EU’s Borrell suggests US cut military aid to Israel
BRUSSELS, (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell yesterday made a thinly veiled call on the U.S. to cut arms supplies to Israel due to high civilian casualties in its war in Gaza.
Borrell recalled that U.S. President Joe Biden said last week that Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack had been “over the top” and U.S. and other Western officials had repeatedly said too many civilians were being killed in Gaza.
“Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed,” Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU development aid ministers in Brussels.
“If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe we have to think about the provision of arms,” he added.
The U.S. is Israel’s most important foreign arms provider. It gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid annually, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs. Washington has so far not heeded any pleas to cut such aid.
Asked at a news briefing about Borrell’s comments and whether the U.S. is considering to cut military aid to Israel, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller defended the U.S. policy, saying it gave the administration the “maximum ability” to be successful in influencing Israel.
“We have not made the assessment that ... that is a step that would be more impactful than the steps that we have already taken,” Miller said.
Borrell also noted that a Dutch court yesterday ordered the government of the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used in violations of international law in the Gaza war.
Borrell said it was contradictory for countries to repeatedly declare that Israel was killing too many civilians in Gaza but do nothing concrete to prevent the killing.
Israel has insisted it takes extensive measures to protect civilians but is forced to conduct military operations in civilian areas as Hamas, the Palestinian militant group responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, operates there.
In his remarks in Brussels, Borrell also sharply criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he was not listening to pleas to do more to protect civilians.
“Everybody goes to Tel Aviv, begging ‘please don’t do that, protect civilians, don’t kill so many’. How many is too many? What is the standard?” Borrell said, appearing angry and emotional. “Netanyahu doesn’t listen (to) anyone.”
NEW YORK CITY, (Reuters) - New York City police said they are searching for a gunman who opened fire on a subway train and station platform in the Bronx yesterday, killing one man and injuring five other people.
Gunfire erupted on a northbound train as two groups of teenagers were fighting, New York Police Department (NYPD) officials said during a press conference outside the station where the violence took place. Someone from one of the groups then pulled out a gun.
The first shot was fired inside the train, but all six people shot were on the platform outside the train when hit by bullets, police said. A 34-year-old man died while five others taken to hospitals sustained non-life threatening injuries.
The victims ranged in age from 14 to 71, and included four males and two females.
“To the shooter - you are now the NYPD’s most wanted and you have the greatest detectives in the world looking for you,” said Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information. “We suggest you turn yourself in.”
Police and transit system officials at the press conference stressed the shooting was a rare act of the violence on the subway, working to ease fears passengers may have.
Data shows about 3.8 million trips are taken on the on New York’s subway system on an average weekday, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported 570 felony assaults in all of 2023.
Shootings are especially uncommon: in 2022, when a man with a handgun injured 10 people on a train passing through Brooklyn, it was the first mass shooting attack on the subway system since 1984.