(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday called for "an immediate cease-fire" in Gaza and said that the deaths of more than 600 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes "cannot be accepted." Speaking on "TF1" television, the Foreign Minister said he had spoken to many regional leaders during his three-day visit to the region last weekend and told all of them a cease-fire was necessary.
"We want (and) we are asking for an immediate cease-fire. There are more than 600 dead on the Palestinian side, 100 of them children. There are dead on the Israeli side. The absolute requirement is a cease-fire," he said.
Asked about the legitimacy of the Israeli attack and whether it was disproportionate, Fabius answered that "the only camp over there is the camp for peace." But he later reacted to the disproportionate casualty rate in Gaza, where the bulk of victims are civilians, many of them women and children.
"It was not acceptable that a country was threatened by rockets and rockets fall on it. But on the other hand, the riposte must be proportionate. 600 dead is obviously something we cannot accept. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that the massacres, the attacks, cease immediately," Fabius declared.
The Foreign Minister took the same position earlier in the day at a European Union meeting of Foreign Ministers in Brussels, when he called for an end to the "massacres" in Gaza.
"Nothing justifies continued attacks and massacres which do nothing except claim more victims and fuel tensions, hatred," Fabius said in Brussels where he was attending EU Foreign Ministers' meeting.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.