A spokesperson for Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration said that the policy has nothing to do with the current conflict in Gaza.
Hey so this is happening and it's bad. Palestine is not recognized as a state by much of the world, so this risks making these children stateless.
Belgium saying it has nothing to do with the current round of conflict doesn't mean a damn thing. It's not like Israel hasn't been bombing the shit out of Gaza before August. What sets off alarm bells for me is this:
[The spokesperson] said that the Belgian authorities remain concerned about potential "abuses" of the country's asylum system. "The Foreigners' Office regularly notes that Palestinians in the European Union go to Belgium to have children there in order to acquire Belgian citizenship and, consequently, to benefit from family reunification," he said. "[We will] fight against practices where people who do not have the right to do so try to possess Belgian nationality," he added.
I trust this anti-immigrant rhetoric is familiar to Americans and others. Oh no, they get to have kids outside of a war zone, get citizenship in the EU, and keep their families together. What an awful thing to help enable.
By definition, people who apply for asylum are in a bad spot. Certainly it is one way people will try to game the system, but people will attempt to exploit any advantage they think they have, especially if it gets them out of very real danger.
I don't know anything about how asylum in the EU/Belgium works or if the Foreigners' Office can even do this, but it is deeply concerning they think they might have the authority to do something that drastic. Denaturalization of groups (usually ethnic minorities) is closely associated with ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Please be aware of this sort of rhetoric around citizenship and nationality, and how it is used to punish already vulnerable people. Push back against it, because it is absolutely wrong and extremely frightening as a barometer of what people think is acceptable.