Europe is back on high alert due to terrorism fueled by the war in the Middle East: how does the conflict between Israel and Hamas influence it?

Anti-terrorist alarms were activated again in Europe As a result of the war that broke out between Israel It is HamasAfter several attacks, attacks on institutions and warnings of possible bombs were recorded in several countries on the Old Continent in recent weeks.

TO LOOK: What is known about the attack on a Gaza hospital that left almost 500 people dead; Was it Israel or the Palestinians?

This Thursday, the 19th, the interior ministers of the 27 countries that make up the European Union met to discuss how the bloc will face this climate of growing security tensions. Representatives expressed concern about the rise in anti-Semitic attacks, the radicalization of young people on the Internet, the use of encrypted messaging services by extremists, and the need to speed up deportations of people who may pose a danger.

The talks, however, face a major social obstacle, as they will have to address the complex migration crisis in which Europe has been mired for more than a decade and where attempts at regulation are often described as discriminatory or repressive.

Only since October 7, when Hamas carried out a coordinated terrorist attack in southern Israel that has left at least 1,400 people dead to date, have there been terrorist attacks in France and Belgium, and security alerts have also been addressed. joined.

It should be noted that Israel responded to the attack with an incessant military operation in the Gaza Strip that to date has left almost 4,100 dead and more than 12,000 injured, which has led different Arab governments to condemn the Jewish government and, in some cases, even to to call “Angry days”against the Jews and their allies.

Belgian police officers from the forensic service search a street for evidence after two people were killed during a shootout in Brussels on the night of October 16. (KENZO TRIBOUILLAR/)

“For two or three days there have been bomb alerts at several airports, several museums in Paris have been evacuated, the television is on and everyone is talking about the attack in Belgium“, ensures The trade the Peruvian historian and international analyst based in Paris Rodrigo Murillo, who explains that the concern is perceived intensely in French society.

“In itself, the geopolitical situation in Europe was very complex due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and also due to the extreme polarization that the war between Israel and Hamas generated. Currently we have in Europe, particularly in France, a significant population of North African origin, who profess the Muslim religion or have family ties to that culture, who support or consider Hamas’ actions to be fair. This is tremendous because in the past, to express itself, at least in France, this population did not limit its demands or its attacks against Israeli or pro-Israeli objectives, but against the entire country. A real fear is beginning to be felt at the level of civil society” he adds.

This situation has placed two issues on the agenda that have proven difficult to debate over the years: security cooperation between national agencies and the bloc’s immigration reforms.

The Ministers of the Interior of France and Belgium, Gérald Darmanin and Annelies Verlinden respectively, asked during a working breakfast held on Thursday the 19th, together with their regional counterparts, to facilitate the work of security forces in the combating terrorism, allowing greater control of communications. of suspects, including encrypted messages.

“This will make the Intelligence services much more powerful, secret police services, and the Home Office will dedicate itself almost entirely to stopping attacks. On Wednesday, for example, the (French) Minister of the Interior spoke out saying that so far this year, almost 40 attacks have been stopped before they were committed.”, explains Murillo.

In this sense, for example, Minister Darmanin also reported that more than a thousand minors were charged in the country for radical Islam, after detecting that “Images of beheadings are exchanged and refer to Daesh (Islamic State) propaganda.”.

Minister Darmanin indicated that if children and teenagers see “videos of beheadings on their phones”, it is not the Police’s fault, but rather “it is somewhat their parents’ fault”.

The second factor behind the crisis is perhaps one of the most thorny and complex that the European Union has faced in recent years: the regulation of immigration. The Interior Ministers of the 27 countries expressed the need to accelerate the deportations of people who could pose a danger to the population, but these requests were accompanied by deep concern because the proposed solutions could undermine freedom of movement and the right to assembly in Europe .

Despite this, Italy, Germany and Slovenia announced that they will take new border measures. In the case of the Balkan country, they will be applied on the borders it shares with Hungary and Croatia from this Saturday, the 21st.

According to Murillo, however, it is very difficult for the EU, as a bloc, to propose significant changes in the level of migration because “In both France and Belgium, at least, the Muslim population is very important at electoral level. Furthermore, leaders who propose putting an end to migration are automatically classified as racist or extremist by a significant part, not only of opponents, but also by the moderate media.”.

The migration crisis has been plaguing Europe for years and has not found an effective mechanism to regulate the arrival of thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. (ITALY COAST GUARD/)

“This is because they have a market of citizens with all the rights and duties who feel attacked when someone speaks badly about migration. There are French people, for example, with these origins who are fully integrated into society, who work and pay their taxes. They feel this is a generalization, which is why I don’t believe real limits will be placed on migration. This greatly complicates the problem because States do not always have the ability to filter who arrives or what beliefs they have.”, adds the analyst.

Minister Darmanin also referred to this point, who defended the need for asylum procedures before his counterparts.faster” that make it possible to decide more quickly whether a migrant has the right to stay or not in the EU, as well as better border control.

European inaction or negligence in these cases has proven to cause risky situations, such as the one recorded on Friday the 13th in Arras. “The teacher who died in the aforementioned attack was murdered by a Chechen whose family was attempted to be expelled in 2014, but in France there are super-guarantee organizations, dedicated exclusively to promoting integration and protecting populations that can be dangerous. Today we have a death because of that person the State tried to get rid of”, says Murillo.

Source: Elcomercio