French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy regarding humanitarian aid to Gaza as “unacceptable” and “shameful,” saying that Europeans should consider increasing sanctions.
“What the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is doing is unacceptable… There is no water, no medicine, the wounded cannot get out, the doctors cannot get in. What he is doing is shameful,” Macron told TF1 television.
“We need the United States. President (Donald) Trump has the levers. I have had tough words with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I got angry, but they (Israel) don’t depend on us, they depend on American weapons,” he said.
Macron emphasized that he himself had visited the border between Egypt and Gaza earlier this year where he saw that “all the aid that France and other countries deliver” is “blocked by the Israelis.”
“This is an unacceptable humanitarian tragedy,” he said, adding that “it is not up to a president of the republic to say ‘this is a genocide’ but rather to historians.”
“My job is to do everything I can to make it stop,” Macron also said, while raising the possibility of revisiting the European Union’s cooperation agreements with Israel.
These pacts include terms that include the absence of customs duties on certain products.
Israel has sealed off the Gaza Strip since early March, when it resumed its military campaign against Hamas following the collapse of a hostage release and ceasefire deal, during which thousands of aid trucks entered the enclave.
Israel has said that the Hamas terror group stole much of the aid entering the territory, using it to supply its members and maintain control over the population, and therefore Israel won’t allow aid in until it puts in place a system giving it control over the distribution. Jerusalem also justifies the aid blockade as a necessary tool to pressure Hamas to release the 58 hostages held in the Strip.
“The humanitarian crisis (in Gaza) is the most serious we have known” since October 7, 2023, said Macron, referring to the date of the Hamas-led onslaught that started the ongoing war in Gaza.
The French president’s remarks Tuesday came amid worsening ties between Jerusalem and Paris over the war in Gaza, with Macron pressing Netanyahu on renewing humanitarian aid during a phone call last month. That conversation came days after Netanyahu’s son lobbed an obscenity at Macron for saying France could recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel has accused Macron of blocking Israeli arms manufacturers from taking part in industry shows in France. Macron has also angered Jerusalem by calling for an arms embargo on Israel as the only way to end the fighting in Gaza.