ActionAid warns EU leaders: talks risk legitimising the ongoing genocide in Gaza

As EU foreign ministers meet to discuss the Middle East on Thursday, ActionAid warns: there is no ceasefire for Palestinians in Gaza, only the next phase of genocide.  

ActionAid is calling on EU leaders to stop hiding ongoing atrocities behind diplomatic language, and to name the reality on the ground in Palestine: genocide has not ended, and the State of Israel’s impunity continues. 

Despite diplomatic rhetoric, Palestinians continue to be killed, starved and forcibly displaced. Aid remains deliberately blocked, displaced people are being killed in their shelters or when trying to return home, and new mechanisms of control are advancing under the cover of stabilisation. New plans are being put in place to expand areas of so-called yellow lines further into Palestinian territory, while the destruction of the remaining houses and infrastructure across the Gaza strip continues.  

“Since 10 October 2025, Israeli forces have killed Palestinians in Gaza nearly every single day, including at least 100 children,” said Jamil Sawalmeh, Country Director of ActionAid Palestine. “There has been no transition into a new phase of so-called peace, there has been no ceasefire for Palestinians. Instead, we are witnessing the continuation of genocide, unfolding under the cover of diplomacy and reconstruction talks. For families sleeping in the cold and rubble, diplomacy measured in months is a luxury they do not have.” 

Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, live under constant threat from state-backed settler violence, marked by attacks on homes, land, livelihoods and their daily life, often carried out with impunity. Israeli forces continue to carry out unlawful practices against Palestinians, including punitive home demolitions, movement restrictions and the destruction of refugee camps in northern West Bank. This week alone, communities in the south – including Masafer Yatta and Ras Ein el Auja – were attacked, forcing residents to flee for their lives. These actions constitute to structural violence, deepening fragmentation, dispossession and control across the West Bank. 

“While the European Union has debated sanctions – and then stepped back from them – Israeli authorities continue their unlawful occupation of Palestine, in direct violation of international law. Many EU Member States have formally recognised Palestinian sovereignty – but with recognition comes legal obligations that go beyond condemnation and require concrete action to prevent further crimes.  

“By allowing continued impunity, EU leaders are no longer neutral – they risk complicity in the genocide against Palestinians. This is not diplomacy written in ink, but in blood” said Sawalmeh. 

Every mechanism now being deployed by Israeli authorities, from aid obstruction to forced displacement, from biometric surveillance and the destruction of livelihoods, serves the same purpose: to erase Palestinian life.  

At the same time, discussions about reconstruction are just another stage of control. Rebuilding without justice, without return and without Palestinian ownership, while occupation and blockade continue, is the entrenchment of existing systems of dispossession and ethnic cleansing. 

ActionAid is calling on EU leaders to: 

• Take immediate political, diplomatic, economic and legal measures to end the State of Israel’s genocide and unlawful occupation, including sanctions and the suspension of its association agreement with Israel.
• Act on their obligations to prevent and punish genocide, and to abide by the ICJ’s and ICC’s biding determinations, and end the State of Israel’s unlawful occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory.
• Reject the Israeli authorities new NGO registration rules and protect impartial humanitarian organisations.
• Halt forced displacement in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and end all policies that prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes.
• Ensure reconstruction is Palestinian-led, rights-based, and rooted in return, justice and accountability. 

“There is no humanitarian solution to genocide and no diplomatic language capable of disguising it,” added Sawalmeh. “EU leaders must choose – uphold international law or be remembered in history for its collapse.”