French president Emmanuel Macron says Europe is ready to “work in parallel” with a US-led Gaza peace deal that offers “great hope” for Israeli hostages and their families, Gaza and the wider Middle East.
At a Thursday afternoon peace conference in Paris, attended by western and Arab diplomats, Mr Macron praised the efforts of US president Donald Trump for an agreement that could “end the war and begin a political solution based on the two-state solution”.
Mr Macron had blunt words for both sides in the conflict, urging Israel to adopt that plan to “allow Israeli people have another perspective ahead of them instead of permanent war”.
Other impediments to a lasting regional peace must also be removed, he said, warning that Israel’s acceleration of West Bank settlements “goes against the Trump plan and has nothing to do with Hamas”.
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Meanwhile, “buy-in” from the Palestinian side, Mr Macron added, would only be acceptable with the complete exclusion of Hamas, which carried “responsibility for this disaster”.
“We need to give back dignity and security to this ravaged and burned land that is Gaza today,” added Macron.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni praised the overnight agreement as “extraordinary news” and praised Mr Trump’s “relentless pursuit” of a peace deal.
Like other leaders, she underlined her country’s willingness to help with “stabilisation, reconstruction and development of Gaza” without going into details.
“I urge all parties to fully respect the measures already agreed upon and to work to swiftly implement the next steps envisaged in the peace plan,” she added.
Ms Meloni, Mr Macron and other European leaders lavished praise on the backroom mediation efforts of officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his “sincere gratitude to President Trump, who demonstrated the necessary political will to encourage the Israeli government toward the ceasefire”.
He promised Turkey would closely monitor the strict implementation of the agreement and continue to contribute to the process.
British prime minister Keir Starmer spoke of “a moment of profound relief” that will be felt all around the world.
“But particularly for the hostages, their families, and for the civilian population of Gaza, who have all endured unimaginable suffering over the last two years,” he added.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz, mindful of previous failed deals, described the overnight agreement as “a real prospect of peace in the region for the first time in a long while”.
It fell to Russian president Vladimir Putin to lace political reactions with a shot of scepticism on Thursday, saying he hoped the Trump initiative “will actually be realised in practice”.
The agreement came hours after European countries marked the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7th, 2023.
In session on Wednesday, Spanish MPs voted 178-169 to ratify a total arms embargo on Israel, banning the sale of weapons, military equipment and dual-use technology.
Even in Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest allies in Europe, a palpable shift took place in a Berlin parliamentary debate marking the October 7th attacks.
Foreign minister Johann Wadephul said Germany’s Holocaust past gave it a “historical responsibility” to make a distinction between “responsibility for the security of Jews in our country and the existence and security of the state of Israel, regardless of the respective government’s politics”.
Mr Wadephul was even more outspoken in an interview with the Bild tabloid, suggesting hardening of German public opinion towards Israel had, in part, to do with Jerusalem’s “unwise foreign policy”.
At the Paris conference on Thursday, Mr Wadephul said Germany and Egypt had agreed to hold the first conferences to rebuild Gaza.
