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France Foreign Minister urges ‘immediate humanitarian truce’ in Gaza war

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called Sunday for an "immediate" humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war as casualties mount in the besieged Gaza Strip.

France Foreign Minister urges 'immediate humanitarian truce' in Gaza war
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna speaks during a joint press conference in Doha on November 5, 2023. Photo: KARIM JAAFAR/AFP.

“An immediate, durable and observed humanitarian truce is absolutely necessary and must be able to lead to a ceasefire,” Colonna told reporters during a visit to Qatar.

“A consensus has been found on this point among the international community,” she said, adding that France was working to have a resolution on a truce to put before the UN Security Council.

Her comments, which came after talks with her Qatari counterpart, follow similar calls for a humanitarian pause by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on his latest tour of the region since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Such pauses were a key focus of Blinken’s talks in Israel on Friday, but the proposal drew short shrift from hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said he would not agree to a “temporary truce” with Hamas until the Islamist group releases more than 240 Israeli and foreign hostages it abducted on October 7.

Since the shock Hamas attack, which Israeli officials say killed 1,400, mostly civilians, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, levelling entire city blocks.

The health ministry in Gaza, the narrow territory under Hamas control since 2007, says more than 9,480 people, mostly women and children, have been killed
in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign.

France, which will host a humanitarian conference on Gaza on Thursday, demanded an Israeli explanation on Friday after a strike on the French Institute cultural centre in Gaza.

Agence France-Presse has also demanded an inquiry after its Gaza bureau was significantly damaged by a separate strike.

“The fight against terrorism must be carried out in conformity with international humanitarian law,” Colonna said.

“It’s an international obligation to protect civilians. Too many of them are dying in strikes on Gaza. Schools, hospitals, humanitarian workers, journalists must in particular be safeguarded.”

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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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