Danish Prime Minister Put Frederiksen said on Saturday that his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu had become a “problem”, adding that she would try to put Israel during the Gaza War, because his country currently holds the presidency of the European Union.
The comments come in the midst of international pressure on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in particular Israeli European allies and the EU itself.
“Netanyahu is now a problem in itself,” said Frederiksen in an interview with the Jyllands-Posten Daily, noting that Denmark has long been supported by Israel and that it is personally determined to continue this support.
The Danish minister said that she thought that Israel would be better without Netanyahu in charge, saying that the current government acts against the interests of the country, although she said it was a question for the Israelis.
The Danish chief of the center-right also described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “absolutely appalling and catastrophic”.
The Israeli government is going “too far”, she added, also condemning the violence of the settlers and the new regulation plan to build more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area of the West Bank, which the Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich announced on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister of Denmark, puts Frederiksen, delivered his speech while Denmark holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe, on July 8, 2025 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Oriental of France. (AP photo / Pascal Bastien)
“We are one of the countries that wish to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members,” she said.
Frederiksen added that she wanted to consider “political pressure, sanctions, whether against the colonists, ministers or even Israel as a whole”, referring to trade or research sanctions.
“We do not exclude anything in advance. Just like with Russia, we conceive the sanctions to target where we think they will have the greatest effect,” added Frederiksen.
When asked if Denmark planned to join its Scandinavian neighbors and other European countries to recognize a Palestinian state, the Danish minister said that her country would not do so as long as Hamas always controls the main parts of the territories claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.
Denmark does not wish to “reward” Hamas, she said, after the terrorist group sparked the war in Gaza with its invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The Gaza Ministry of Health managed by Hamas says that more than 61,000 people in the strip have been killed or are presumed to be dead in the fighting so far, although the balance sheet cannot be checked and does not make the difference between civilians and combatants.
The displaced Palestinians travel a makeshift camp along the beach of Gaza City, August 10, 2025. (AP photo / Jehad Alshrafi)
France explodes E1 provides as a “colonization”
Adding to the recent convictions of the new E1 regulation plan, France qualified the “serious violation of international law”.
A spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Paris “condemns the plan with the greatest firmness.
France has declared that it “reiterates its condemnation of colonization” and declared that it “remains mobilized alongside its European partners to increase pressure on Israel to put an end to colonization, including by new sanctions against individuals and the entities responsible for colonization.”
Several countries, as well as the United Nations, have strongly condemned the E1 project, claiming that it undermines the hopes of a future Palestinian state contiguous to East Jerusalem as capital.
The Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, attends a press conference announcing his intention to approve more than 3,000 housing units in the draft E1 regulation between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim on August 14, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
The potential construction of the new district of Ma’Ale Adumim in the so-called E1 zone has long been the alarm in the international community. It would divide the West Bank into the Northern and South regions and would prevent the development of a Palestinian metropolis which links East Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Ramallah, which the Palestinians had long hoped for the basis of their future state.
Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem of Jordan, as well as the Gaza Strip in Egypt, during the 1967 War of the Six Days. The Palestinians wanted the three areas of a state. Most of the international community considers establishments as illegal and an obstacle to the resolution of long -standing conflict.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, but has refrained from taking the step in the West Bank. Far-right leaders, including Smotrich, also pushed Israel to restore colonies in Gaza in the middle of the war there.
