France, UK, Germany call for Gaza ceasefire

Protesters walk behind a banner during a rally calling for a resistance against Israeli brutality in Gaza, in Paris, on Sunday. — AFP photo

French foreign minister Catherine Colonna on Sunday pressed for an ‘immediate and durable’ truce in the Gaza war, saying ‘too many civilians are being killed’ in the Palestinian territory.

Israel has come under growing international pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza, where its war against Hamas militants has killed at least 18,800 people, mostly women and children.

Meeting her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Tel Aviv, Colonna called on all parties to ‘de-escalate’ along the border.

There have been regular cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and armed groups in southern Lebanon, notably the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

She has condemned violence in the West Bank, where more than 290 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October 7.

There are also tensions after a French foreign ministry employee was killed in Gaza by an Israeli strike. Paris demanded Saturday that ‘light be shed’ on the circumstances.

UK foreign minister David Cameron and German counterpart Annalena Baerbock stressed that the ‘need is urgent’ for a ‘sustainable ceasefire’ in Gaza in a joint article for Britain’s Sunday Times.

The two ministers wrote in a joint Sunday Times article that ‘too many civilians have been killed’ in the conflict, and raised the pressure on Israel to bring its operation against Hamas to a swift, but ‘sustainable’, end.

The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday night overwhelmingly demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, but the UK abstained.

UK deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden on Sunday urged Israel to show restraint.

Dozens of journalists took part in a funeral on Saturday for an Al Jazeera cameraman killed in an Israeli strike in the south of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Samer Abu Daqqa’s body, bearing his bullet-proof vest and helmet, was carried through a crowd in the city of Khan Yunis before being buried in a grave dug by fellow journalists.

Abu Daqqa, born in 1978, was reporting from a school in Khan Yunis when he was hit by a drone strike on Friday, said the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television network.

His colleague, Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, was wounded in the same attack. Dahdouh had lost his wife and two children in a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the war.

Dahdouh told AFP the Israeli army ‘deliberately’ targeted journalists in Gaza, adding it ‘does not want the press’.

Three members of the civil defence force were also killed in the strike and their funerals were held on Saturday, AFP correspondents reported.

On Friday, Al Jazeera said it held ‘Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families’.

‘Following Samer’s injury, he was left to bleed to death for over five hours, as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment,’ it said in a statement.

More than 60 journalists and media staff have died since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Saturday the Emirati TV channel Al Mashhad said its correspondent Muhammad Baalousha ‘was injured by an Israeli sniper in the Gaza Strip’, condemning it as an ‘attack on press freedom’.

The channel said in a statement that it was trying ‘to evacuate its correspondent’ after he sustained the gunshot wound.

AFP