Paris/Geneva- French President Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that the Gaza death toll was “intolerable” and Israel’s operations there “must cease”, the president’s office said.
In a telephone call that saw Macron toughen his tone, the French leader expressed France’s “firm opposition” to an Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, saying it “could only lead to a humanitarian disaster of a new magnitude” and create a new risk of regional escalation, according to a statement from the presidential Elysee palace.
The French leader stressed that a ceasefire agreement should be reached “without further delay”, adding such a deal should “guarantee the protection of all civilians and the massive inflow of emergency aid”.
Macron said that the lack of sufficient access to “a population in an absolute humanitarian emergency was unjustifiable,” his office said.
He said it was “imperative to open the port of Ashdod” in Israel north of the Gaza strip, “a direct land route from Jordan and all the crossing points.”
The French president also urged “the prime minister and all Israeli leaders to have the courage to offer their fellow citizens a future of peace”, which he believes only the “creation of a Palestinian state” can achieve, the statement said.
On Tuesday, France said it was imposing sanctions against 28 “extremist Israeli settlers” whom it accuses of committing human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank.
France would also be seeking sanctions at European level, the foreign ministry said.
WHO says hospitals ‘overwhelmed’ as Israel blocks aid in Gaza
The World Health Organization lamented Wednesday that fewer than half of its requested aid-delivery missions in Gaza have been approved by Israel, stressing the need to reach and resupply devastated hospitals across the territory.
“Hospitals are completely overwhelmed and overflowing and undersupplied,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video-link from Rafah in southern Gaza, he described how patients were frequently undergoing unnecessary amputations of limbs that could have been saved under ordinary circumstances.
Decrying the “shrinking humanitarian space” in the Gaza Strip, he accused Israel of obstructing aid deliveries across the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Since November, only 40 percent of the missions WHO had requested to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been facilitated, he said.
“Since January, that figure is much lower.”
Only 45 percent of requested missions in southern Gaza had meanwhile been made possible, he said.
“These missions have been denied, impeded or postponed,” he said, describing the situation as “absurd”.
“Even when there is no ceasefire, humanitarian corridors should exist so WHO, UN and their partners can do their job.”
Mediators are racing to secure a pause to the fighting before Israel proceeds with a full-scale ground incursion into Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths cautioned Tuesday that any military operation there “could lead to a slaughter”.
Peeperkorn agreed, warning that “military activities in… these densely populated areas would be of course an unfathomable catastrophe”.
It “would even further expand the humanitarian disaster beyond imagination”.
Spain, Ireland seek EU check on Israel’s human rights record in Gaza
Spain and Ireland on Wednesday asked the European Union to “urgently” examine whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza under an accord that links rights to trade ties.
The Spanish and Irish prime ministers Pedro Sanchez and Leo Varadkar sent a letter to the European Commission urging it to “act urgently on the Gaza crisis”.
“Given the critical situation in Rafah, Ireland and Spain have just requested the European Commission urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights in Gaza,” Sanchez wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
In the letter, the two leaders demand “an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the EU/Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship,” it says.
The association agreement is the main basis for the bloc’s trade ties with Israel. Signed in 1995, it came into force in 2000.
“If it considers that (Israel) is in breach”, the Commission should propose “appropriate measures to the Council to consider”, the letter said.
The European Commission confirmed it had received the letter and would “look into it”, spokeswoman Arianna Podesta told reporters.
Foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Massrali was not immediately able to say how the Commission would review the human rights element of the agreement but said there “must be accountability for any violation of international law”.