Paris: The “only lever” to stop hostilities in the Middle East is to deprive Israel of weapon supplies, which it uses to continue fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.
“France has called for an end to the export of weapons that are being used in these combat zones. Other leaders here have done the same. We all know that this is the only lever that can stop this [fighting] today,” Macron told a MED9 summit of the EU’s Mediterranean member-states in Cyprus.
He clarified that he did not mean Israel’s complete disarmament, as the country is still subjected to security risks.
On October 7, 2023, the Gaza Strip-controlling Hamas movement attacked Israel, prompting it to retaliate with a ground incursion which ignited the worst escalation of armed conflict in the Palestinian enclave in decades. The Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement has been firing rockets across the border into Israel with a demand that it stop aggression against the Gaza Strip. Iran’s missile attack against Israel earlier this month only escalated the tensions in the region.
On October 1, Israel launched a ground operation against Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, while also continuing to exchange air and rocket strikes with the Shia movement. Leaders around the world sounded alarm this week after the United Nations said its peacekeepers from the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon have repeatedly come under fire in the course of Israel-Hezbollah hostilities.
