The relationship between Israel and the European Union has suffered another blow after Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that he is severing all contact with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kajal Kalas until further notice, AFP reports today.
Kalas then offered Sarah on the X platform to continue the dialogue, stating that the EU still wants constructive relations with Israel.
The media previously reported that during her visit to Mexico, she compared the Israeli government and its actions to the former apartheid regime in South Africa.
Gideon Sar clarified that he will no longer communicate with Kalas until she retracts her statements.
He wrote that "as Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to sever all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts her bloody slander directed against the only Jewish state in the world, and the only democracy in the Middle East at that."
Saar specifically cited a news report from the Euractiv portal that said that Kalas compared Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to South Africa's policy of racial segregation.
The EU's Foreign and Security Policy Service (EEAS) has not yet commented on the Israeli minister's statements, and Kaia Kallas has neither confirmed nor denied that she made the statement.
Relations between Israel and the EU have been tense for a long time, primarily because the EU criticizes the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the international community largely sees as an act contrary to international law and an obstacle to a peace solution.
In May, the EU imposed sanctions on three individuals and four organizations from Israel for violating the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, which Saar criticized. Israel's war in the Gaza Strip has also drawn criticism from some EU governments, but the Union remains divided on the issue.
Reuters reports, citing informed sources, that Israel is now negotiating with the administration of US President Donald Trump about the stay of its troops in southern Lebanon. Israel does not want to withdraw its troops from the area and plans to keep its soldiers south of the Litani River.
The peace agreement that Trump reached with Iran stipulates that all parties respect the "territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon," and the outcome of negotiations with Israel will depend on whether Trump is prepared to threaten consequences if the agreement is not respected, Reuters writes.
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