French President Emmanuel Macron visited Egypt’s port city of El-Arish on Tuesday, a key transit point for Gaza-bound aid, to call on Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian access to the war-battered Palestinian territory.
An AFP journalist said Macron was in El-Arish, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of the Gaza Strip, along with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Macron, who arrived in Cairo on Sunday, has said he would meet with sick Palestinians and medical professionals in El-Arish, an “outpost of humanitarian support for the civilian population of Gaza.”
The French leader is also expected to tour Red Crescent warehouses and meet with UN and aid representatives.
In a symbolic stop on his Egypt tour, Macron will call for “the reopening of crossing points for the delivery of humanitarian goods into Gaza,” a presidency statement said.
In Cairo, Macron, Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II called for an “immediate return” to the ceasefire.
The three leaders met on Monday to discuss the war and humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s 2.4 million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced at least once during the war.
In a joint statement on Monday, the heads of several UN agencies said many Gazans are “trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck” outside of the war-torn Strip.
Israel cut off aid to Gaza on March 2, in an attempt to pressure Hamas into extending the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal, as Israel refused to enter negotiations on the subsequent phases of the agreement. Hamas, in turn, refused to extend the first phase, which would have seen the pause in fighting lengthened and the release of several more hostages.
In light of the impasse, Israel then resumed fighting in Gaza on March 18 with a massive aerial bombardment followed by a renewed ground offensive.
While the IDF and Prime Minister’s Office have insisted that Israel will not resume aid deliveries until Hamas accepts its terms for a ceasefire, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel on Monday that the military was planning to begin facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza in the coming weeks.
According to a Ynet report, the IDF has “made it clear to the political leadership” that it will soon have no choice but to resume the supply of food, fuel and medicine.
The war in Gaza was sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel, in which roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and 251 were seized as hostages.
Fifty-nine of the 251 hostages remain in captivity, of whom 24 are still alive, according to Israeli intelligence assessments. Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong truce in November 2023, and during the recent ceasefire, Hamas released 30 living hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.