Israel cuts contact with EU's Kallas over 'apartheid' comparison

Israel's foreign minister has said he is severing contact with the European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, over reports that she compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to South Africa's former apartheid system.

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced he was suspending contact after the news outlet Euractiv reported that Kallas had made the remarks during high-level talks with Mexican officials in May. According to the report, she likened Israel's policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to the racial segregation that ruled South Africa until the early 1990s.

Saar said Kallas had been acting "obsessively and with blatant unfairness" toward Israel and that he had "no choice but to sever all contact" until she retracted what he called a "blood libel" against the country.

Kallas responded publicly that the EU remained committed to its relationship with Israel, without directly addressing the apartheid allegation. She reiterated the bloc's support for a two-state solution and its opposition to illegal Israeli settlements.

The row marked a fresh low in increasingly strained relations between Israel and the EU. It came months after the UN human rights office concluded that Israel was violating international law on racial segregation in the occupied West Bank, where settlers and Palestinians are governed under different legal frameworks.