Emmanuel Macron.
The images of the skeletal and denutrite children of Gaza fill the front pages of the world press. “The UN warns: the people in Gaza are street corpses”, holds the Spanish newspaper today El Pais. “Gaza, hunger”, headlines the French Libération Showing the photo of a child from behind with the protruding shoulder blades and the spine and the ribs in relief. Also the Israeli newspaper Haaretzalways the most critical against the extremist government of Netanyahu, underlines the “strong increase” of Gaza children who suffer from malnutrition.
The United Nations Office for the coordination of humanitarian aid has published a new report according to which in July the number of children malnourished in Gaza has increased by 8.8 percent. The Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by Hamas, reveals that so far the starving children in Gaza are 111.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that much of the population of Gaza is “starving”. “I don’t know how to define it if not mass famine, and it is caused by man,” said the general manager of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In a declaration issued on Thursday, the UNRWA Commissioner General (the United Nations Agency for the rescue and occupation of the Palestinian refugees) Philippe Lazzarini mentioned a colleague who told him: “People in Gaza are neither live nor death, they are street corpses”. “Most of the children that our teams are visiting are hematic, weak and at high risk of death if they do not receive the treatments they urgently need,” said Lazzarini, imploring Israel to “allow humanitarian partners to bring humanitarian assistance without restrictions and without interruptions to Gaza”. According to Lazzarini, the UNRWA operators “sell more and more often for hunger while they are working” and added: “When the assistants cannot find enough food, the entire humanitarian system collapses”.
In an interview al Corriere della Sera Stefano Pizial, general manager of Cesvi (the humanitarian organization founded in Bergamo 40 years ago) also denounces that their cooperating in Gaza “do not eat enough” and are “too weak to work full time”. “I have never seen anything like that,” Piziali underlines.
The cover of Famiglia Cristiana on the Gaza massacre.
In this context of humanitarian crisis and impasse of diplomacy, the pressure of the international community on the Israeli government grows. French President Emmanuel Macron has announced an important gesture: the recognition of the Palestinian state by France. Thursday 24 July the French consul in Jerusalem, Nicolas Kassianides, handed over to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian authority, the letter with which Macron announces his decision: in September “France will proceed to the full recognition of Palestine as a state”.
As the newspaper explains Mondion Monday 28 July, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot It will have the task of formalizing the presidential promise to the UN Tribune, during a conference aimed at promoting the solution of the two states, copresied by France and Saudi Arabia. Paris will take advantage of this international summit to try to involve other capital in its cause and exercise pressure on Israel so that he urgently send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Macron’s announcement caused the predictable hysterical reaction of the Israeli government. “A move of the genre rewards terrorism and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as it happened with Gaza. A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launching pad to annihilate Israel, not to live in peace by his side”, I scream Netanyahu, who then adds: “We are clear: the Palestinians do not want a state next to Israel, they want a state of Israel.” The most extremist Israeli ministers claimed that the most appropriate reaction would be to annex the territory on which the Palestinians hope to found their future state.
“I thank President Macron for having provided another convincing reason to finally apply Israeli sovereignty on the historical regions of Judea and Samaria and to definitively abandon the bankruptcy concept of establishing a Palestinian terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel”, wrote the Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a tweet in English.
The United States also “firmly” reject the Emmanuel Macron project to recognize a Palestinian state, while Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait welcome this decision.
To date, 148 of the 193 UN member countries officially recognize the state of Palestine. In May 2024 Spain, Ireland and Norway made official recognition, followed in June by Slovenia and Armenia.
