At the heart of the European Union’s grievance with Israel is the profound disagreement over the application of international humanitarian law to the complexities of urban warfare in Gaza. The EU’s move toward sanctions is a direct result of its judgment that Israel’s military conduct has failed the test of proportionality and distinction.
International law requires warring parties to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to ensure that any military action is proportional, meaning the expected military gain is not outweighed by the foreseeable harm to civilians. The EU, observing a death toll of over 65,000 and widespread destruction, has evidently concluded that Israel has repeatedly violated these principles.
Israel vehemently contests this assessment. Its military and legal experts argue that they are adhering to international law under uniquely challenging circumstances, fighting a terrorist group that deliberately embeds itself in civilian infrastructure. They maintain that the high casualty figures are a tragic consequence of Hamas’s strategy, not of Israeli malfeasance.
This fundamental, almost irreconcilable, difference in legal interpretation is the core of the conflict. The EU sees a pattern of disproportionate force and a failure to protect civilians. Israel sees a legitimate and lawful campaign of self-defense against a genocidal enemy.
The sanctions proposal is the EU’s way of escalating this legal argument into a political and economic reality. It is a declaration that the bloc no longer accepts Israel’s legal justifications for its conduct in the war, moving from a debate over interpretation to an act of enforcement.
