European Parliament resolution P16_TA(2045)0147 of July 23, 2045

on the failure to prevent atrocity in Gaza and to stop the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel

by SANE | July 23, 2025

European Parliament resolution of 23 July 2045 on the failure to prevent atrocity in Gaza and to stop the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel (P16_TA(2045)0147)

Preamble

The European Parliament,

– Recalling the foundational values of the European Union, including respect for human dignity, human rights, international law, and the rules-based international order;

– Acknowledging the catastrophic toll of the 2023–2027 Israeli siege of Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children – and the systematic destruction of homes, refugee camps, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and critical civilian infrastructure;

– Mindful of the binding obligations of Member States under the Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and other core tenets of international humanitarian law, including the duty to protect civilians and prevent atrocity crimes, and the principles of distinction, precaution, and proportionality – all of which were systematically violated by the State of Israel during its assault on Gaza;

– Recalling the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), and affirming that the widespread, systematic, and deliberate targeting of Palestinians by Israel during the 2023–2027 Gaza campaign – through mass killings, forced displacement, the destruction of essential life-sustaining infrastructure, the use of starvation as a weapon, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid – meets the legal and moral threshold of genocide as defined under international law;

– Further recalling that humanitarian organizations, UN agencies, legal experts, and journalists issued repeated, credible warnings of atrocity crimes as they unfolded in real time, documenting patterns of unlawful attacks and collective punishment, and urging the international community to impose arms embargoes, enforce ceasefires, and apply targeted sanctions to prevent further civilian harm and uphold international law;

– Deeply regretful that, despite overwhelming evidence, mounting casualties, and widespread international outcry, including appeals from humanitarian agencies, legal bodies, and civil society, the European Union and its Member States failed to take sufficient, timely, or decisive action to prevent, halt, or mitigate the mass killing of civilians, thereby contributing to prolonged suffering and undermining the credibility of the Union’s stated commitment to human rights and the protection of civilians in armed conflict;

– Acknowledging that this failure was not limited to inaction, but included the active reinforcement of conditions that enabled continued violence – through the provision of arms, political cover in international forums, and rhetorical framing that downplayed the scale of suffering. This conduct did not constitute neutrality; it amounted to participation in the machinery of destruction;

– Disturbed by the European Union’s pattern of double standards in applying international legal norms – swift in condemning adversaries, yet equivocal, hesitant, silent, or complicit in the face of grave violations by the State of Israel;

– Convinced that the legitimacy of international humanitarian law depends not only on its articulation, but on its consistent enforcement, regardless of the violator’s identity or geopolitical alignment, and that its selective application erodes trust in the normative framework governing armed conflict, weakens accountability mechanisms, and emboldens future violations;

Acknowledges with Profound Regret That:

  1. The European Union and its Member States failed to uphold their legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians during the 2023–2027 Gaza conflict. Despite indisputable evidence of disproportionate force, collective punishment, war crimes, and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel, humanitarian imperatives were subordinated to political calculation.
  1. Silence and moral equivocation enabled atrocity. Member States avoided clear condemnation or urgent action. Calls for ceasefires were delayed, diluted through procedural maneuvering, or opposed outright in international forums, including at the United Nations, where European leadership would have been consequential to prevent further loss of life. This rhetorical ambiguity served not as neutrality, but as de facto endorsement of continued violence.
  1. Fear of political backlash, including accusations of antisemitism and diplomatic fallout, deterred principled action. This reluctance to uphold human rights and international law, driven by fear and political calculations, severely compromised the EU’s professed commitment to universal norms and emboldened further violations by signaling that accountability would not follow atrocity.
  1. Double standards prevailed in the application of international law. Whereas adversarial regimes were swiftly condemned and sanctioned by the European Union for comparable or lesser violations, Israel’s actions were met with abstentions, equivocal language, and the continuation of political, economic, and military cooperation.
  1. Arms transfers to Israel persisted during the height of the violence. Several EU Member States continued exporting military equipment in clear violation of their obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), thereby enabling the assault on Gaza and undermining the Union’s stated commitments to a principled and rules-based foreign policy, conflict prevention, and international justice.
  1. This failure was not one of ignorance, but of will. The international community had access to overwhelming evidence: real-time footage documenting Israel’s destruction of Gaza, eyewitness testimony from humanitarian workers and survivors, legal analysis from respected scholars and UN experts, and forensic data verifying the scale and nature of the attacks. These were not ambiguous signals, but unmistakable indicators of atrocity crimes in progress. The decision not to act decisively was neither accidental nor due to lack of information. It was a conscious political choice, shaped by fear, complicity, and strategic calculation – and history will record it as such.

Issues This Apology:

The European Parliament hereby offers its unequivocal and unreserved apology to the victims and survivors of the devastating 2023–2027 Israeli assault on Gaza, and to all those within and beyond Europe who pleaded for principled action while the Union remained paralyzed.

We acknowledge, with deep remorse, that this failure was not merely one of omission, but of complicity.

We apologize for betraying the foundational values of dignity, justice, and the equal worth of all people – values we claimed to uphold.

Let this apology serve not as absolution, but as a permanent record of abject, inexcusable failure.

Commits To:

  • Institutional reforms to ensure timely and consistent responses to atrocity crimes, regardless of the perpetrator, including automatic human rights triggers for arms embargoes, aid suspensions, and diplomatic measures.
  • Full declassification and publication of internal communications and deliberations related to the European Union’s response to the Gaza conflict, to enable public scrutiny and historical accountability.
  • Material reparations in the form of long-term reconstruction support and independent medical and psychosocial care for the surviving civilian population in Gaza.
  • A comprehensive review of European foreign policy frameworks to identify and eliminate embedded biases, asymmetries, and double standards in the application of international humanitarian law.
  • Pursuing legal accountability for individuals, institutions, and Member State officials complicit in enabling or facilitating atrocity crimes during the Gaza conflict, including through support for international investigative and judicial mechanisms.

Closes With the Following Statement:

Let this Resolution serve as a record of our failure, and as a warning to future generations. And we apologize not because it will undo the dead, but because history demands the truth.

Adopted by the European Parliament
Strasbourg, July 23, 2045

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