EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has suggested a plan under which Israel could suspend its military operation in Gaza in return for the Red Cross getting access to hostages held by Hamas.

“I think that a humanitarian pause counterbalanced by access to hostages with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a first step to their release is an initiative in which we should work,” Borrell told European Union diplomats in Brussels.

“Call it a truce, window, whatever, but we need that violence recedes and that international humanitarian law is being respected,” Borrell said.

Borrell warned that an “overreaction by the Israelis in the end makes them lose the support of the international community”. “There is no military solution to the conflict,” he added.