The EU yesterday confirmed  €458 million in humanitarian aid for Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Palestine will receive €124 million to cover the needs of 3.3 million people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In a war-torn Middle East, the European Union is stepping up while others step back,” the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib stated. Now that the EU is temporarily not aligned with the US, as happened during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the bloc has stepped into the role of the largest humanitarian aid donor and therefore, retaining the right of rhetoric on humanitarian and the people whose lives were ravaged by colonial complicity. “International law exists to protect them [the people], and Europe will defend it. We will continue delivering life-saving aid for as long as it is needed.”

The EU, however, did not protect Palestinians in Gaza from Israel’s genocide. It did not protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from settler violence, forced displacement, the Palestinian Authority’s security services and crackdowns, the persecution of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Jenin. International humanitarian law protects the people Lahbib stated. Legislation will not protect anyone without implementation. And international humanitarian law does not condemn colonialism, or call for decolonisation. Without the colonial context and reality, the EU can simplify international humanitarian law to the basics of humanitarian aid. However, decades of humanitarian aid have not even permanently alleviated the basic needs of the Palestinian people.

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If the EU is defending international humanitarian law by allocating a budget for humanitarian aid, that simply means that the EU is making the legislation work for the donors.

Now that the EU is temporarily not aligned with the US, as happened during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the bloc has stepped into the role of the largest humanitarian aid donor and therefore, retaining the right of rhetoric on humanitarian and the people whose lives were ravaged by colonial complicity.

On 13 October 2023, for example, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X: “This is the moment for unity. This is the moment to join forces against terror. And Israel can count on the EU.” Israel had already started its genocide by then, and von der Leyen asserted, “Israel has the duty to defend its people.” In 2024, von der Leyen said, “We have all seen the reports of children dying of starvation,” and called for “an immediate humanitarian pause”. Humanitarian pauses, debated for months and implemented for days, did nothing to help the Palestinian people. They did, however, work for diplomacy. When humanitarian aid is brought to the spotlight, the presence or absence of it is always reflected on world leaders and diplomats. Unfortunately, both have the power to manipulate the humanitarian narrative when aid is delivered. The recipients, colonised people and victims of an ongoing genocide to ethnically cleanse Palestine, are eating to survive another day with no political guarantees.

In the current colonial context, and within an already proved failed framework, the EU is just funding the continuation of Israeli colonialism. If the EU was providing humanitarian assistance in a decolonised context, humanitarian aid would become the temporary mechanism it was supposed to be. In the absence of that, international humanitarian law and humanitarian aid are merely providing the veneer for ethnic cleansing and genocide to continue, in the same way the EU’s humanitarian budget steps in more as relief for Israel than for the Palestinian people.

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