Stop killing women and babies in Gaza, Macron tells Israel

Sky News
Updated Sat, 11 November 2023 


Israel is facing mounting international pressure - including from its main ally - to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The number of people killed in the Gaza Strip in the past five weeks now stands above 11,000, according to health officials in the territory.

Israeli forces have been waging war on Hamas militants who carried out a deadly rampage in southern Israel on 7 October.

Israel initially said more than 1,400 people were killed in the Hamas attack but the figure has since been revised down to around 1,200.

Follow latest: 'Thousands' flee Gaza's largest hospital after 'intense violence' nearby

In his strongest comments to date on the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire, US secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to India: "Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks."

But Mr Blinken reaffirmed his country's support for Israel's campaign to ensure that Gaza can no longer be used "as a platform for launching terrorism".

It comes as French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing women and babies.

Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Mr Macron said France "clearly condemns" the "terrorist" actions of Hamas, but also recognises Israel's right to protect itself.

"We do urge them to stop this bombing" in Gaza, he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also said his country is prepared to take injured Palestinians from Gaza, as hospitals in the enclave report being overrun.

In London, a pro-Palestinian march will take place later today. It is the latest in a series of protests and has attracted headlines after Home Secretary Suella Braverman dubbed them "hate marches" due to a small minority of participants chanting inciteful slogans.

This weekend's march is complicated further by it falling on Armistice Day.

How Israel has responded

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders should be condemning Hamas, not Israel.

"These crimes that Hamas (is) committing today in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York, and anywhere in the world," Mr Netanyahu said.

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Israel has said it does not aim its attacks at civilians and tries to protect them, and that Hamas militants have hidden command centres and tunnels underneath hospital buildings.

BIBI LIES
Netanyahu accuses US college protesters of ‘lining up with baby burners, rapists and head-choppers

NO EVIDENCE OF HEAD CHOPPING


David Millward
Fri, 10 November 2023 

Benjamin Netanyahu described the campus protests as an indictment of higher education in the West - Abir Sultan/Pool European Pressphoto Agency

Benjamin Netanyahu has accused US college protesters of “lining up with baby burners and rapists”.

Speaking on Fox News, the Israeli prime minister launched a withering attack on those who have joined the wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at American campuses.

“They’re lining up with Isis, with al-Qaeda, with these baby murderers, these rapists, these head-choppers,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“We have to protect our future and can our world survive if people go with such moral confusion and moral depravity?

‘We have to defeat evil’

“It’s an indictment of higher education in the West when highly educated people cannot distinguish between right and wrong, and between good and evil.

“Hamas is evil and we have to defeat evil, not protest and demonstrate on behalf of evil.”

In the same interview, Mr Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“A ceasefire with Hamas means surrender to Hamas and surrender to terror,” he added.

Senior politicians in Israel have been alarmed by the rising tide of anti-Semitism on US campuses.

Students at a campus protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza in Washington DC - Anadolu

Earlier this week, Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, wrote to 700 US colleges and universities calling for action.

In the latest incident, slogans that have been linked to anti-Semitism were beamed on to buildings at the University of Pennsylvania.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” read one message lit up against the John M Huntsman hall.

University president Liz Magill said there had been anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas, daubed on campus buildings.

At another campus, a woman was filmed on social media calling somebody a “f----- k--e” at another pro-Palestinian demonstration.

And at Cornell University, an Ivy League institution in upstate New York, a student has been charged with threatening to shoot and stab Jews online.

Elsewhere, a Jewish prayer meeting at Towson University in Maryland was disrupted when students wrote “f--- the Jews” on a blackboard.

At Cooper Union, a private college in New York City, Jewish students took shelter in a library as pro-Palestinian demonstrators banged on doors and windows.

In California, the all-Democrat Legislative Jewish Caucus said students had been harassed and assaulted at campuses across the state.

Jewish students in San Diego needed a police escort to leave a meeting in safety and a faculty member at UC Davis called for violence against Zionists in their homes and their children in school.

The caucus said Jewish students “do not feel seen or heard, nor do they feel safe and protected”.

The wave of sympathy for Hamas on US campuses has attracted the attention of Israeli satirists, with a scathing sketch on the programme Eretz Nehederet, which translates to “A Wonderful Country”.

It shows two “right-on” students chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” before ripping down posters of hostages held by Hamas, which they call Zionist propaganda.

One of the hosts denies he is anti-Semitic, insisting instead that he is “racist fluid”. The sketch, which also featured a gun-toting “bestie freedom fighter” has gone viral with almost 700,000 views.
Jewish students jostled on campus

At Harvard, within four days of the Hamas attacks which killed 1,400 people, a coalition of 34 student organisations issued a statement holding Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.

Jewish students have also been jostled on campus and complained of feeling intimidated by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Harvard Hillel, a Jewish society, has called for the university to act.

“We know first-hand that our campus community is safest, and our students are best supported when leaders in university administration and student organisations speak out unequivocally against violent hate,” it said in a statement.

“In our continued conversations with Harvard leadership, we will emphasise the need to forcefully condemn anti-Semitism and this heinous terrorist attack. As we do so, the needs of our students are top of mind.”