The future of the Palestinians depends on a “clear” fight against terrorism, said Macron in the West Bank. At the same time, he emphasized that nothing could “justify the suffering” of the civilian population in Gaza. A Palestinian life is worth as much as a French and an Israeli life, said Macron.
Abbas, for his part, called on the French president to work to end the “aggression” in Gaza. “We call on you, President Macron, to end this aggression,” Abbas said after his conversation with the French head of state. After his visit to Abbas, Macron traveled to Amman to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
The French president had previously met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem. After the talks, Macron called for building an international alliance to fight Hamas.
“France is ready so that the international alliance against the Islamic State, which we have joined together for operations in Iraq and Syria, can also fight Hamas,” said Macron. The international alliance against the jihadist militia IS was launched by the USA in 2014 to support the fight against the Islamists in Iraq and Syria. It includes both Western and Arab states.
Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip, launched a major attack on Israel on October 7th and, according to government figures, killed around 1,400 people and took more than 220 hostage. Israel responded with retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip.
According to the radical Islamic Hamas ruling there, at least 50 people were killed within an hour on Tuesday evening. At least 5,791 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to Hamas figures that could not be independently verified by AFP.
Meanwhile, 85-year-old Israeli Jocheved Lifschitz, who was released by Hamas on Monday evening, reported that she was beaten during the hostage-taking but was later treated well. The Hamas fighters took her away on a motorcycle and “hurt her a lot,” Lifschitz said in a hospital in Tel Aviv.
It was different during captivity: “They treated us well and took care of all our needs,” said Lifschitz, who was taken hostage along with 79-year-old Nurit Cooper and their two husbands on October 7th in Kibbutz Nir Os been. Qatar and Egypt brokered the release. The foreign ministry of the Gulf state of Qatar told AFP that it was confident that more hostages kidnapped from Israel could be released.
According to the US Treasury Department, the USA is seeking an international coalition to stop the flow of finance to Hamas. The aim is to form a coalition “with countries in the region, but also around the world” to take action against the financing of Hamas, said Deputy Finance Minister Wally Adeyemo on Tuesday (local time) in Washington.
Adeyemo said that during a trip to Europe later this week he wanted to “meet with allies and partners and talk about what we can do in a coordinated way to address Hamas’ financial network.”
