures, the Human Rights Council, and civil society organizations have all documented recurring Israeli violations of international law, the statement added.
“For two and a half years, the European Union has witnessed an escalation of atrocities committed against Palestinians without taking any effective action to uphold international law,” the experts said.
They said their call is grounded in multiple UN analyses and their own findings, which document acts of genocide; widespread torture; sexual violence; arbitrary detention; enforced disappearances; forced displacement; systematic destruction of housing in Gaza described as family killing; the near destruction of the education system or school killing; starvation, including obstruction of humanitarian aid and denial of adequate clean drinking water; severe environmental harm and damage to farmers, herders and their lands, the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system; and ongoing ethnic cleansing and annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.
“These patterns reflect a systematic violation of virtually the entire spectrum of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as a structural feature of the Israeli regime,” the experts said, adding that impunity is almost total, while the victims are consistently dehumanized.
They also condemned Israel’s recent death penalty law targeting Palestinian prisoners, saying it entrenches a discriminatory capital punishment regime, violates international law, and marks a dangerous escalation in the repression of Palestinians.
Israel, they added, has systematically violated multiple counter-terrorism laws in how it applies them to Palestinians.
The experts urged EU governments to align their trade and political relations with their stated human rights commitments, arguing that suspending the Association Agreement is now a legal and moral imperative.
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