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BRUSSELS: European Union leaders are seeking a more active role in Gaza and the occupied West Bank after being sidelined from the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
At a summit Thursday in Brussels largely focused on Ukraine and Russia, EU heads of state are also expected to discuss the shaky ceasefire in Gaza and potential EU support for stability in the war-torn coastal enclave. The EU has been the biggest provider of aid to the Palestinians and is Israel’s top trading partner.
“It is important that Europe not only watches but plays an active role,” said Luc Frieden, the prime minister of Luxembourg, as he headed in to the meeting. “Gaza is not over; peace is not yet permanent,” he said.
Outrage over the war in Gaza has riven the 27-nation bloc and pushed relations between Israel and the EU to a historic low.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in September plans to seek sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel, aimed to pressure it to reach a peace deal in Gaza.
Momentum driving the measures seemed to falter with the ceasefire deal mediated by US President Donald Trump, but European supporters say they should still be on the table as violence continues to flare up in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
In the run-up to the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that “Europe has essentially become irrelevant and displayed enormous weakness.”
The deal came about with no visible input from the EU, and European leaders have since scrambled to join the diplomacy effort currently reshaping Gaza.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said the EU should play a role in Gaza and not just pay to support stability and eventually reconstruction.
The EU has provided key support for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank, pledged to help flood Gaza with humanitarian aid, and said it could bring a West Bank police support program to Gaza to buttress a stabilization force called for in the current 20-point ceasefire plan.
It has also sought membership in the plan’s “Board of Peace” transitional oversight body, Dubravka Šuica, European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, said this week.
The European Border Assistance Mission in Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, began in 2005. In January, it deployed 20 security border police experts from Italy, Spain and France.
During the February-March ceasefire, the mission helped 4,176 individuals leave the Gaza Strip, including 1,683 medical patients. Those efforts were paused when fighting resumed.

LONDON: One of the first migrants sent back to France under the British government’s flagship “one in, one out” deal has returned to Britain on a small boat, a minister confirmed, adding that he would be deported for a second time.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed a deal in July for Britain to deport some of the undocumented people arriving across the Channel back to France in return for accepting an equal number of asylum seekers with British family connections.
Starmer said the “ground-breaking” deal would act as a deterrent and help with his pledge to “smash the gangs” and reduce small boat arrivals.
The migrant, who was not named, told the Guardian newspaper he was a victim of modern slavery at the hands of people smugglers in Northern France.
The news of the migrant’s return came as the number of arrivals so far this year comes close to surpassing the total of 36,816 for 2024, which was the second highest on record after 2022.
Some 42 have been returned so far in the pilot stages of the “one in, one out” scheme, the government said on Sunday.
The man’s return 29 days after he was deported was on the front pages of British newspapers on Thursday, with the headlines of “One in, one out... and back in again” on four titles and “Le Farce” on the Daily Mail.
Junior minister Josh MacAlister said on Thursday the man would be removed again.
“This guy came across originally, shouldn’t have been coming across, was smuggled across and paid a lot of money to do so, was then returned to France,” he told Sky News.
“Has done the same again. He has paid again, and he will be returned again. We will make sure that happens.”