On 20 May 2025, the EU decided to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement. An agreement enabling trade and cooperation between the EU and Israel. Under review is whether Israel has violated its human rights obligations, described under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The agreement “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”. This means that, when Israel violates international human rights law, the EU fails its legal obligations under the international agreement.

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, with annual trade valued at more than 45 billion euros. Ongoing trade with Israel contributes to supporting Israel’s actions. Contributing to the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the deliberate starvation of its people, and its “intention to create a permanent and irreversible Israeli presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (ICJ, 2024). The current review of the agreement should not even be necessary. 

Shevani Murray, a Belgian national, PhD student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has started a hunger strike in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday 4 June to pressure the EU institutions to consider this with the utmost urgency and specifically to suspend the agreement’s preferential trade component. Violations of Article 2 are clear. The ICJ (2024) has stated that “sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power (…) violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful”.

With your signature, join Shevani and demand the EU to STOP TRADING WITH ISRAEL NOW.