Prague – Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavský (independent, running for Spolu) spoke today on the phone with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar. He assured him, among other things, that the Czech Republic will oppose the suspension of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel. Lipavský stated this today on network X.
“I expressed my wish for the war in Gaza to end as soon as possible and for the humanitarian situation to improve,” the minister said. He and his counterpart discussed the suspension of the association agreement between the EU and Israel. “I assured him that the Czech Republic is and will be clearly against it – it is not in the interest of the EU to limit its influence in the region,” added the head of Czech diplomacy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last week that the Commission would propose sanctions against extremist Israeli ministers and settlers from the occupied West Bank, as well as a partial suspension of the association agreement with Israel. Lipavský then said that such proposals are not new and have not yet found support in the EU.
On Thursday, Members of the European Parliament approved a resolution that, among other things, condemned the Israeli humanitarian blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which they claim has caused famine there. According to MEPs, Israel’s right to self-defense cannot justify military actions that do not distinguish between targets and lead to unbearable suffering of the civilian population. The resolution also condemns as barbaric the crimes committed by the terrorist movement Hamas and calls for the immediate release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip.
The war in the Gaza Strip broke out in October 2023, when Israel launched a military offensive in response to an attack by the terrorist movement Hamas and its allies, during which militants killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted another 251 as hostages. According to current data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, at least 64,905 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the beginning of the war, AFP reported. The UN considers these statistics, which do not distinguish between civilians and militants, to be reliable and states that the majority of the victims are civilians. (September 16)
