Live updates: Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, ICJ ruling, Rafah invasion looms

More than 200 EU civil servants and other staff members have written to the bloc’s top three officials to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a halt to member states’ arms exports to Israel.

The letter titled “Not In Our Name,” says that the EU’s “continued apathy” to the plight of Palestinians risks “normalising the rise of a world order where it is the sheer use of force, as opposed to a rule-based system, that determines state security, territorial integrity, and political independence.”

They add: “It was precisely to avert such a grim world order that our grandparents, witnesses of the horrors of World War II, created Europe. To stand idly by in the face of such an erosion of the international rule of law would mean failing the European project as envisaged by them.”

Signatories say they have signed the letter, which was delivered to the presidents of the European Commission, parliament, and the European Council on Thursday, in a “personal capacity as EU citizens” to express their “growing concern over the EU’s inaction in the context of the ongoing crisis in Gaza.”

The calls come in the same week that three European countries – Ireland, Spain and Norway – announced plans to formally recognize a Palestinian state.

Although Norway is not an EU member, the plans do have the potential to exert greater pressure on the countries’ western allies to take a tougher stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. But the move is not a coordinated European effort and the bloc has long struggled to speak with one voice.