The decision was hailed as a ”success” for the anti-Israel BDS movement.

Ixelles, one  of the 19 communes of Brussels, has suspended its twinning with the Israeli town of Megiddo. 

The suspension, taken in July,  has been confirmed by the commune Mayor Christos Doulkeridis from the Green party. In the eyes of the municipal authorities, any action in favor of peace involving an Israeli municipality is impossible for the time being, he told Belgian news agency Belga.

On June 20, around hundred pro-Palestinian activists  demonstrated in the municipality to call for an end to this twinning arrangement, a demand made by a coalition of leftist organizations.

The municipality stated  that ”it is unable to carry out any credible initiative in the direction of dialogue and peace”, and considered that simply maintaining the twinning arrangement “could be interpreted as approval of the policy currently pursued by the State of Israel”.

The commune of Ixelles recalled “the scale and duration of the Israeli government’s response in the Gaza Strip” following the terrorist attack on October 7, “the many civilian victims”, the “pronouncements of the International Court of Justice” and “the relentless pursuit of the settlement policy”.

The Belgian-Palestinian Association welcomed what it called ”the strong gesture of responsibility on the part of the local authorities.” It hailed the decision as a ”success” for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The Ixelles commune is run by the Green by a vote to terminate the twinning arrangement.
Megiddo lies some 90 km north of Jerusalem and 31 km south-west of the present-day city of Haifa, Israel’s coastal city on the Mediterranean Sea. It overlooks the Jezreel Valley to the north and is an important crossroads on the main road linking central Israel with the Lower Galilee and the northern region of the country. As a result, Megiddo remains a site of strategic importance, as it lies at the northern entrance to Wadi Ara, a mountain linking the Jezreel Valley with Israel’s coastal plain.