“It is profoundly disturbing that you, by advancing such a proposal are in practice empowering a terrorist organization responsible for and continuing to perpetrate heinous crimes,” he wrote in a letter obtained by POLITICO.
As part of the package announced Wednesday, the EU wants to suspend some €20 million in direct support for various Israeli projects, according to senior EU officials.
“I want to be very clear. The aim is not to punish Israel. The aim is to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Kallas said during a news conference in Brussels.
Von der Leyen is moving to impose measures against Israel after months of pressure from some EU leaders, political groups and even EU staffers who signed open letters urging her to penalize Israel over its war in Gaza.
The proposed tariffs and sanctions, which von der Leyen first flagged in a speech to European Parliament last week, mark the most serious rift in EU-Israel relations in decades and significantly downgrade a wide-ranging free trade agreement since in the year 2000.
Even so, if adopted, the proposed measures would be more symbolic than economically devastating to Israel targeting just 37 percent of total exports to the bloc and leaving trade in services as well as financial transactions untouched.
The EU is Israel’s main trade partner.
This article is being updated.
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