EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday said there is “no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians” in Gaza, but did not apportion blame for the blast.

The European Commission president told EU lawmakers the “facts need to be established” on the overnight strike on the Gaza hospital which killed at least 200.

Israel and Palestinians accuse each other for the blast, which has triggered street protests in the Middle East against Israel.

Von der Leyen, speaking before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, said the overnight explosion turned the hospital into “a hell of fire”.

“All those responsible must be held accountable,” she said.

Von der Leyen, who visited Israel last Friday in a show of solidarity with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, has been criticised by some European Union countries for perceived bias to the Israeli side at the expense of Palestinian civilians.

That prompted a summit of EU leaders by videoconference late Tuesday to emphasise the bloc’s twin message: that Israel has the right to defend itself following Hamas’s bloody October 7 assault — but only in line with its commitments under international humanitarian law.

Hamas on October 7 sent fighters through the Gaza Strip’s heavily militarised border, killing more than 1,400 people. They also took nearly 200 hostages.

Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza in response, killing over 3,000 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.

In her parliamentary address, von der Leyen said “we must redouble our efforts to protect citizens from the fury of war”.

But she said Hamas was the underlying reason for the ordeal Palestinians are now going through.

“Hamas are terrorists. And the Palestinian people are also suffering from that terror,” she said.

She added that the EU needs to keep supporting the Palestinians, “and there is no contradiction in standing in solidarity with Israel”.

“Europe stands with Israel in this dark moment,” von der Leyen said, adding that “Israel should act as a democracy, in line with international humanitarian law”.

Borrell took a sterner tone

The EU’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, took a sterner tone on the scale of the Israeli reaction, which is affecting all 2.3 million Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which Israel has put under siege, cut off from water, food, electricity and humanitarian aid.

“Yes, we condemn these terrible terrorist attacks, but I think we also have to condemn the fact of civilian victims,” Borrell told the parliament.

“Cutting water supplies and food off from civilian populations isn’t in line with the rules of law,” he said.

“We cannot make the people of Gaza responsible for the terrible actions of Hamas.”

The speeches to the parliament, and Tuesday’s videoconference EU summit, highlighted divergences within the EU over developments of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

While there has been widespread condemnation of the slaughter by Hamas of Israelis, disagreements over calls to rein in retaliatory strikes on Gaza continue to boil.

Socialists and conservatives criticize EU response to Israel-Hamas war

European parliamentarians on the right and left of its political center sparred over the European Union’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas, fanning an ongoing dispute over the EU’s disjointed foreign policy messaging. 

EU leaders are meeting via videoconference on Tuesday evening to get a grip on a common stance. The informal summit follows a chaotic week where the EU struggled to coordinate geopolitical pronouncements related to the killing of 1,300 people in Israel by Hamas gunmen, and Israel’s response in Gaza which has killed more than 2,800 Palestinians.

The European Commission quashed an apparently unilateral decision by Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to suspend Palestinian aid. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen then faced criticism for a perceived pro-Israel bias during a last-minute a trip to the Middle Eastern country on Friday.

“When you travel to countries in conflict, you have to go with an objective, and the goal cannot be just to go and have your photo taken there,” said Iratxe García, the leader of the center-left Socialists and Democrats faction in the European Parliament, doubling down on her criticism over the weekend. 

“There are times where you can be more useful but less visible and make a greater contribution to solving the conflict,” García said at a press conference on Tuesday. 

Von der Leyen traveled to Israel with her ally Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, both of whom belong to the center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Metsola told the Parliament plenary Monday she went there not just to show solidarity, but also “to emphasize that we must keep looking for solutions for the humanitarian consequences in Gaza.”

“It was a message that I made and will keep making,” Metsola said.

It wasn’t until Sunday — after criticism began to bubble up — that von der Leyen deflected criticism, on the trip releasing video footage of her speaking about the need to “care for the Palestinian people” along with a decision to triple EU financial aid to the Palestinian Authority late Saturday.

EPP chief Manfred Weber deflected attention from the trip of the two EPP heavyweights, and instead hit out at Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, who leads the European External Action Service. 

Weber criticized EU’s top diplomat for taking a trip to China while the Middle East is “on fire” and others, such as United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, came to the region. 

“I cannot understand why our high representative [for foreign affairs] Borrell is traveling in such a moment,” Weber said. “Again Europe is absent,” he said.

Weber described the visit of von der Leyen and Metsola as “not at all an EPP trip.” Rather, he said, it was good that “Europe was there.” 

Borrell, who has never visited Israel during his time as head of the EU’s foreign policy, will address the European Parliament on Wednesday and debate with von der Leyen and members of European Parliament. MEPs are hashing out their own stance on the Israel-Hamas war in a nonbinding resolution.

García praised her fellow socialist Borrell, “who is leading the European Union with regard to its position and making clear the need to comply with international and humanitarian law.” 

The EPP is making clear that it wants the focus to remain on the terror attacks of Hamas from October 7, which led to more than a thousand civilian casualties and some 200 hostages being taken to Gaza.

While expressing solidarity with the victims in Israel, European socialists have focused on the need for Israel to deescalate, abide by international rules of warfare and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

In a sign that global attention is now shifting to casualties in Gaza and the devastation a ground invasion would bring, EU lawmakers voted to amend the title of the debate Wednesday to: “Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian international law and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

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