Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned French President Emmanuel Macron after he criticised Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank during his address to the UN General Assembly.
“Look at what’s happening in the West Bank, where day in, day out, we are seeing violations. And in the name of what? Hamas was never very active in the West Bank,” Macron said in French, according to the UN’s interpreter.
Netanyahu called the remarks a “grotesque absurdity” and said members of the Palestinian armed group there “carry out attacks against Jews almost every day”.
There was no response from Macron’s office, but one French diplomatic source said there had been a “misinterpretation”.
The source told the Jerusalem Post, external that the meaning of the French sentence spoken by the president, “Le Hamas n’a jamais sévi en Cisjordanie,” was, “Hamas has never governed the West Bank.”
Macron also rejected US President Donald Trump’s assertion that he had ended the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Violence there has continued despite last October’s ceasefire, including almost daily Israeli strikes, while humanitarian conditions remain dire
“Some boast of a supposed peace. But that peace has not reopened humanitarian access for a single second,” he said. “Are we simply to stand by and watch this spectacle that should shame us all?”
After the address, the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement: “The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron’s statement is staggering.”
“On Sunday, the eve of [the Jewish holy day of] Yom Kippur, just two days ago, Netanel Shukrun – a French citizen and father of six – was murdered in his car by a Hamas terrorist in Judea and Samaria,” it added, using a biblical term for the West Bank.
“Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.”
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, also denounced Macron’s remarks as “out of touch with reality”.
Shukrun, 36, was shot dead when a Palestinian opened fire on a group of Israelis at a spring near the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf, according to Israeli police. The suspect was arrested later at a hospital in the city of Ramallah, they said.
Hamas praised the attack but did not say it was behind it.
The group – which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, France and other countries – is a rival of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank that are not under Israeli control.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.
The settlements are illegal under international law.
