THE EU HAS announced a new three-year financial support package for Palestine worth up to €1.6 billion.

The new aid pledge came as EU foreign ministers met Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa in Luxembourg for the first meeting of a high-level dialogue between the EU and Palestine.

“We are stepping up our support to the Palestinian people. €1.6 billion until 2027 will help stabilise the West Bank and Gaza,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

The EU is looking to boost the Palestinian Authority as Israel has battered Gaza despite  a ceasefire deal that was supposed to be in place.

“This will reinforce the authority’s ability to meet the needs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and prepare it to return to govern Gaza once conditions allow,” Kallas said.

The United Nations warned today that Gaza is facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began, with Israel blocking all aid from entering the territory for weeks and conditions rapidly deteriorating after the collapse of a ceasefire.

The UN’s alarm came as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and French President Emmanuel Macron called for an “urgent” ceasefire in Gaza.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have displaced hundreds of thousands of people have since been displaced at the same time as it has blocked the entry of humanitarian aid.

Medical supplies, fuel, water and other essentials are in short supply, according to the UN.

“The humanitarian situation is now likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In a statement, OCHA said no supplies had reached Gaza for a month and a half.

“Due to the closure of the crossings compounded by restrictions within Gaza, dwindling supplies have forced them (aid workers) to ration and reduce deliveries to make the most of the remaining stocks,” OCHA said.

At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, Dr. Ahmed al-Farah said the medical team was working non-stop.

“We have a shortage in drugs, we have a shortage in the medical supplies, we have a shortage in everything in the hospitals,” he said, a stethoscope draped over his scrubs.

In a phone call, Macron and Abbas “emphasised the urgent need for a ceasefire, the acceleration of humanitarian aid delivery (and) the rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land”, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Following their conversation, Macron said on X that “France is fully mobilised for the liberation of all hostages, a return to a durable ceasefire and immediate access for humanitarian aid into Gaza”.

He also advocated “reform” of the Palestinian Authority as part of a plan that would see the Ramallah-based body, which currently has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, govern a post-war Gaza without Hamas.

Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu indicated that the group was willing to release all hostages in exchange for a “serious prisoner swap” and guarantees that Israel would end the war.

“The issue is not the number of captives,” Nunu said, “but rather that the occupation is reneging on its commitments, blocking the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and continuing the war”.

Speaking after the group held talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo, he said Hamas would not relinquish its arms.

“The weapons of the resistance are not up for negotiation,” Nunu said.

Israeli news website Ynet reported on Monday that under a new ceasefire proposal put to Hamas, the group would release 10 living hostages in exchange for US guarantees that Israel would enter negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire.

Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News, citing unnamed sources, said Cairo had received and passed on to Hamas an Israeli proposal for a temporary ceasefire, “and is awaiting its response as soon as possible”. It did not offer details about the content of the proposal.

© AFP 2025