A delegation of French elected officials, mainly from the left, called on Saturday February 3 for a ceasefire in Gaza, on the eve of entering the Palestinian enclave itself to go to Rafah, town of south target of Israeli strikes where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.
“We demand a permanent and immediate lasting ceasefire”, declared La France Insoumise (LFI) MP Eric Coquerel during a press conference in Cairo, where the fifteen elected officials are stopping off before joining Rafah on Sunday. It brings together LFI deputies and senators, environmentalists, communists and overseas. “We came in a spirit of friendship for all the peoples of the region”continued the elected official, who has been working on this trip since December.
He highlighted the ” context “ of their displacement, a week after the International Court of Justice called Israel to “take all measures in its power to prevent” acts that could fall under the United Nations Genocide Convention. He also cited the “massive bombings in Rafah”and deplored the situation in the West Bank where “a humanitarian health disaster is underway”.
Support for UNRWA
“We were all horrified by the hostage-taking (…) and we share the wait and the anguish of the families who remain without news”, since the October 7 attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, also declared Soumya Bourouaha (French Communist Party). But “These massacres cannot justify this collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian people”.
The Delegation “made a point of meeting UNRWA agents to give them our support”, according to Eric Coquerel. The funding of this UN agency for Palestinian refugees has been threatened since Israel accused twelve of its 30,000 regional employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.
The leader of LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, demonstrated on Saturday in front of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva to demand a “ceasefire”. The war caused an exodus of the population towards the south. More than 1.3 million residents are refugees in Rafah, according to the UN. The Israeli defense minister assured that the city was the next objective.