10/04/2025 Session
“We are appalled by the attacks on and restrictions imposed on humanitarian actors in the Gaza Strip, when their sole objective is to provide humanitarian and neutral assistance,” said Paul Galles (Luxembourg, EPP/CD), at the opening of a current affairs debate held today in Strasbourg in plenary session. Mr Galles emphasised that no humanitarian aid had entered Gaza since 2 March, putting “the lives of two million people in immediate danger due to the lack of water and food” as well as medicine.
“Let us add our voice to the international community in calling on all parties to resume negotiations to ensure the full and permanent implementation of the ceasefire. Let us also raise our voices to ask Israel, whose parliament has Observer Status with our Assembly, for immediate humanitarian access to Gaza,” Mr Galles said. “The people, who are always the first victims and the weakest in a conflict, have an unshakeable right to humanitarian aid,” he added.
“It is also important to reiterate our strong condemnation of the attacks of October 2023 and our call, once again, for the safe return of all remaining hostages and the bodies of those who perished during their captivity.”
At the end of the debate, the parliamentarians observed a minute of silence to pay tribute, as the PACE President put it, to “all the victims of the horrendous attacks of 7 October 2023 and the tens of thousands of innocent lives which have been destroyed in the aftermath”.