To better understand the latest events in the conflict between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel, 20 minutes takes stock every evening. Between the strong declarations, the diplomatic advances or the dramatic results of the fighting, here are the main points of the day.
News of the day
France wants to evacuate “as quickly as possible” its nationals in the Gaza Strip, besieged and bombed by Israel, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday after a European summit in Brussels.
“We want to evacuate them as soon as possible. This is what we are organizing with both the Palestinian authorities and Egypt. And this is what several other European countries want to do in coordination with us,” he said.
The number of the day
29,000. This is the number of people who have been displaced in Lebanon since the start of violence on the border with Israel, according to new figures published Friday by a specialized United Nations agency. Since the war between Israel and Hamas triggered by the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army in the border area.
Sentence of the day
“There is Israel’s right to self-defense but this right cannot be indiscriminate revenge and there cannot be collective responsibility of the Palestinians for the actions of a Hamas terrorist minority. »
Asked by BFM TV, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin explained that “Westerners must act with the rest of the world to “help Israel move forward” on the Palestinian question “which remains the mother of battles for Arab peoples.” “Let’s get out of the cycle of revenge,” he added.
Today’s trend
Nearly half of Israelis would be opposed to an “immediate” military ground operation in the Gaza Strip, suggests a survey published Friday by the daily Maariv. To the question “Should the army carry out a ground operation in Gaza immediately or should it be better to wait?” », 49% of those questioned responded that it was necessary to wait compared to 29% of people who believe that this operation should be launched immediately. Around 8 p.m., the spokesperson for the Israeli army announced that it wanted to “expand ground operations” this evening in Gaza.