In what could be seen as a gesture to overcome tensions generated by the war between Israel and Hamas, on Thursday, December 21, King Abdullah II of Jordan welcomed Emmanuel Macron in person at Aqaba airport in the south of the country. After a brief meeting in a lounge a stone's throw from the tarmac, the sovereign and the head of state joined hands in the car that Abdallah himself drove to the royal residence, where they had lunch.
On October 25, the first meeting between the two leaders since the start of the war on October 7 was held in a frosty atmosphere. The previous day, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Macron had proposed the creation of an international coalition to fight Hamas, along the lines of the one set up against the Islamic State (IS). While Jordan is associated with the fight against the former caliphate, it cannot support a similar approach against Hamas, whose popularity is strong among its population and the large Palestinian community settled in the country.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the king has demanded an "immediate ceasefire" – as he hammered home during his meeting with his French guest, who is not there yet. "Continued Israeli aggression in Gaza will have disastrous repercussions for the entire region," the sovereign warned during their conversation, repeating his "complete rejection of forced population displacement" within the Gaza Strip. Abdullah II nevertheless stressed the "importance of the role of France and the European Union in supporting the two-state solution" and called for "intensified efforts" in this direction.
Faced with the violence of Israel's response to the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, on October 21 the king denounced "international silence" and criticized Western support for Netanyahu's government. "Anywhere else, the world would have condemned the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the deliberate deprivation of the population of food, water, electricity and basic needs, and the perpetrator of these acts would certainly have been immediately held accountable," he said at an emergency meeting in Cairo. Since then, Israeli strikes have claimed more than 20,000 lives, the majority of them women and children, according to the enclave's administration.
Anxious to restore trust with Arab capitals, France is insisting on humanitarian cooperation to help the civilian population of Gaza. "Faced with an absolute humanitarian emergency, we are sparing no effort in our joint efforts to obtain a ceasefire as soon as possible and to meet the urgent needs of the population," said Macron after the meeting. France supports the creation of a humanitarian platform in Jordan. A first French flight carrying 11 tonnes of humanitarian cargo arrived in Amman on Thursday evening. Another is due to follow in the next few days.
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