French PM says aid boat activists exploiting Gazans for political ends

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou accuses French activists who sailed on a Gaza-bound aid boat of capitalizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political attention.

The activists — who hoped to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in war-torn Gaza — included Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, who is of Palestinian descent.

She is among four French activists still detained in Israel after Israeli forces intercepted the Madleen sailboat and its 12 crew members in international waters off of Gaza earlier this week. The interception followed repeated warnings to the activists against attempting to sail to the Gaza coast.

Another four, who are not French, were also taken into custody. The remaining four, including two French citizens and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately after being banned from Israel for 100 years.

The eight activists who remain in Israeli custody, including Hassan, were detained after they refused to sign paperwork agreeing to leave the country. They are expected to be deported later this week.

“These activists obtained the effect they wanted, but it’s a form of instrumentalization to which we should not lend ourselves,” Bayrou says in the National Assembly, in response to LFI leader Mathilde Panot’s accusation that the prime minister failed to condemn Israel’s actions.

It’s “through diplomatic action, and efforts to bring together several states to pressure the Israeli government, that we can obtain the only possible solution” to the conflict, he adds.

“In no way whatsoever do the gesticulations of Ms. Rima Hassan, her instrumentalization of the suffering of Gazans, help to achieve these goals,” he says.

He says the French consul has visited all four French activists in Israeli detention.