Belgium slaps string of sanctions on Israel over Gaza war

Brussels will also recognize a Palestinian state but formalize it only after all hostages are released and Hamas no longer rules Gaza.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot announced early Tuesday that his country will impose a string of sanctions on Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza and recognize a Palestinian state once certain conditions are met.

Condemning Israel for violating international and humanitarian law due to the “violence” it is “perpetrating” in Gaza, Prevot said that Belgium has the “duty to prevent any risk of genocide” and has decided to “tak[e] action to try to change the situation on the ground.”

Belgium’s pressure will consist of a dozen measures, including banning the import of products from settlements in Judea and Samaria and restricting consular aid to Belgian citizens living there.

In addition, Brussels will “review the public procurement policy with Israeli companies,” and impose “overflight and transit bans,” he said, without giving details.

In what could be a much more serious economic blow to Israel, Prevot said Belgium will support EU “measures to suspend collaboration with Israel, including the suspension of the association agreement with the EU, the suspension of research programs, technical cooperation, etc.”

“Two extremist Israeli ministers [and] several violent settlers” would be declared persona non grata, he said, apparently referring to religious nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The two have pressed the coalition to annihilate Hamas, relocate Gazans outside the territory, and even restart Jewish settlement in the coastal enclave to ensure Israel’s long-term security.

In an ostensible effort to seem evenhanded Prevot also included unnamed “Hamas leaders” who would be barred from the country, and voiced Belgium’s “firm commitment to calling for European measures targeting Hamas.”

Recognition of a Palestinian state in the upcoming UN General Assembly session was also planned, he said, as a “strong political and diplomatic gesture to preserve the chances of a two-state solution and to mark the condemnation of the expansionist intentions of Israel with its colonization programs and its military occupations.”

Prevot said Belgium would limit the “administrative formalization of this recognition” until “Hamas no longer assumes any management of Palestine,” and releases all 48 hostages it is still holding, because Brussels is “aware of the trauma generated among the Israeli people by the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, by Hamas.”

Other Western countries that have announced they would recognize a State of Palestine in the General Assembly vote as a way of punishing Israel, such as France, have not put any conditions on their recognition, even if such approval is declarative, as only votes in the UN Security Council are legally binding.

While not mentioning the huge upsurge in acts of Jew hatred in Belgium, as in all of Europe, over the last two years following the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people that sparked the ongoing war, Prevot ended his announcement by saying that Brussels was “in favor of new Belgian initiatives to combat anti-Semitism, further mobilizing all our security services and involving representatives of Jewish communities.”