![Foreign Minister of France Catherine Colonna speaks to the press during a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the EU Council headquarter in Brussels, Belgium on March 20, 2023. [Dursun Aydemir - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AA-20230320-30625111-30625089-EU_FOREIGN_MINISTERS_MEETING.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has expressed her country’s “deep” concern about the situation in the Gaza Strip while calling for an “immediate and durable truce”.
“Many civilians were killed,” Colonna said during a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, in Tel Aviv yesterday.
A statement released by the French Foreign Ministry before her visit said she would call for a truce, which should “lead to a lasting ceasefire with the aim of releasing all hostages and delivering aid to Gaza”.
Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip has killed over 18,800 Palestinians and wounded 50,897 others, most of them children and women, and caused massive destruction to the enclave’s infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to Palestinian and UN sources.
The actual death toll is expected to be significantly higher as thousands are trapped beneath the rubble, while damage to telecommunications networks has meant that the full extent of Israel’s latest air strikes and shelling cannot be ascertained.
Read: French foreign ministry says worker killed by Israeli attack in Rafah