French President Emmanuel Macron urged countries to stop providing weapons to Israel for its war in the Gaza Strip and expressed concern that the civilians of Lebanon could face a similar fate as those in Gaza.
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“The priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to carry out fighting in Gaza,” Macron said in an interview with France Inter, a public radio station, that aired Saturday. France itself, Macron said, was not delivering any weapons.
Macron’s call comes amid mounting public scrutiny of the high death toll in Gaza and the widening regional conflict to Lebanon.
Macron said Lebanon should not be allowed to “become a new Gaza,” referring to Israel’s continuing ground and air offensive in the country. “The Lebanese people cannot, in turn, be sacrificed,” he added.
According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, while France did not export any major arms to Israel in recent years, it has supplied components for arms.
At a summit for francophone leaders in Paris on Saturday, Macron appeared to take a jab at the United States, by far Israel’s largest supplier of weapons: “If we call for a cease-fire, consistency is to not provide weapons of war,” he said. “And I think that those who provide them cannot every day call for a cease-fire alongside us and continue to supply them.”
The United States has supplied more than $3 billion worth of military aid per year to Israel in recent years and Israel is the largest beneficiary of U.S. military aid since the World War II. Last month, Britain suspended some arms exports to Israel over concerns about potential violations of international humanitarian law, joining several other nations who have taken similar actions in the wake of the war in Gaza.
Macron said that terrorism should not be fought by “sacrificing a civilian population” and said he had expressed those concerns to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I regret that Prime Minister Netanyahu made a different choice and took on this responsibility, in particular ground operations on Lebanese territory,” Macron said at the summit.
At least 41,825 people have been killed and 96,910 wounded in Gaza since last October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. In the same period in Lebanon, the health ministry says 2,036 people have been killed and 9,662 wounded, with the majority of deaths happening in recent weeks. Both agencies do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 346 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its Gaza military operation.
Netanyahu, in a video statement Saturday after Macron’s remarks, criticized Macron and other leaders who “call for an arms embargo on Israel.”
“Israel will win with or without their support, but their shame will continue long after the war is won,” he said.
In response to Netanyahu, Macron’s office said France remains a “steadfast friend of Israel,” describing Netanyahu’s reaction as “excessive and detached from the friendship between France and Israel,” according to Le Monde.
France, along with United States, helped Israel stave off the Iran missile attack last week.
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