En route to New York, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to speak on Friday, September 26, at United Nations headquarters, the official government plane of Israel, Wing of Zion, took an unusual path. It flew over Cyprus, Greece, Italy, then the Strait of Gibraltar, before crossing the Atlantic and arriving at its destination. It appeared to be an alternative route to avoid French airspace.

Yet Paris had been accommodating toward the Israeli leader. Despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against him on November 21, 2024, for war crimes and crimes against humanity that rendered him unwelcome in several European countries, "France authorized the overflight of its territory by the Israeli prime minister's plane," the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs announced. "The route taken was the choice of the Israeli authorities."

On Monday, in his speech at the UN recognizing the State of Palestine, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the war waged by Netanyahu in Gaza in retaliation for the massacres of October 7, 2023, carried out by Hamas. He argued that the operation no longer had any military rationale and, by deliberately targeting starving civilians, amounted to a "denial of one another's humanity."

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