FRENCH MFA CATHERINE COLONNA TRAVELS TO LEBANON, ISRAEL &PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

USPA NEWS - French Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement over the trip of Mrs Catherine Colonna, Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Middle East (Trip by Ms. Catherine Colonna to Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories) amid the Israelo-Palestinain conflict, on 16/17th December.
The French top Diplomat is asking Israel for a cease fire.
We publish this statement as it was delivered. ""The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Ms Catherine Colonna, will visit Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories on December 16 and 17. The minister will provide her interlocutors with an update on French action structured around the three humanitarian, security and political pillars of the President of the Republic's Initiative for Peace and Security for All.

In Lebanon, the minister's visit is part of France's efforts to avoid a regional conflagration. The minister will recall France's attachment to the sovereignty and integrity of Lebanon and will underline the urgency of full implementation of resolution 1701 and the end of the institutional vacancy in Lebanon. The minister will meet in particular with Najib Mikati, President of the Council of Ministers of the Lebanese Republic as well as with the head of mission and commander of UNIFIL, General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz.

In Israel, the minister will reaffirm France's solidarity with the Israeli people and our attachment to their security. She will have meetings with her counterpart Minister Eli Cohen as well as Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. She will meet the families of the missing French people, to assure them of France's support and its total mobilization with a view to their release. It will call for a new immediate and lasting humanitarian truce, which must lead to a lasting ceasefire, in order to obtain the release of all the hostages still held by Hamas, and to provide the population of Gaza with the aid they need. she needs it urgently. It will also demonstrate France's full commitment to the fight against sexual and gender-based violence and its strongest condemnation of this violence, particularly that perpetrated on October 7 by Hamas terrorists. The minister will recall the need to avoid a regional conflagration.

In the Palestinian Territories, the minister will meet with her counterpart, Minister Riyad Malki, to reiterate France's support for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank and its mobilization to respond to the humanitarian emergency in Gaza, in a lasting manner. She will discuss with her interlocutors the future governance of Gaza and the political perspectives for a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She will meet in the West Bank with actors on the front line facing attacks by extremist settlers, who are undermining these prospects for peace.
France recalls its constant commitment to promoting a just and lasting peace within the framework of the two-State solution." Source: French Ministry Foreign Affairs