The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has criticized statements by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas that linked the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip to disarmament, calling the proposal a “dangerous deviation from international legal obligations.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Geneva-based organization said tying reconstruction to disarmament deliberately ignores the grave crimes committed against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, and turns the population’s right to recovery and rebuilding into a tool of political blackmail.
It stressed that such conditions violate Israel’s obligations as an occupying power under international humanitarian law, particularly the Geneva Conventions, which require the protection of civilians and the provision of their basic needs without conditions.
The organization strongly condemned recent statements by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who linked the reconstruction of Gaza to the disarmament of Hamas.
Euro-Med Monitor said the position represents a dangerous departure from the European Union’s legal obligation to prevent genocide, warning that it effectively legitimizes its continuation by imposing political and security conditions that undermine civilians’ right to life and survival.
Euro-Med Monitor noted that Kallas made similar remarks on January 29 and February 2, insisting that rebuilding Gaza would depend on disarmament.
The group said this stance ties the civilian population’s right to reconstruction, and thus their ability to remain alive, to a political condition unrelated to international protection obligations, especially in a territory that has suffered near-total destruction since October 2023.
The organization warned that such statements reinforce systematic European complicity with Israeli actions through military, economic, political, and security support, citing the continued failure to impose accountability measures despite unprecedented crimes, alongside ongoing arms exports by key EU states that have been documented in the commission of war crimes.
Euro-Med Monitor stressed that preventing or delaying reconstruction in a territory almost entirely destroyed falls under Article II(c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, which criminalizes deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about a group’s physical destruction, in whole or in part.
It emphasized that the prohibition of genocide is a non-derogable rule of international law, rendering any attempt to condition reconstruction on political or security demands legally null and void.
