PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said France is sending a navy ship to “support” hospitals in the Gaza Strip, which are struggling to function due to the lack of fuel and medical supplies.
The ship is set to leave the French coastal city of Toulon “in the next 48 hours,” Macron said Wednesday as he pledged that France would be “fully involved in securing access to medicines and care” for the people in the Gaza Strip. According to French channel BFMTV, the ship is a French helicopter carrier called the Tonnerre.
Speaking alongside the Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the French president pushed back against accusations that France had “double-standards” in its approach to Israel’s war against Hamas.
“International law applies to everyone and France carries the universal values of humanism,” he said in Cairo, on the second day of a whirlwind tour of the Near East, where he visited Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.
France is also sending a plane with medical equipment to Egypt with supplies which will then be transferred to Gaza.
A small amount of aid has been let into the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing in recent days, after Israel announced “a complete siege” of Gaza following the attacks perpetrated by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.
