Check against delivery! 

Thank you dear Minister [of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib], thank you to all of you.  

I am very happy to be in Lebanon, je suis très heureux d’être au Liban, despite the dramatic circumstances which are sadly affecting the whole region, and also the Lebanese people.  

Remember Minister, some weeks ago, we met together and you told me that everything that happens in the Middle East resonates in Lebanon, has consequences for Lebanon, for the better or for the worse, and you asked me to increase the political engagement and political dialogue between the European Union and Lebanon. 

And that is why today I am here, after visiting Israel and Palestine. 

I am here when we are seeing worrying intensification of exchange of fire across the Blue Line at the border between Lebanon and Israel. And I think that the war can be prevented, has to be avoided and diplomacy can prevail to look for a better solution.  

It is imperative to avoid a regional escalation in the Middle East, it is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict. This is the last thing Lebanon needs.  

Already now more than 70,000 civilians have already been displaced in Lebanon, 200,000 in northern Israel. Almost 50,000 olive trees have been burnt in the border. Imagine, 50,000 olive trees; I am coming from a country where olive trees are very much important, so I understand how important it can be [to lose] 50,000 olive trees.  

Nobody stands [to win] from a regional conflict. And I am sending this message to Israel too. Nobody will win from a regional conflict.  

I am here to explore [take stock of] the situation and to contribute to a way out of the crisis. 

I repeat what you have said Minister: diplomatic channels have to be open to signal that the war is not the only option, it is the worst option, and to keep working on a diplomatic solution.  

It is the whole international community that has to work for a change in the Middle East. 

We cannot continue with the deplorable, awful, track record of the last year, or of the last decades. We cannot continue witnessing the suffering of the innocent women, children and other civilians in Gaza. And we cannot [keep] watching the increasing violence of settlers against civilians in the West Bank. 

We have to move towards an end of the suffering of civilians in Gaza and to the release of the hostages.  We need to see the United Nations Security Council resolutions - 2712 and 2720 - implemented, also here in Lebanon, the [resolution] 1701. 

Minister, you know that very well, as much as we know, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond catastrophic. I am shocked by the suffering of so many innocent civilians. People are not only being bombed, they are now starving.  

According to the World Food Programme, 100% of the population of Gaza is now food insecure. We need a pause, that could become a permanent one, and to increase our support to Gaza. 

Even war has laws, and there are international humanitarian laws that have to be respected. As I said many times; one horror does not justify another [one]. We have to understand that only peace will bring safety and security to the Middle East.  

We cannot treat Gaza in isolation from the West Bank and East Jerusalem; Gaza is part of the broader ‘Palestine question’. Gaza is an integral part of the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian State. The whole international community agrees on the two-state solution as the only viable solution that could bring peace and security for Israel and Palestine. 

We must redouble our efforts to relaunch the Peace Process. Israel has declared a goal to eradicate Hamas. There must be another way to eradicate Hamas; another way that [does not] creates so many innocent people being killed.  

The only way is the creation of a Palestinian State offering an horizon of hope to the Palestinians. That is why 172 countries has voted in favour [of this] at the United Nations General Assembly – this is 90% of all United Nations Member States. We will not spare efforts to finally make the two-state solution a reality. 

I will be visiting Saudi Arabia tomorrow, and I look forward to a substantive discussion on how we can build on our joint European Union-Arab initiative, the concrete steps that could galvanise a serious international peace effort.  

Lebanon is in the frontline of this conflict. A more stable Lebanon will be more able to defend its interests and safeguard its independence and contribute to regional stability. 

Allow me to point out the support of the European Union to the UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon] mission, to which most of our Member States contribute with troops and boots on the ground. 

I also want to pay tribute to the cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces [LAF] and to the remarkable performance of your Army – the Lebanese Armed Forces - which honours the Lebanese military traditions of service, professionalism and dedication. 

All in all, the European Union, dear Minister, remains ready to support Lebanon, because supporting Lebanon is a way of contributing to the security and peace in the region.  

Thank you. 

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-251151

Q&A 

Mr Borrell, you are talking about how this war is affecting the region, and that the escalation is going to affect it negatively. There should be a solution imposed. Who is going to impose the solution? Meanwhile, the Security Council failed a couple of times to stop this war. Who is going to force Israel to stop this war? 

It is only the international community who can do it. It is only the international community, there is no other force. At the European Union, we are strongly supporting the United Nations, and allow me to pay tribute to the work done by the Secretary-General [of the United Nations, António Guterres] in looking for peace, and all the organisations of the United Nations who have supported the people in Gaza. 

Only the international community, and by that, I mean the Arab world, the European Union, the US, everybody who wants to engage in peace. These are the ones who can build a solution and make it a reality. Not let [leave] the parties alone because it is clear that thirty years after Oslo, nothing good has happened. So, a strong engagement of the international community is absolutely required. The European Union will be on that. 

Q. In a newspaper article, the following was written: “Only the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell seems to be setting clear goals for a peace settlement, but he has no real mandate and little sway over the key players.” Your comment on that? Do you think that the EU could play a major role on de-escalating the Israeli-Hamas conflict and Hezbollah-Israel conflict? And how? 

This would require a lecture to answer this question. Look, the European Union is not a state. The European Union is not even a federation, it is a group of 27 Member States. Each one of them remain sovereign with respect to its foreign and security policy. I am in charge of trying to build a common policy, but common does not mean unique. Common is something that we share, but apart from what we share, there could be differences, and in fact, there are differences. In the United Nations General Assembly, 14 members of the European Union voted in favour of the ceasefire, two [Member States of the European Union] opposed, the others abstained. It is clear that there are differences, but we are all together in one thing: on the need to build a two-state solution. It is not a little thing. We have always been saying that, but the moment has come to engage and to move from “saying” to “doing”, and to put our efforts and capacities, and we have a lot of efforts and capacities; we are the strongest supporter of the Palestinian Authority – allow me to remind you that. We are the biggest donor of the Palestinian Authority. It is the time to make our idea of a two-state solution a reality. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will continue, generation after generation, funerals after funerals, because you cannot kill an idea. You can kill people but you cannot kill an idea. The only way of killing a bad idea is to bring a good one. And the good one is to make Palestinians and Israelis living together in peace and security sharing the land. This is a strong commitment that the European Union wants to take. It would be my honour to contribute as much as I can to that.