London — As the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel approaches, many European countries are strengthening their calls for Israel to end its assault on Hamas targets in Gaza amid growing horror at the civilian death toll.
The militant attack killed 1,200 people, including Israelis and people of several other nationalities. Around 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas. The assault prompted outrage from Israel’s allies in Europe.
“This Hamas attack is terrible, and it is barbaric. In these dark hours for the Jewish state, we … stand firmly by Israel’s side,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the hours following the attack.
Then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak echoed those words of support.
“I want to express my absolute solidarity for the people of Israel. Now is not a time for equivocation, and I’m unequivocal,” Sunak said on the day following the attack. Israel’s Western allies, most prominently the United States, said the country had the right to defend itself.
Israel responded with waves of airstrikes on Hamas targets and a ground invasion of Gaza. Israel officials defended targeting schools and hospitals in Gaza, saying Hamas fighters were using them as bases and to store weapons.
‘Miscalculation’
But soon, Western concern grew over the mounting civilian death toll, which reached 22,000 by the end of 2023, and has since climbed to over 41,000.
“I think there was a miscalculation on behalf of most Western governments — that they went all in in support for Israel early on, making it very, very difficult to find some sort of off-ramp to also tell Israel when it was wrong, when it acted excessively,” said Andreas Krieg, a Middle East analyst at Kings College London.
“As this became clearer in late 2023 and early 2024, most Western governments found it very hard to backtrack from the initial unequivocal support that they gave to Israel.”
There was also global concern over the lack of aid reaching Gaza amid the devastation.
South Africa brought an ongoing case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, supported, among others, by Spain, Ireland and Belgium. An interim ruling by the court ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Israel insisted it operates according to international law.
Negotiations to secure a truce, brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, have so far failed.
“Europeans don’t have the leverage that the U.S. has to actually do anything about it apart from, obviously, potentially a diplomatic statement or trying to sponsor diplomatic efforts. But if there was no coercion exercised on the Netanyahu government, nothing was going to change,” Krieg said.
In Britain, a change of government in July brought a change of approach to Israel. Newly elected Labour leader Keir Starmer dropped the previous government’s plan to challenge an arrest warrant requested by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes. In September, Britain announced it was suspending some arms sales to Israel.
‘No contest’
Bronwen Maddox, director of London-based Chatham House, said the changing British approach was felt in Israel.
“There’s no question that some of these moves, for example, Britain taking more steps to express its disapproval of aspects of what Israel is doing — those are stinging in Israel. I heard a lot — I was there just really just days ago — a lot of people saying, ‘Well, if it’s a competition between security and international support, we’ll take security anytime. There’s no contest,’” Maddox told Agence France-Presse.
Germany, Israel’s second-biggest arms supplier after the United States, has been among the strongest of Israel’s allies in Europe.
“I would say the messages coming out of Germany up till now are probably the most pro-Israel of any major country in the world, even in comparison to the United States,” Krieg told VOA.
However, Berlin has also suspended several arms exports licenses to Israel in recent months.
“That’s likely not because there’s a change of policy,” Krieg said. “I think the German government is still unequivocally standing with Israel. But there is a concern over legal action being taken against the German government in Germany by lawyers who are saying Germany is no longer compliant with international law, by being complicit in this war,” he added.
After facing missile attacks from Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen, Israel has widened its military operations in recent days, launching air strikes against both militant groups and a limited ground invasion across the Lebanese border. The United Nations says over 1 million people in Lebanon have been forced to flee the fighting.
European nations offered Israel unequivocal support in the wake of October 7. After a year of brutal, escalating conflict, most are demanding an end to the fighting.
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