
Ana Fontal
1.6K posts

Ana Fontal
@afontal
Film and nature lover. Tweeting mostly on social justice&human rights.Working SOS Børnebyerne. Previously @SOS_Advocates @sos_children @ecre.Views here, my own.










Truly extraordinarily powerful interview of Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, on Gaza. I can't stress enough how rare it is to hear a former French PM speak like this. He says France "no longer has a voice on the international scene", because (among other things) of its "double-standards" and lack of action with regards to Gaza. He calls France's internal silencing of what's happening in Gaza a "real scandal in terms of democracy", making France live in "absurdity" and resulting in it "fading away". He says that we (France and the West in general) would have many levers to stop the war - in terms of armament or economic sanctions - "but we refuse to use these levers with arguments which are absolutely unreal culturally or intellectually speaking. Saying 'we need to let Israel fight its war to the end': but what end? What is the end?". As a consequence he says that France and the West will "foot the bill" for what's happening in terms of loss of credibility and legitimacy. On Gaza specifically he calls it "undoubtedly the biggest historical scandal since... I don't even dare to find a reference", calling it a war "not like the others since it is civilian populations that die". He also rebukes the journalist for using the usual term "according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health" with regards to the number of death: "There's not only the Ministry of Health from Hamas which says that there are 40,000 dead. And there are probably many more, MANY more! So from this basis let's not give the feeling that it would be a number like that, unreliable. No!" Probably the most powerful quote of the interview, literally gave me shivers: "In Gaza bodies are torn into pieces, Hearts are in pieces! Souls are in pieces! Heads are in pieces!" ("À Gaza les corps sont en morceaux! Les coeurs sont en morceaux! Les âmes sont en morceaux! Les têtes sont en morceaux!") He says that ""Israel has no political objective and when you have no political objective the only thing you can do is war... There is a security objective, there is an identity objective, there is a messianic madness and that explains the catastrophe that we're witnessing."











End of May in #Gaza: 🛑 More than 1 million people - most displaced several times- forced to flee once again, in search of safety that they never find. 🛑All of our 36 @UNRWA shelters in #Rafah are empty now. This is where people seek shelter & should be protected at all times under the UN flag. 🛑 @UNRWA had to stop health and other critical services in Rafah. 🛑 We are however committed to stay and deliver for the communities. We are now working from Khan Younis + the middle areas where 1.7 million people are living. 🛑 In Khan Younis, we restarted operations despite damage to all our facilities. 🛑The humanitarian space continues to further shrink: @UNRWA was allowed to pick up just under 450 trucks in the past 3 weeks in support of the humanitarian operation. This is nothing in the face of the needs: at least 600 trucks/ day of commercial, fuel & humanitarian supplies. 🛑Fuel is running short: our teams are standing by to pick it up when the Israeli Authorities give the green light. 🛑 Meanwhile, we received the most horrific photos from the Jabalia Refugee camp in northern #Gaza 👇Thousands of displaced people have no choice but to live amid the rubble & in destroyed @UNRWA facilities. Destruction will bring more destruction, more grief, more anger & more loss to Palestinians & Israelis. All eyes are on the proposal to reach an end to this war through a ceasefire, the release of all hostages + substantial & safe flow of urgently needed supplies into Gaza.

"It's a shocking, heartbreaking and outrageous news." @TDellaLonga, @IFRC Spokesperson talking on @BBCWorld about the killing of two @PalestineRCS colleagues. Since October, we have lost 24 colleagues in this crisis. This is unacceptable and this must stop now.

