UPDATED: France’s Macron demands justice after shooting of Palestinians in Gaza

PARIS, March 1(Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday he was angered by the shooting of more than 100 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza and demanded “truth and justice” regarding the role of Israeli soldiers in the incident.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces on Thursday shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery. Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.

“Deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers. I express my strongest condemnation of these shootings and call for truth, justice, and respect for international law,” Macron said in a post on X.

He said it was imperative for an immediate ceasefire in the war to be put in place.

Speaking on France Inter radio on Friday, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said Paris would back the United Nations’ call for an independent investigation.

“The humanitarian situation has been catastrophic for several weeks now and what happened is indefensible and unjustifiable. Israel needs to be able to hear it and it needs to stop,” Sejourne told France Inter.

“We have gone a step further, people are fighting for food and there are riots. I heard the request from the Secretary General of the United Nations to open an independent investigation and I think that France will support this,” Sejourne said.

WHITE HOUSE SAYS AID INCIDENT IS ‘ALARMING’ AND ‘TRAGIC’

The White House said Biden discussed the “tragic and alarming incident” with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, as well as ways to secure the release of Israeli hostages and a six-week ceasefire.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was an “ugly massacre” by Israel, and French foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said Israel was responsible under international law for protecting aid distribution to civilians.

One video shared on social media, whose location Reuters was able to verify, showed trucks loaded with many dead bodies as well as wounded people.

Another, which Reuters could not verify, showed bloodstained people being carried in a truck, bodies wrapped in shrouds and doctors treating injured patients on the hospital floor.

“We don’t want aid like this. We don’t want aid and bullets together. There are many martyrs,” a man said in one of the videos.

The Pentagon expressed alarm but declined to assign any blame. “These are human beings that are trying to feed themselves” Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a news briefing. “We’re all kind of looking at that and saying: ‘What happened here’?”.

PALESTINIAN DEATH TOLL TOPS 30,000

The Palestinian health authorities said 30,035 Palestinians were now confirmed killed and more than 70,000 wounded in Israel’s offensive, launched after the Oct. 7 attack in which Israel said Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people and abducted 253.

Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes at least once.

Aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been sparse and chaotic, passing through more active military zones to an area where the U.N. says many are starving, with videos showing desperate crowds surging around supply trucks.

U.N. and other relief agencies have complained that Israel has blocked or restricted their attempts to get aid in. Israel denies putting any restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, told reporters in Jerusalem that the supply of aid into Gaza as a whole had halved since January.