Gaza: Mr. Macron, what more do you need to ACT?
Mr. President of the Republic
Elysee Palace
55 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris
On December 8, 2023,
Ref no.: 58-23
Subject: Gaza: Mr. Macron, what more do you need to ACT?
Mr. President of the Republic,
It has been two months since death and terror fell on Gaza and its people. Two months that Israel, with complete impunity, has deliberately targeted and massacred civilians whom it itself has locked up for 16 years in a closed-air prison now transformed into an open-air mass grave.
Two months that people all over the world are demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In Gaza, people don’t just die from bombings, hunger and thirst are also weapons of war. We also die from lack of care, from bleeding out, from pain during amputation without anesthesia. Caesarean sections are also performed without anesthesia. All this is documented and denounced by all the humanitarian NGOs present on site, on radio waves and television channels.
Two months and a terrible toll. Before the short truce, the daily death toll was 300 to 350, since then it has been 500. According to Euro-Med Human Right Monitor (EHRM), Israel has intensified the complete destruction of residential areas with an escalation of massacres of civilians by Israel : a vast bombing campaign that targets both displaced people and civilian infrastructure: schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, bakeries, water tanks, even ambulances.
Former French officer Guillaume Ancel estimates that the number of deaths is between 20,000 and 30,000. This corresponds to the figures given by EHRM on December 5: 22,731 deaths (90% are civilians and 70% are women and children) , more than 46,000 injured, including more than 5,000 disabled.
Seventy-five journalists were murdered, a particularly high number, it is clearly a question of killing the witnesses to all these horrors; 70% of the buildings are destroyed. One million eight hundred and forty thousand people have been displaced one, two, three, four times and find themselves in extremely precarious situations, forced to move under bombardment to increasingly small “secure” areas which are only a decoy to mask Israel’s intention to permanently expel from their land those who are not murdered. UN humanitarian agencies speak of apocalyptic conditions, “people have nothing, this must stop”.
Antonio Guterres called on Wednesday December 7 for a humanitarian ceasefire.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks of the utter and growing horror of an increased risk of atrocity crimes being committed in such catastrophic humanitarian circumstances. He said: “Measures must be taken urgently by both concerned parties and all States, particularly those with influence, to prevent such crimes.”
Joseph Borell calls on European states to support Antonio Guterres.
Will these “states that have influence” finally act? Does France have influence?
Euro-Med Human Right Monitor underlines that Israel is committing crimes of Genocide in the Gaza Strip and clearly violating the principles of international humanitarian law and the law of war regarding the protection of civilians whose targeting is unjustifiable in all circumstances.
A genocide cannot be observed in silence, it stops! Doing nothing and letting it happen when you are a head of state is complicity and having a share of responsibility in this genocide.
Mr Macron, you already bear a great responsibility in the current situation by having provided, for so many years, and reiterated in October your unconditional support for Israel, it is now time to act and stop this massacre, this requires an immediate ceasefire, the protection of the Palestinian people, sanctions against Israel, like those you were able to take against Russia and support for the International Criminal Court. Faced with an ongoing genocide, we cannot do things “at the same time”.
Please accept, Mr. President of the Republic, the expression of our highest consideration.
Anne Tuaillon
President of the AFPS
