Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday as part of his diplomatic visit to France and Germany, where he also met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The Knesset speaker met privately with the French president. The meeting dealt with the continuation of fighting in the Gaza Strip, with an emphasis on the operation expected to take place against the Hamas battalions in Rafah, the humanitarian aid that Israel provides, the possibility of a military operation against Hezbollah in the North, and Iran’s threats to act against Israel.
Ohana explained the current situation to Macron and requested that he continue to stand by the State of Israel as he did immediately after the Hamas terrorist attack.
The Knesset speaker stressed to the French president that “there is no scenario in which Israel refrains from dealing with the four Hamas battalions in Rafah. Otherwise, this would mean that Hamas is left in Gaza so that it can repeatedly carry out October 7 attacks, as they have thus far declared” that they will.
“There is an operative plan to evacuate the population from the area while also worrying about humanitarian issues,” he said, “just as we did in the north of the Gaza Strip when the fighting first started.”
Regarding the issue of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, Ohana said: “If there is hunger in Gaza – it is in the tunnels with our hostages. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has brought hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid into the Strip – food, medicine, and more, and this despite the protest and opposition of many” in Israel.
“That’s why the claims that Israel does not bring in aid are absurd. So far, over 20,000 trucks carrying 417,000 tons of aid have entered the Strip,” he said. “In some cases, Hamas robs them from its citizens using violence.”
Macron and Ohana speak about looming threat of Iranian attack
Ohana told Macron that “the proposal to impose sanctions on Israel – as well as the proposed UN resolution for a ceasefire without the release of the hostages or unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state – play into the hands of Hamas.” Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya “Sinwar, who inflicted the greatest horror on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, is watching the media, rejoicing and saying to himself: ‘I won. I will accept the ceasefire, even without paying the price of releasing the hostages.’”
In their conversation, Ohana also referred to the Iranian issue and noted that: “We are approaching the moment of truth vis-à-vis Iran. The free world must not allow Iran to exit the war as it entered it.“The ayatollah regime – which, even now, continues its threats to attack Israel – is not only Israel’s enemy but the enemy of the free world; we all share the values of freedom – freedom for women, freedom for LGBT people, freedom of speech even for government opponents. What is the status of these rights and freedoms in Iran? What are the values that the ayatollahs’ rule represents?” he asked.“In the Middle East, the State of Israel is the state that represents the values of the free world,” Ohana said. “The rule of the ayatollahs is the enemy of the values of freedom and the enemy of peace that Israel worked to achieve with Arab countries – something that Hamas tried to stop on October 7. The history books are being written as we speak. The whole world is watching the clash of civilizations approaching us, and at this moment, we must decide: how do we want our countries to be – and how will we remember them?”As for the possibility of opening up a northern front, the Knesset speaker noted: “Those who are disturbed by the possibility of an all-out war should do one thing – get Hezbollah to move away from the border in order to remove the threat to the safety and security of the residents of the North. No citizen in France would agree to live under such a threat – the same is true in Israel. This reality will change through diplomatic and military means or a combination of the two.”Additionally, on Tuesday, Ohana met with the French Senate President Gérard Larcher, and National Assembly of France President Yaël Braun-Pivet. Knesset Deputy Speaker Hanoch Milwidsky and Knesset member Sharon Nir, both members of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, also joined the meetings. Also present were Eilat and Yair Samrano, the mother and brother of Yonatan Samrano, who was kidnapped and murdered on October 7 by Hamas from the Nova party at Re’im.