Israel has agreed to a “substantial” increase in aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza after negotiations with the European Union.
Last month the EU concluded that Israel was in breach of article 2, the human rights clause, of the EU-Israel trade agreement.
That review which Ireland and Spain had been calling for for months was finally conducted after the Netherlands convinced a majority of EU member states to get on board.
An EU source said that review had played a central role in bringing Israel to the negotiating table.
“Following the Israeli Cabinet’s resolutions and the constructive dialogue between the EU and Israel, significant steps have been agreed by Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip”, said the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, in a statement.
“These measures are or will be implemented in the coming days, with the common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas.
These steps include, among other things, the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non- food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas; the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes; enabling the distribution of food supplies through bakeries and public kitchens throughout the Gaza strip; the resumption of fuel deliveries for use by humanitarian facilities, up to an operational level; the protection of aid workers; the repair and facilitation of works on vital infrastructure like the resumption of the power supply to the water desalination facility.”
EU diplomats are meeting later to discuss whether to pursue action against Israel over the breach to the EU-Israel agreement.
The EU sent an “options paper” to member states on Thursday.
Foreign ministers, including Tánaiste Simon Harris, will pick up on those discussions when they meet in Brussels next Tuesday.
One senior EU diplomat said that whilst he welcomed Israel’s promise to allow in more aid and open up more border crossings, “in the end it is all about implementation”.
Another EU source said they would “take stock of the deal that has been brokered.”