JERUSALEM: Israel’s foreign minister again accused EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell of “anti-Semitism” Saturday after the top diplomat expressed outrage at the killing of UN staff in an Israeli strike in Gaza.
“Josep Borrell is an anti-Semite and Israel-hater who consistently tries to pass resolutions and sanctions against Israel in the EU, only to be blocked by most member states,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
On Thursday, Borrell said he was “outraged” by the killing of six employees from the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza the day before.
The attack flattened part of the UN-run Al-Jawni School on Wednesday, leaving only a pile of charred rebar and concrete.
Gaza’s civil defense agency and the United Nations said at least 18 people, among them women and children, were killed in the strike, while the Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants.
The military said it had killed nine militants, including three who were also UNRWA employees.
UNRWA said six of its staff were killed in two Israeli strikes on the school.
It was the deadliest single incident for the agency in more than 11 months of war and drew international condemnation.
Katz has repeatedly levelled accusations of “anti-Semitism” against the European Union foreign policy chief, who has consistently spoken out against perceived Israeli abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
Borrell said the Nuseirat strike showed a “disregard of the basic principles” of international humanitarian law.
On Saturday, Katz retorted: “There’s a difference between legitimate criticism... and the anti-Semitic, hate-filled campaign Borrell is leading against Israel — reminiscent of history’s worst anti-Semites.”
UNRWA has said at least 220 members of the agency’s staff have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7.
On Friday, UNRWA announced one of its employees was killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, the first such death in the territory in more than a decade.
UNRWA has more than 30,000 employees in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.
It has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.
The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some “neutrality related issues” but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its main allegations.
