EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has voiced regret that no power, including the United States, can “stop” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he appears determined to crush fighters in Gaza and Lebanon, AFP reports.

“What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank,” Borrell told a small group of journalists as he attended the UN General Assembly.

Borrell said Netanyahu has made clear that the Israelis “don’t stop until Hezbollah is destroyed”, much as in its nearly year-old military campaign in Gaza against fellow armed group Hamas.

“If the interpretation of being destroyed is the same as with Hamas, then we are going to go for a long war,” Borrell said in English.

 People bury in a mass grave unidentified bodies of Palestinians killed in Israel’s military offensive, after they were handed over by Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sept 26, 2024. — Reuters
People bury in a mass grave unidentified bodies of Palestinians killed in Israel’s military offensive, after they were handed over by Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sept 26, 2024. — Reuters

The outgoing EU foreign affairs chief again called for diversifying diplomacy from the United States, which has tried for months unsuccessfully to seal a truce in Gaza that would include the release of hostages. “We cannot rely just on the US. The US tried several times; they didn’t succeed,” he said.

“I don’t see them ready to start again a negotiation process that could lead to another Camp David,” he said, referring to the 2000 talks at the US presidential retreat in which Bill Clinton unsuccessfully sought to broker a landmark deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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