EU distances itself from Commissioner's claims Israel committing genocide in Gaza

The European Commission distanced itself on Friday from comments made by a senior commissioner at a university in France in which she accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

The Commission’s executive vice president, Teresa Ribera, slammed Europe for its failure to act to persuade Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza, which have decimated much of the Strip.

"The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to act and speak with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities and 14 UN Security Council members call for an immediate ceasefire," she told students in a speech at Sciences Po on Thursday.

The Spanish socialist has been one of the most vocal critics in Brussels of Israel's military operations in Gaza, but Thursday's speech is the first time she has explicitly used the term genocide in public remarks.

Her remarks were slammed by the Israeli government, which accused her of being a mouthpiece for the militant group Hamas.

And in a press conference in Brussels on Friday, EU spokespeople made it clear they didn't agree with Ribera's comments.

"It's not up to the Commission to judge on this question and definition but really for the courts, and there has been no College [of Commissioners] decision on this particular subject," the Commission's Chief Spokesperson Paula Pinho said.

When pressed by a journalist whether the Commission agreed with Ribera's positions, Pinho said "There is no Commission position on this."

Anouar El Anouni, the EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said he was "fully seconding" Pinho's comments in his answer to journalists.

"In terms of the definition itself, establishing whether international crimes, including genocide, have been committed is the competence of national courts as well as international courts and tribunals which may have jurisdiction and the legal qualification of such an act, an act of genocide, does require the proper establishment of facts and the finding of law," he said.

Ribera's comments come in the same week as the largest professional organisation of scholars studying genocide said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which has around 500 members worldwide, could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organisations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

"Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide," according to the group's resolution.

The group accused Israel of crimes including "indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure" in Gaza and called on Israel to "immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza."

Israel rejected the accusation and called the resolution an "embarrassment to the legal profession."

Genocide was codified in a 1948 convention drawn up after the horrors of the Holocaust that defines it as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

The UN and many Western countries have said only a court can rule on whether the crime has been committed.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

Hamas took 251 people as hostages, and is currently holding 50, of whom 20 are believed to be alive. A subsequent Israeli offensive has to date killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry whose figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

Large swathes of Gaza have been levelled and most of the territory's more than 2 million people have been displaced.