French President Emmanuel Macron demanded a “lasting ceasefire” in Gaza during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, his office said, as an escalating humanitarian crisis grips the Palestinian territory.
“France will work in the coming days in cooperation with Jordan to carry out humanitarian operations in Gaza,” the French presidency added in a statement.
Macron, an ally of Netanyahu since the start of the war triggered by the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, told the Israeli premier of his “deepest concern” about civilian deaths and the humanitarian emergency in Gaza.
He also insisted on the importance of measures to end violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and prevent new planned settlements.
Netanyahu’s office said during the call the prime minister thanked Macron for “France’s involvement in defending freedom of navigation and its willingness to help restore security along Israel’s border with Lebanon”.
Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday warned that the population of Gaza is in “grave peril”, citing acute hunger and desperation throughout the war-torn Palestinian territory.
‘It was a night of hell’: Israel widens offensive with heavy strikes across Gaza
‘It was a night of hell’: Israel widens offensive with heavy strikes across Gaza
The WHO said it delivered supplies to two hospitals on Tuesday, with only 15 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza Strip with any capacity at all.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the international community to take “urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardising the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease”.
In a statement, the WHO said its staff reported that “hungry people again stopped our convoys today in the hope of finding food”.
“WHO’s ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach.”
A suspected Israeli strike on a building near a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Wednesday is reported to have left many dead, with the Jewish state also hitting targets in Lebanon and the West Bank.
A spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health authority spoke of 20 dead and dozens injured in Khan Younis.
The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service wrote on X: “Dozens of martyrs and wounded in the bombing of a residential building in front of al-Amal Hospital”.
The information could not initially be independently verified. An Israeli army spokesperson said that the reports were being investigated.
The health authority of Islamist group Hamas said the deaths meant 195 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza within the past 24 hours.
A spokesman for Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by the European Union and the US, said 16 families were affected, with a further 325 people injured.
Additional reporting by dpa