PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognising a Palestinian state was "not a taboo for France" in his first such comments since the start of the war in Gaza. "The recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France," he said at a joint press conference in Paris with Jordan's King Abdullah II. His comments come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a plan for international recognition of such a state, following reports of such an initiative in The Washington Post.
The US newspaper reported that US President Joe Biden's administration and a small group of Arab nations were working out a comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It included a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the report said. Macron also repeated a warning against Israel attacking the city of Rafah, the southernmost point in the besieged and bombarded Palestinian territory of Gaza.
"An Israeli offensive in Rafah could only bring about an unprecedented humanitarian disaster and would be a turning point in this conflict," he said.
The latest Gaza war began after Palestinian group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official Israeli figures. Fighters also took about 250 people hostage, around 130 of whom are still in Gaza, according to Israeli figures. Israel says 30 of the remaining captives are presumed dead.
Israel's blistering assault on Gaza since has killed at least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. Fears of mass displacement have mounted with Netanyahu's insistence that troops must push into Rafah to achieve "complete victory" over Hamas. "I share the fears of Jordan and Egypt of mass forced displacement of the population," Macron added. "It would be a new grave violation of international law and present a major risk of escalation for the region," he said.
The Wall Street Journal has reported Egypt is building a walled camp in the Sinai Peninsula to receive Palestinians displaced from the Gaza Strip. The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an Egyptian NGO, released a report this week that it said showed construction of the compound to receive Palestinian refugees "in the case of a mass exodus".
The United Nations has stressed an exodus of Gazans into Egypt must be "avoided at all costs". Macron on Wednesday told Netanyahu that the Gaza death toll was "intolerable" and Israel's "operations" there "must cease", his office said. He stressed that a ceasefire agreement should be reached "without further delay", adding such a deal should "guarantee the protection of all civilians and the massive inflow of emergency aid". He said peace could only be achieved through the "creation of a Palestinian state".
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