For Paris, avoiding a regional escalation in the Middle East requires protecting the Palestinians. The humanitarian issue and the protection of the civilian population of Gaza is therefore “absolutely key” and calls for “measure and proportionality” on the part of Israel, the French Minister of the Armed Forces said on Sunday.
“It’s important because there is the ground of principles and values. Israel is a democracy and what Israel does has an impact on us,” Sébastien Lecornu declared on LCI.
“Hamas must be put out of harm’s way”
The way in which Israel manages the rest of the conflict will have an impact on “the security environment in which the Middle East will find itself in the next 10 or 15 years,” the minister continued. “Hamas must be put out of harm’s way but the way in which civilian populations are treated can have an impact on controlling the overall escalation,” he insisted.
These comments come as Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog to clarify comments made to the BBC. The French president clarified that he was not “accusing Israel of intentionally harming civilians” in Gaza, according to the Israeli presidency. He said his comments to the BBC “concerned the humanitarian situation, which remains an important issue for him and for many countries.”
A difficult balancing position
On the criticisms made of French diplomacy for being either pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, Sébastien Lecornu recalled France’s historical position. “The problem with a balanced position is that everyone blames you for it. On the one hand, you are criticized for not doing enough for the security of the Palestinian civilian populations, on the other hand we are criticized for not doing enough for the security of Israel.” “From General de Gaulle to François Mitterrand to Emmanuel Macron, these criticisms have always been made throughout history.”
If France calls for a humanitarian truce in Gaza, it also defends Israel’s right to defend itself. “The dilemma that the Tsahal (Israeli army) has is that obviously Hamas uses civilian populations as human shields,” also declared Sébastien Lecornu. “Why this question about hospitals, schools? because these are very often infrastructures, equipment which can protect or hide military infrastructures” of Hamas, he also said.
The war was triggered by an attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas on Israeli soil, of a violence and scale unprecedented since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. It left around 1,200 people dead. on the Israeli side, according to official Israeli figures. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli bombings have left more than 11,000 dead, mainly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health which controls the Palestinian territory.