Francois Hollande Calls for Gaza Demilitarization
Image by getty images
French President Francois Hollande called for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and the easing of Gaza’s blockade.
Hollande’s speech Thursday to the French diplomatic corps was the latest sign that the international community plans to press for demilitarization after the latest war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Reports emerged in Lebanese media on Friday that the United States is pressing for the U.N. Security Council to call for such steps.
The terms of this week’s cease-fire “must be strictly, precisely and rigorously implemented, because Gaza must not remain an armed base for Hamas, nor should it be an open prison for its residents” Hollande said. “We must advance toward a progressive lifting of the blockade and a demilitarization of the territory.”
He outlined French proposals that included international supervision of the destruction of tunnels from Gaza into Israel, reopening crossings between Israel and Gaza and Egypt and giving Hamas’ rival, the Palestinian Authority, the means of rebuilding Gaza.
Hamas officials have said they would resist any steps to demilitarize and have said they planned to re-arm.
In Iran, the head of the Basij, the militia best known for brutally repressing protests after the 2009 election, widely seen as rigged, said this week that Iran would arm Palestinians in the West Bank.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
