France is making an “act of presence”, observes a former colonel

“France has been ambiguous, but like all European states,” laments Peer De Jong, Saturday January 6 on franceinfo, while shipments of humanitarian and health aid were dropped on the Gaza Strip the day before.

In the war between Israel and Hamas, Paris is “act of presence”analyzed Peer De Jong, vice-president of the Themiis institute and former colonel of the marine troops, invited on franceinfo Saturday January 6, while France and Jordan dropped seven tons of humanitarian and health aid on the strip of Gaza, Friday.

franceinfo: This is the first time that France has parachuted aid into Gaza, the Élysée announced. Why now ? What made this possible?

Peer De Jong: Already the overflight authorizations. It is a war zone in which the Israelis are totally dominant in terms of air control and anti-aircraft assets. So you have to have authorization, and I imagine that Israel did not give its agreement like that. So it was relatively long.

Could this be the first stone of an airlift, which is something quite diplomatically difficult to put in place?

I believe the Israelis will never accept. Today, they are on a model that is extremely dominant, extremely destructive. They have no interest in the old model of Gaza surviving, they are eradicating the Hamas system, they are destroying the hundreds of kilometers of tunnels that have been found. So today, their problem is that the population is moving away, moving towards the borders. Ideally, Egypt would have opened its doors, but for now, Gazans are stuck in Gaza.

Can this French action with Jordan change the image of France in Arab countries? A France which was roundly criticized in the first weeks of the conflict.

I do not believe. There is little return with humanitarian actions in general. We will consider that it is normal to help populations. So it is not a political act. We can say that it is an act of presence, but not a political act. Once again, France was ambiguous, but like all European states. The French tended to agree with Israel after October 7 in its action to destroy Hamas. After the problem, it was the destruction that was carried out on the Gazan population, which became unbearable. There, France qualified its remarks, with the organization in Paris on November 9 of a kind of major humanitarian conference with several heads of state. But even today, Israel has a free hand and, pushed by the Americans, will not change its outlook, will not change its course of action and will see the process through to the end. This was also recalled by the Israeli Minister of Defense [qui a dévoilé jeudi son premier plan de “l’après-guerre” dans la bande de Gaza].