The French Foreign Minister called this Sunday, as soon as she arrived in Israel, for “new immediate and lasting truces” in the Gaza Strip, while her Israeli counterpart described any call for a ceasefire as a “mistake.”
Paris is “deeply concerned” about the situation in Gaza and calls for a “new immediate and lasting truce”, declared Catherine Colonna after a meeting with Eli Cohen.
“They are killing too many civilians,” he added in statements to reporters.
On the other hand, Eli Cohen insisted on the position of the Israeli Government, according to which the call for a ceasefire is a “mistake” and a “gift to Hamas”, the Islamist movement that governs Gaza and which launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7.
At the same time, Catherine Colonna called not to forget the Israeli victims of Hamas attacks.
“It goes without saying that France believes in the words of these women victims, that it believes in those who witnessed these rapes and mutilations, these desecrations,” he declared, referring to the atrocities committed by the commandos of the Palestinian movement in Israel.
Colonna began a tour of the Middle East this Sunday and will visit Lebanon on Monday.
London and Berlin call for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza
The British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, called for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza and to work for a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine in an article with his German counterpart, published this Sunday in The Sunday Times.
The call for a ceasefire, but “only if it is sustainable”, represents a change of tone on the part of the British Government, which until now has defended specific “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to enter Gaza.
In the text, David Cameron and the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, clarify that, despite representing “very different political traditions” – he is conservative and she is green -, they share the desire to improve things and “the desire for peace, in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.
Unlike others, they do not believe that “calling now for a general and immediate ceasefire, in the hope that it will be permanent, is the way forward.”
This would ignore the fact that “Israel was forced to defend itself following the attack” by Hamas and that the Islamist group “continues to fire missiles to kill Israeli citizens every day.” “Hamas must lay down its arms,” they say.
“An unsustainable ceasefire, which would quickly lead to more violence, would only make it more difficult to generate the trust necessary for peace,” they argue.
The two politicians claim that “only extremists like Hamas” want to remain “trapped in an endless cycle of violence, sacrificing their own interests.”
They insist that the goal “cannot simply be the end of the current fighting,” but rather “must be a peace that lasts for days, years and generations.”
“Therefore, we support a ceasefire, but only if it is sustainable,” they add.
The ministers called on Hamas to immediately release the hostages and warned that leaving them in Gaza “would be a permanent obstacle on the path to a two-state solution (Israeli and Palestinian).”
Cameron and Baerbock highlight three areas of action: first, they recognize Israel’s right to defend itself, but ask it “in doing so to respect international humanitarian law,” because “too many civilians have already died.”
Secondly, “more aid must be provided to the Palestinians” and finally, the international community, and particularly Arab countries, must work towards a solution that “provides long-term security for both peoples.”
In this sense, they call for an end to the violence of “extremist settlers in the West Bank”, who “try to sabotage these efforts”, while, in their opinion, the Palestinians need a team of leaders who will offer them “the government they deserve.” “.
Source: TSF
