France sends naval aid to Gaza as Egypt urges ground invasion avoidance

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced on Wednesday that his country would dispatch a naval vessel to assist Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals in the face of Israel's ongoing bombardment and blockade. 

Macron revealed that the ship would depart from Toulon within the next 48 hours, with the primary mission of providing vital support to Gaza's healthcare facilities. He shared this decision during a joint press conference in Cairo, held alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Moreover, France would also be sending a plane loaded with essential medical supplies to Egypt, which would then facilitate the transport of these crucial materials into the embattled Palestinian territory.

In an environment marked by escalating hostilities between Israel and Hamas, President al-Sisi, during the press conference, expressed the urgent need to prevent a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that such an incursion would inevitably result in a high number of civilian casualties. President al-Sisi underscored that over 6,000 civilian fatalities had already been reported in connection with the Israeli strikes, and alarmingly, nearly half of those casualties were children.

Macron's visit to Egypt followed his recent stop in Israel, where he expressed support for the Israeli military's retaliatory actions against Hamas. On October 7, Hamas militants carried out the deadliest attack in Israel's history, targeting southern areas of the country and resulting in the loss of more than 1,400 lives, the majority of whom were civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

In the weeks since this initial attack, a relentless campaign of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, under the control of Hamas, has led to the tragic deaths of over 6,500 individuals, the majority of whom were civilians, as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the Palestinian territory. Additionally, during his tour, Macron visited the occupied West Bank for discussions with Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.