Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs high representative, has called out the rise of extremism and violence in Israel, where “the colonisation of the mind of the people is the most dangerous thing that Israeli society is facing”, Al Jazeera reports.

“Israeli society is being colonised from the inside by the extremist and violent people,” Borrell said at the opening of the second meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.

“It is undermining the foundations of their democracy,” Borrell said, adding that without a two-state solution for Palestine, “there will not be peace in the Middle East”.

“Now is the time to act. There is a light of hope,” he said, referring to the days-old ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel.

The EU foreign policy chief also said the international community, and in particular EU states, should not undermine the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which recently issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence chief Yoav Gallant.

The ICC is “the only way of having global justice”, he said.