‘Gaza war didn’t come out of the blue’: French PM defends Israel in parliament

After far-left lawmaker demands arms export ban, Gabriel Attal tells him: ‘You never say a word about the victims of the Hamas attack, you never talk about hostages’

File: France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal attends a 'national tribute' ceremony to late French politician and admiral, Philippe de Gaulle, son of General de Gaulle, at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
File: France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal attends a 'national tribute' ceremony to late French politician and admiral, Philippe de Gaulle, son of General de Gaulle, at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal came to Israel’s defense during a parliamentary session on Wednesday, resoundingly condemning the Hamas terror group and its supporters when asked if Paris would consider banning arms exports to Israel in light of the war in Gaza.

The question was presented to Attal by lawmaker Frédéric Mathieu of the far-left La France Insoumise, whose members Attal chastised for apparently asking the same thing at each Prime Minister’s Questions session.

“Before answering your question, I want to remind you — and I deplore and regret that it is necessary to do so each time in response to questions from La France Insoumise — that the dramatic situation being experienced in Gaza follows an absolutely vile, barbaric terrorist attack committed by Hamas on Israeli soil,” said Attal, who is of Jewish descent on his father’s side.

“Listening to you and your interruptions, it is as if the idea for Israel to operate in Gaza just came out of the blue one morning,” Attal continued.

“You never say a word about the victims of the Hamas attack. You never talk about our hostages, who are still being held — today in Gaza there are three French hostages,” Attal said before being cut off by applause from lawmakers agreeing with his statement.

Israel’s war with Hamas began on October 7 with the shock Hamas terror assault in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were slaughtered, most of them civilians, and 253 were seized as hostages. Of that number, 129 remain in Gaza six months later, and the IDF has confirmed the deaths of 34 of those who are still there.

Frédéric Mathieu of the far-left La France Insoumise speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the French Parliament, April 10, 2024. (Screenshot: X, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Addressing not only the nature of the question but also the facts presented as evidence to support introducing an arms ban on Israel, Attal slammed Mathieu: “Week after week, month after month, while the minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu has systematically responded to your questions, you continue to relay false information.”

Reminding him that in 2022, France’s exports to Israel made up just 0.2 percent of the country’s total exports, Attal told Mathieu that those sales are “essentially components that serve the Israeli defense system’s Iron Dome, to protect its own people.”

“That’s the reality. Sébastien Lecornu has repeated it many times,” Attal added.

Nonetheless, left-wing activists and politicians have intensified their calls for an Israel arms embargo, claiming that the IDF is using French weapons to commit war crimes in Gaza.

File: France’s Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu in Beirut on November 2, 2023. (Anwar Amro/AFP)

In March, investigative websites Disclose and Marsactu reported that the Marseille-based firm Eurolinks had sold Israel M27 links, metal pieces used for machine gun ammunition.

Such ammunition “could have been used against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” the investigative outlets claimed.

The reporting was supported by photos of the links that they said were taken on October 23.

However, Lecornu told reporters in Paris that Eurolinks’ license to export to the Israeli firm IMI Systems “only covers re-export to third countries,” rather than use by the Israeli army.

A recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which studies conflicts and arms, found that 69% of Israel’s arms purchases come from US firms, 30% from Germany and 0.9% from Italy.

Only one helicopter in the Israeli Air Force was built by France’s Airbus Helicopters.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, through which Israel has vowed to defeat Hamas and eradicate it from the Strip, the Hamas health ministry has claimed that more than 33,000 people have been killed — a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has come under pressure from its allies in recent weeks in light of the increasingly dire circumstances for Gaza’s civilian population. The United Nations and other international bodies have warned of looming famine in northern Gaza, while the US has said that 100% of Gazans are suffering from acute food insecurity as the humanitarian operation has collapsed amid the fighting.

Earlier this week, France’s foreign minister said that pressure, and possibly sanctions, must be imposed on Israel in order to push it to increase the amount of humanitarian aid that enters the Palestinian enclave each day.

He walked back his remarks a day later, however, saying that there is no immediate plan to impose sanctions.

AFP contributed to this report.

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