French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday urged “respect” for Palestinian Arabs and their neighboring Arab states, rejecting US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which would see Gazans being relocated to neighboring countries while the US takes over the Strip to rehabilitate it.
“You cannot say to two million people, ‘Okay, now guess what? You will move,’” Macron told CNN in an interview.
“The right answer is not a real estate operation, this is a political operation,” he added.
Macron stressed that any effective strategy for rebuilding Gaza “doesn’t mean automatically that you should lack respect to people or countries,” underscoring Gazans’ desire to remain in their homeland, as well as Jordan and Egypt’s refusal to absorb large numbers of Gazan refugees.
In the interview, Macron also commented on his criticism of Israel’s counterterrorism operations in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Macron also twice called for an arms embargo against Israel to stop the conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, saying that "stopping the export of weapons" used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to end fighting there.
“I always reiterated my disagreement with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Macron told CNN. “I don’t believe, once again, that such a massive operation targeting sometimes civilian people is the right answer.”