The UK, France and Germany have urged Israel to "end" its blocking of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, calling it an "intolerable" measure that puts Palestinian civilians at risk of "starvation, epidemics and death."
In a joint statement on Wednesday, the three foreign ministers called on Israel "to immediately restore the rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza to meet the needs of all civilians".
Israel has been blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip since 2 March, "for more than fifty days", the three European diplomats protested. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting this aid, which they deny.
London, Paris and Berlin have described as "unacceptable" the recent comments by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz "politicising humanitarian aid", as well as "Israeli plans to remain in Gaza after the war".
In mid-April, the minister ruled out the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, seeing it as "one of the main levers of pressure preventing Hamas from using" this aid.
"Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and the Palestinian territory must not be reduced or subjected to any demographic change," the three European countries demand.
They "reiterate" their "outrage" at the "recent strikes by Israeli forces on humanitarian personnel" and "health equipment".
On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Defence accused the Israeli army of "summary executions" during the shooting in which 15 rescue workers were killed in March in the Gaza Strip, contradicting the conclusions of an internal investigation published the day before by the IDF.
The investigation, which was carried by the Israeli central command, found that troops that were lying in ambush for Hamas operatives did not follow military protocol and given orders when they mistakenly identified the aid workers as Hamas members. No proof was found that the aid workers had been executed but 12 of them had been killed at close distance during heavy shooting during three minutes.
The Chief of Staff decided to fire the battalion commander "due to his responsibility as the commander of the force in the field and the incomplete and inaccurate reporting in the investigation" and to write a disciplinary remark in the file of another officer for negligence in preparing the soldiers for the action.
The army is still treating the incident as a tragic mistake and it remains to be seen if the responsible officers will be charged for war crimes by the military prosecutor.
