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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
France: Deplore Israeli incursion in Gaza Strip "not going to get involved in a discussion on what motivated it"

(Paris, May 30, 2006)

www.ambafrance-us.org/news/briefing/daily_pb.asp

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We deplore the Israeli incursion into Gaza, a territory under the control of
the Palestinian Authority. We call on the Palestinian Authority to take all
necessary measures to stop the firing of rockets into Israeli territory. We
call upon the two parties to put a halt to all violence and to restore calm
and restraint.

Q - Israel invoked the right to intervene preventively. What is France's
interpretation of this justification to intervene in Gaza with such
violence?

We note first of all that this Israeli incursion was the first land
operation since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year. As we say in the
statement I've just made, Gaza is a territory under the control of the
Palestinian Authority. We therefore deplore this Israeli operation. I'm not
going to get involved in a discussion on what motivated it. What's important
is for the Palestinian Authority to take all measures to avoid the firing of
rockets from Gaza into Israeli territories and for both sides to show
restraint.

Q - An Israeli minister announced that he was asking three Hamas deputies
and one minister, the minister of Jerusalem, to resign from Parliament and
from the government under the threat of expulsion and a ban on their living
in Jerusalem. Do you have any reaction?

We saw that announcement and are waiting to see what happens. On the French
side, we are very attached to the compliance with texts governing the status
of Jerusalem and are equally concerned with the protection of the civil
rights of Arab residents of Jerusalem. We remain opposed to any measure that
prejudges the final status of the city, which should result from
negotiations between the parties. [.]

Q - Has anything been decided in Brussels about aid to the Palestinians?

The Council will meet in June. It was decided last time that the Commission
would make proposals. It is working on them in conjunction with other bodies
or organizations, notably the World Bank, since one of the ideas is that the
fiduciary fund would be run by the World Bank. We are waiting for the
Commission's proposals. Technical meetings have taken place. We hope all
this moves rather quickly because it is urgent to establish this mechanism.

Q - In other words, thus far all European aid remains blocked?

Not everything is blocked; Many things were in fact already under way just
before the suspension. We mustn't have too dark a vision of things. A lot of
the aid was already en route. What's being suspended for now is a hundred
million euros. Once again, we shouldn't assume that no aid will be disbursed
in 2006; that would be wrong.

Q - In spite of that, there's been talk about this fund, and about a
solution, for weeks now. We can deploy emergency means for Indonesia, which
of course are well deserved, but for a situation like Gaza, there's no way
to deploy emergency means while we await the Commission's decision one way
or another?

We are well aware of the urgency of the situation. Most recently, there was
a World Bank report in early May that described the situation and showed how
things were indeed very troubling in different areas, including health and
education, and we are convinced of the need to do something. Once again, the
EU had already disbursed a certain number of credits before the suspension.
Humanitarian aid isn't affected by this suspension. Moreover, we are
pressuring the various parties to consider these humanitarian aspects. When
the foreign minister went to Israel, for example, he pleaded with the
Israeli government to disburse frozen funds. You saw that the Israelis
decided to unfreeze part of those funds. But we agree on the fact that it is
urgent to put this mechanism into effect. It was France that proposed it.
But the EU must make more specific proposals now, and it must be done
quickly.

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