French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that he would decide “in the next couple of days” whether to take concrete steps against Israel over the war in Gaza, during a press conference with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who again accused Israel of premeditated genocide in the Strip.
“We will ramp up pressure in coordination with the Americans to obtain a ceasefire” in Gaza, said Macron, amid criticism of Israel’s renewed offensive in the Strip by European allies, including Germany and Britain.
The comments came as France was due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Macron said that he expected the conference to take steps “toward recognizing Palestine,” without being more specific.
He has said he hopes French recognition of a Palestinian state would encourage other governments to do the same, and that countries that do not recognize Israel should do so.
The comment came as Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in a press conference with his Israeli counterpart that recognizing Palestinian statehood at the moment would send “the wrong signal.” Wadepuhl also criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and called on Jerusalem to let more aid enter the Strip.
Speaking alongside Macron, Lula, whose country recognized Palestinian statehood in 2010, said Israel was committing “a premeditated genocide from a far-right government waging a war against the interests of its own people.”
“What is happening in Gaza is not a war. It’s a genocide being carried out by a highly prepared army against women and children,” said Lula, whom Israel declared a persona non grata for using the term early last year.
“We see a genocide unfold under our eyes day after day,” said Lula. “It’s no longer possible to accept.”
In January 2024, Lula expressed support for the genocide charges that South Africa brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice the previous month.
Macron has declined to describe Israel’s offensive in Gaza as a “genocide,” saying last month that it was not for a “political leader to use the term but up to historians to do so when the time comes.”
Israel has rejected the accusation of genocide, saying operations in Gaza were a legitimate response to the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Israel’s military has also denied targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using Gaza civilians as human shields.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 54,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.
Wadephul, the German foreign minister, said Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas and other enemies, and that “therefore Germany will of course continue to support Israel with arms deliveries, that was never in doubt.”
New German Chancellor Friedrich Merz plans to visit Israel this year in a show of the countries’ ties, added Wadephul, during a press conference with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Berlin.
Wadephul also expressed concern about Israeli hostages still in Gaza, as well as drone and rocket attacks against Israel by Iran and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Wadephul, whose country is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, said last week that Berlin would weigh “unspecified steps” against Jerusalem over the war in Gaza, adding that it was unacceptable that Gazans had no food or medicine. Merz said the situation in Gaza was “unbearable.”
On Thursday, Wadephul said “too little” humanitarian aid was reaching civilians in Gaza, where an embattled Israeli- and US-backed agency began distributing supplies last week following a weeks-long blockade by Israel, which accused Hamas of stealing supplies from other aid agencies.
Wadephul said he reiterated to Sa’ar Berlin’s “urgent request to allow humanitarian aid to Gaza” without restrictions.
“That is also the prevailing international law,” said Wadephul.
However, Wadephul called on the European Union to maintain its cooperation pact with Israel. The agreement was placed under review last month due to the situation in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Wadephul decried the Israeli government’s announcement that it would allow 22 more settlements in the West Bank, saying Germany considered the move illegal and saw it as a further threat to the two-state solution. But he rejected an immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood, saying “negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be concluded” beforehand.
Spain, Ireland and Norway last year recognized a Palestinian state, eliciting Israeli outrage, and Macron has recently stepped up his support for the idea, leading Israel to accuse him of a “crusade against the Jewish state.”