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SvennoJ 11 hours ago
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EU’s Borrell says Israeli society being ‘colonised from the inside’ by extremists

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs high representative, has called out the rise of extremism and violence in Israel, where “the colonisation of the mind of the people is the most dangerous thing that Israeli society is facing”.

“Israeli society is being colonised from the inside by the extremist and violent people,” Borrell said on Thursday at the opening of the second meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.

“It is undermining the foundations of their democracy,” Borrell said, adding that without a two-state solution for Palestine, “there will not be peace in the Middle East”.

“Now is the time to act. There is a light of hope,” he said, referring to the days-old ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel.

The EU foreign policy chief also said the international community, and in particular EU states, should not undermine the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which recently issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence chief Yoav Gallant.

The ICC is “the only way of having global justice”, he said.

Israeli minister says settle Gaza as response to ICC war crimes warrants

Yitzchak Goldknopf, Israel’s minister of housing and construction, said the “Jewish settlement” of Gaza was an appropriate response to the October 7 attack by Hamas and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for the country’s prime minister and former defence minister.

Goldknopf made his comment in a post on social media after he “toured the Gaza Strip settlements” on Thursday.

“Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague who, instead of caring for the 101 abductees, chose to issue orders against the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence,” he said.

The Times of Israel reports that the minister – who did not enter Gaza but viewed the Palestinian territory from the border with binoculars – was accompanied by Daniella Weiss, head of the hardline Israeli Nachala Settlement Movement, who was pictured showing Goldknopf a map of proposed future Israeli settlements in the war-torn enclave.

Goldknopf has “repeatedly endorsed reestablishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip after the war against Hamas ends”, The Times of Israel reports.

The Nachala movement later said on social media that “the seeds of the settlement are ready! Only settlement will bring security! Our Gaza. Forever”.