"Solution has to be imposed...": EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Gaza war

Brussels [Belgium], January 4 (ANI): The European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, stated that since neither side can agree on a solution to the Israel-Hamas war that has now entered its 90th day, the international community must impose one, Al Jazeera reported.
"I believe that we have learned in these 30 years that the solution has to be imposed from outside because the two parties will never be able to reach an agreement," Borrell said in an event in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday.
"If this tragedy doesn't end soon, the entire Middle East might end up in flames," the EU Foreign Policy Chief said.
A senior Hamas official was killed in an alleged Israeli drone strike on Tuesday in Beirut, Lebanon. The official, identified as Saleh al-Arouri, was the deputy head of Hamas.
Israel has not disputed or acknowledged that it was the one who assassinated al-Arouri.
However, the terrorist organisation Hamas confirmed that Israel killed its deputy commander, Saleh al-Arouri, in Lebanon on Tuesday night.
"The cowardly assassinations carried out by the Zionist occupation against the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people or in undermining the continuation of their valiant resistance," senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement, according to The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the alleged killing of Saleh al-Arouri. He issued a statement responding to the alleged killing of Hamas deputy leader, terming it a "new Israeli crime" and forewarned, saying Tel Aviv is aiming to drag Lebanon into the conflict.
Al-Arouri, 57, a resident of Lebanon, served as the political bureau's deputy director for the terror group and was regarded as the de facto head of Hamas's military branch in the West Bank.
He was freed from Israeli prisons in March 2010 after serving many periods there as part of negotiations to secure a bigger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier who was abducted by Hamas in 2006. Later, Arouri was instrumental in negotiating Shalit's 2011 release in exchange for the release of over 1,000 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, The Times of Israel reported.
He moved to Istanbul but was forced to move from there after Israel restored relations with Turkey after the two countries had cut their ties over an IDF attack on a Gaza-bound solidarity flotilla that resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens in a bloody altercation aboard a ship.
Al-Arouri resided in Syria before relocating to Beirut.
The conflict in Gaza escalated after the October 7 attack by Hamas, where about 2,500 terrorists breached the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to casualties and the seizure of hostages.
Israel, since the war began, has characterized its Gaza offensive as targeting Hamas' infrastructure to eliminate the entire terror group while making efforts to minimize civilian casualties.
Reportedly, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed that over 20,000 people have been killed in the Strip during the war, an unverified figure that also does not differentiate between combatants and civilians and does not take into account those killed as a consequence of terror groups' rocket misfires.
Whereas, recently, the Israeli forces identified several launches from Lebanon towards the area of Adamit in northern Israel on Monday.
According to Israeli assessments, troops have killed some 8,500 terror operatives since the war began.
Moreover, another 1,000 Hamas terrorists were killed in Israel on or in the days after the October 7 attack. (ANI)