During his crisis tour, French President Emmanuel Macron held a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, on Wednesday, October 25, emphasizing the need to reinitiate the Israel-Palestine peace process.
French President Emmanuel Macron met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday and called for a return to the Israel-Palestinian peace process, on the latest leg of a whistle-stop crisis tour.
On Tuesday Macron was in Israel where he voiced support for its retaliation against Hamas after gunmen from the Islamist group unleashed the deadliest attack on Israel in its history on October 7.
Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
In relentless Israeli bombing since, more than 6,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.
In Cairo, Macron said “France does not practice double standards, international law applies to everyone and France has always carried the universal values of humanism”.
He was responding to claims by Arab leaders who have accused Western nations of overlooking harm to Palestinians.
Egypt and Jordan were the first two Arab states to forge relations with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively, and have since played key mediator roles.
Cairo has been one of the main brokers in efforts to secure the release of more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
At their joint news conference, Sisi said he and Macron had discussed “the importance of striving to avoid a ground invasion” of Gaza, because of the “many, many civilian casualties” it could cause.
After more than two weeks of relentless bombardment and siege by Israel, Gaza’s already-fragile healthcare system is at risk of collapsing, with hospitals running out of essential supplies and fuel to power generators.
Macron said on Wednesday that France would be sending a navy ship to support Gaza’s hospitals within the next 48 hours.
France would also send a planeload of medical equipment to Egypt to be transported into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, the only passage in and out of the besieged territory not controlled by Israel.
Sisi on Wednesday called for a de-escalation, ceasefire and return to diplomacy, stressing that “the lack of a political horizon” had led to the current war.
Macron echoed Sisi’s support for a “two-state solution”, the cornerstone of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians that have been stalled for years.
“It is difficult at the moment to talk about the resumption of a peace process,” Macron said, adding however that “it is more necessary than ever”.
Khalil Wakim, with AFP
