The Dutch Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli ambassador over the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the blockade of food supplies to the enclave.
This was stated by the acting head of the Kingdom's Foreign Ministry, Kaspar Veldkamp.
“I summoned the Israeli ambassador and made it clear how seriously we take the situation in the Gaza Strip“, he said on RTL television. Veldkamp stressed that even in the absence of a ceasefire, Israel bears full responsibility for ensuring access to humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza and therefore "is obliged to remove all restrictions related to this".
The politician also said that the Netherlands intends to request the suspension of the part of the EU-Israel Association Agreement relating to trade relations. "We are talking about billions of euros of Israeli goods. This is a serious and significant step", he stressed.
The measures that the Dutch government is implementing against Israel have already caused a split in the lower house of the kingdom's parliament. Right-wing parties, including the Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders, who left the ruling coalition in June, have spoken out strongly against Veldkamp's "anti-Israel" initiatives. At the same time, the left and centrist factions, on the contrary, considered the actions of the cabinet to be insufficiently decisive and demanded a tougher policy towards the Jewish state. The majority in parliament supported the proposal of the Socialist Party MP Sara Dobe to interrupt the summer vacation and hold an extraordinary debate on the situation in Gaza. They are expected to be held next week.
On July 28, it was reported that the Dutch authorities had declared Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir persona non grata, prohibiting them from entering the kingdom. Veldkamp's letter to the MPs states that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir "have repeatedly contributed to inciting violence against the Palestinian population", by consistently advocating the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and calling for "ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip".