ANKARA 

Confronted by a distraught grandmother about the suffering of children in the Gaza Strip, French President Macron resorted to blaming Palestinian group Hamas for Israel’s months of relentless attacks.

In a surprise visit to the coastal city of Marseille – which has a large Muslim population – Macron was caught in the crowd by an older woman, saying she was a grandmother herself, who asked, crying, about the children in Gaza trying to survive under Israeli bombardment, as tens of thousands have been killed since last Oct. 7.

"Something must be done for the Palestinians, in the name of God. Don't let those children die. It’s been almost seven months, I’ve only been crying for seven months. I don’t sleep anymore. They don’t have parents anymore, they don’t have children ... This is carnage. It is carnage," she said, her voice trembling.

The president listened to her and said that France is doing its best.

"But we’re not in the field, we don’t have control over it,” he added. “We called for a cease-fire, we also do humanitarian operations to take care of a maximum of people," he said.

The woman said the people of Gaza should be taken care of, but the Israelis will continue bombarding them.

"It’s been going on for 75 years. It must be stopped," she stressed, evidently referring to the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, when thousands of Palestinians were killed and tens of thousands expelled when the state of Israel was founded.

Macron added that "the current situation was launched by the attack of Hamas, which has a colossal responsibility," referring to Hamas’ Oct. 7 cross-border attack, which killed some 1,200 people, followed by months of Israeli attacks that have killed some 32,000.

He also said: “The right to defend itself does not justify not respecting humanitarian law. That is why we called for a cease-fire to get back to the negotiating table.”

'How long will France turn a blind eye?'

After video of the encounter spread online, left-wing lawmaker Thomas Portes criticized the president on X.

Running down a list of possible counter-measures, he wrote: "Arms embargo? No. Economic sanctions? No. Diplomatic sanctions? No. Emmanuel Macron does nothing to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people. He protects the Israeli state by a silent complicity.”

Earlier, Portes also shared a video of a French-speaking Israeli soldier mocking and insulting Palestinians who were tortured as hostages.

"How long will France turn a blind eye on the French-Israelis engaged along with the criminals of Tsahal (Israeli army) to eradicate the Palestinian population?" the lawmaker asked. "France is an accomplice to genocide."

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack led by Hamas in which nearly 1,200 people were killed.

More than 31,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and over 73,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide, and guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.