President Isaac Herzog said: “This war is a war against a lunatic terrorist organisation, similar to ISIS, which led a sick, barbaric, sadistic campaign on 7th October. Since then, every day we learn of the never-ending tragedies and pain.
“This attack has nothing to do with the issues of the dispute between us and the Palestinians, this was born out of an extreme fundamentalist view within the Islamic world, a jihadist view that does not believe in any Western liberal ideas, and does not recognise the existence of the Jewish people here in their country, and if we were not here, Europe would be next.
“You see it yourself, when teachers are beheaded in France in the Twenty-First Century, it is clear that there is some kind of perverse school of thought that needs to be firmly eradicated.
“And I’m not talking about the entire Muslim community for which I have a lot of respect, I have much respect for the religion of Islam.
“We are fighting a war for the entire Western world, the entire free world.
“This is a war we didn’t want, it was forced upon us, and it was forced upon us by burning our citizens, cutting off their heads, raping our wives and daughters, and kidnapping our children and elders.
“We are under attack also by psychological warfare that requires us to continue to apply pressure to bring our hostages back. Israel made it clear that it is ready for a humanitarian truce and the continuation of humanitarian aid to Gaza to allow the return of the hostages.
“We are working to facilitate a dramatic increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza from the very first moment. We can enable the entry of 300 or even 400 trucks a day, this is tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid a day.
“Unfortunately, due to a decisive failure of the UN in its work with other partners in the region, they are unable to bring in more than 125 trucks a day.
“Meaning, today it is possible to provide three times the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza if the UN, instead of complaining all day, would do its job.
“We are with you in the firm line you have taken against antisemitism all over the world, including in France. We need to eradicate and fight this phenomenon without mercy. Unfortunately, it always starts with the Jews and never ends with the Jews.”
President of the Senate, Gerard Larcher said: “Mr. President, first of all I would like to say thank you for hosting me and all the representatives of the various political parties who are here, and we all have the same feelings and full solidarity with you, following what happened on 7th October.
“The pictures of the hostages on display here stir our conscience and raise the need to see the release all the hostages, including the three French abductees, who of course have a connection to Israel, but also to France.
“What all the representatives here have in common is that we all think that what happened on October 7th was an event of unusual intensity.
“We are all engaged in the fight against antisemitism, that’s why we marched together in the streets of Paris, that’s why we were at the memorial event in Berlin in memory of the Jews who were murdered in Europe, and we all support the existence of the State of Israel, and the Jewish people.”
