France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Thursday confirmed four French nationals who sailed on a Gaza-bound aid boat would be deported back to France on Thursday or Friday.
"I would like to thank our agents for their admirable mobilisation, which enabled this rapid outcome, despite the harassment and defamation to which they were subjected," said Barrot on social media on Thursday.
On Wednesday, France's Prime Minister François Bayrou accused French activists of capitalising on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political attention.
The activists – who hoped to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in war-torn Gaza – included Rima Hassan, a member of European Parliament from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party who is of Palestinian descent.
She was among the four French activists who were detained in Israel, after Israeli forces intercepted the Madleen sailboat operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and its 12 crew members in international waters off the besieged Palestinian territory on Monday.
Another four, who are not French, were also taken into custody.
"These activists obtained the effect they wanted, but it's a form of instrumentalisation to which we should not lend ourselves," Bayrou said in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
"It's through diplomatic action, and efforts to bring together several states to pressure the Israeli government, that we can obtain the only possible solution to the conflict," he added.
The remaining four activists, including two French citizens and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately after being banned from Israel for 100 years.
French left demonstrates in support of Gaza-bound aid boat
'Kidnapped'
On arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, 22-year-old Thunberg accused Israel of "kidnapping us in international waters and taking us against our will to Israel".
"This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing," she said.
The LFI leader in parliament, Mathilde Panot, accused Bayrou of failing to condemn Israel's actions.
France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a UN meeting later this month in New York on steps towards recognising a Palestinian state and reaching a so-called two-state solution to the conflict.
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Barrot told parliament: "The priority in Gaza should be an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, as well as immediate, unimpeded and massive humanitarian aid access to abridge the suffering of civilian populations.
"In no way whatsoever do the gesticulations of Ms Rima Hassan, her instrumentalisation of the suffering of Gazans, help to achieve these goals," he added.
Crime against humanity
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, whose entire population the United Nations has warned is at risk of famine.
On 7 October, 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
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The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the retaliatory Israeli military offensive has killed at least 54,981 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
An independent United Nations commission said on Tuesday that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of seeking to exterminate Palestinians.
"In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination," the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report.
(with AFP)
