Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Media reports in Brussels, the capital of the European Union, have focused on the developments in the negotiations currently underway to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to cease fire and release the hostages held since October 7 of the year before last.
According to what was published by Playbook magazine, the European version of the American political magazine Politico, "Two officials involved in the talks told the Associated Press that Hamas accepted the terms of a draft agreement to cease fire in Gaza and release the Israeli hostages. An Israeli official told the Associated Press that there was progress but the deal had not yet been finalized. The news agency also obtained a copy of the proposed agreement,
and added under the title "It all goes back to Trump": Yotam Cohen, the brother of Nimrod Cohen, the Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza, said: "The only reason we are now on the verge of signing a hostage deal is the American pressure exerted by Trump." Yotam blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not agreeing to a ceasefire and hostage agreement sooner.
Under the title Pressure in Brussels, it said: Several family members met The hostages met reporters in Brussels on Tuesday, after speaking with the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas. The expectation that an agreement could be reached soon was palpable. “I don’t trust the agreement now, I don’t trust anything until I see the release of the first hostage, and indeed we need Europe to start being more active in our region,” said Gilad Korngold, whose son Tal Shoham was kidnapped by Hamas.

She added under the heading Information vacuum: Family members — including Udi Goren, who wants to retrieve the body of his murdered cousin Tal Haimi from Gaza — said they have received no information about their relatives, even from international aid organizations such as the Red Cross.
In the same vein, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, president of the European Jewish Association, said that anti-Semitism in Europe is on the rise due to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
The rabbi called on governments across Europe to take immediate action against the rapid rise in anti-Semitism, which he said is driving thousands of Jews to leave the continent. According to what was reported by the Euronews news website in Brussels, it added, "He said that about 40,000 Jews have already left Europe in recent years, with no intention of returning due to the rise in anti-Semitic sentiment, as he put it.
Margolin described 2025 as a "critical year" for European Jews, and warned that if European governments do not take seriously the measures demanded by the association this year, it will mean the beginning of the end of the Jewish presence in Europe.
Speaking before the summit organized by the European Jewish Association in Cyprus over two days, Margolin said that anti-Semitism in Europe increased by 2,000 percent after October 7, 2023, attributing this to statistics collected by organizations that monitor anti-Semitism.
96 percent of participants in a survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in Vienna, before the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, said that they had experienced anti-Semitism in Europe, between January and June 2023.
The agency also collected data from 12 Jewish organizations after October 7, 2023, with some of these organizations reporting a 400 percent increase in anti-Semitism. The Jewish rabbi attributed the political shortsightedness to European officials, who he said do not understand the emergency in the fight against anti-Semitism.