EU foreign policy chief warns again of high risk of spillover of Israel-Palestine conflict

The EU foreign policy chief on Tuesday repeated his warning of a high risk of spillover of the ongoing Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Josep Borrell said there is a high risk of escalation in the region, both along the Israeli-Lebanese border and in the Red Sea, in a press statement issued after his visit to Saudi Arabia.

"We have to avoid the war spilling over. The war has to stop, not to expand. And the only solution for avoiding the war from expanding is to look for a political solution for the conflict between Israel and Palestine," he urged.

To this end, a strong commitment by the international community, particularly of Europeans and Arab peoples, is needed, Borrell added.

On the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and worsening situation in the West Bank as result of attacks by illegal Jewish settlers and Israeli forces, he maintained that Palestinians, not only Arab states, should be part of efforts to end the conflict and bring peace.

"Because only through an agreement, a political agreement - the two-state solution - Israel could be safe, because its security can not only be based on the military capacity, it has been proved," Borrell said.

"And now we have to stop the killing of civilians in Gaza. We have to stop this great number of casualties. Hamas has to be eradicated. But Hamas is an idea, it represents an idea, and you cannot kill an idea. The only way of killing an idea-a bad idea - is to propose a better one, to give a horizon to the Palestinian people, to their dignity, to their freedom, to their security, which has to go hand in hand with the security of Israel," he also said.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring over 59,000 others, according to local health authorities.

Israel says 1,200 people were killed in the initial Hamas incursion, and that Palestinian groups still hold more than 100 hostages.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.