United nations secretary general set said hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum. Emmanuel macrons mideast tour takes them to cairo this wednesday. The french president urges israel to delay any Ground Invasion and revealed there were some 31 french deaths in the hamas attacks of october 7. This is live from paris. A very good evening to you. As you join us, tensions still high across the middle east. This program will bring you the latest on the ground as well as source is trying to stop the gaza strip. On day 18 of the israelgaza war, there has been an increase in airstrikes on hamas. This has been confirmed by israels military. The gaza health authority, linked to hamas, says strikes killed 756 this wednesday, including 340 children. The palestinian test death toll is over 6500 since the october 7 attacks that shocked the world. The United Nations in gaza has confirmed this wednesday a strike at one of its schools that had been sheltering over 4600 people made homeless by the war. Another three United Nations staff have been killed in gaza over the past 24 hours. Israels Prime Minister has again urged palestinians in gaza not linked to hamas to evacuate to the south of the territory. He says the ground offensive is in preparation. We have one goal ahead of us saving the country and achieving victory. We are bombing hamas, and we have killed thousands of terrorists, and it is only the start. In parallel, we are preparing ourselves for a ground incursion. They will not say when, how, or on what scale. When we enter gaza, we will make these assassins pay. Those who committed all these massacres perpetrated by hamas islamic state. Once again, i call on the residence of gaza who are not involved, evacuate to the south of gaza. Mark netanyahu speaking a little earlier in tel aviv with more on todays airstrikes. We know that the ministry of health in gaza, which is run by hamas, says that in the last 24 hours, more than 700 people have been killed in israeli strikes. We cannot independently verify those figures. What we do know, however, is that the United Nations says fuel supplies are running critically low. That is obviously important because hospitals in the gaza strip rely on fuel to operate. The United Nations says supplies could dry up as soon as tonight. We know 1 3 of hospitals in the gaza strip have already stopped running. Thats because israel has already cut off electricity supplies to the gaza strip in the aftermath of the massacres that took place on october 7. Hospitals depend now on backup generators to work. The problem is, of course, those backup generators need fuel to run. Israel, for its part, says there is fuel, but it says hamas is stockpiling it. Of course, hamas denies those allegations. The truth of the matter is it is civilians caught up in the middle, as usual. Mark the United Nations mission in gaza has confirmed one of its schools has been hit. Over 4006 hundred people, says the United Nations office, were sheltering their at the time. The United Nations describes a dwindling supply of fuel in the area. Israel has blocked supplies of humanitarian aid. Medicine, food, water are now being distributed, but not nearly enough. The pumps have run dry. Some humanitarian aid has been trickling in to gaza, but one thing is missing fuel. Israel is refusing to allow any through because it says it could be used for military purposes, and claims hamas already has 500,000 leaders in storage. The United Nations is warning low fuel supplies could force it to halt its aid operations. The situation is hard in gaza. How can we live with no fuel, no bread, no flour . The situation is very hard. Theres little fuel for ambulances and tractors which carry the wounded. Fuel is desperately needed for ambulances, but also for the generators that keep hospitals running. Already, almost 2 3 of hospitals in gaza have ceased to function. The Palestinian HealthMinistry Says the medical system is in a state of total collapse. Scant medical supplies coming in with aid convoys are just a temporary fix. It is true that a small amount of aid has arrived, but it is simply not enough to meet the huge demand. There is still a critical shortage of supplies as injured people continue to be brought to hospitals. Israel has rejected growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire. The white house is backing that stance. It says it favors only pauses in fighting, saying a ceasefire would benefit only hamas. Mark israel says it will refuse United Nations officials visas following the remarks made by Antonio Guterres yesterday. The United Nations secretarygeneral said the hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum. He spoke yesterday. The controversy grows. Tell us more about this story. Thats right. Weve had more titfortat on what the secretarygeneral said during that Security Council meeting. Over the course of today, he spoke out once today to, as he put it, set the record straight and explain what he said exactly, explained that what he said was actually very balanced. He said he was not at all justifying in any way the terror attacks by hamas. He said very clearly, this is false. A case here of the United Nations having to speak in its own defense to explain that this is misinformation being spread by israel about what he said. During the Security Council meeting, he said im going to quote him exactly it is important to also recognize the attacks by hamas did not happen in a vacuum. That is the part that the israelis took offense at, but then of course went on to say the Palestinian People have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation, but the grievances of the Palestinian People cannot justify the appalling attacks by hamas, and those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment over the Palestinian People. If you listen to the full statement, you can see that it was a balanced statement, but that has not stopped the israelis from continuing, saying that the secretarygenerals words are a disgrace and that he ought to take them back and apologized, and then revoking or not allowing entry visas to United Nations officials. Mark as you have spoken, it has drop here on the wireless service. Perhaps no surprise in this, but give us your take. We have also been seeing a titfortat between the major powers, the vetowielding powers at the United Nations over any kind of resolution regarding the war right now in the middle east. We have had two resolutions put forward before the ones being put forward today. The u. S. Resolution that was put forward has just been voted on and got a veto from both the russians and the chinese, so it will not pass. The chinese saying it just was not balanced, that it did not take into consideration the needs of the people on the ground. The russians and chinese say there needs to be a ceasefire because otherwise, more Palestinian Civilians are going to die, so they are in very Strong Language criticizing the United States, say the United States is critical to helping israel achieve military objectives and painting the United States as being against helping civilians on the ground, helping save lives. The russians have also got a resolution due to be voted on. It could be voted on at any moment now, and we will likely see the u. S. Veto that resolution. It calls for a ceasefire, but the u. S. Has accused the russians of putting it forward at very short notice, and they said theres a lot of language in the resolution that is not helpful for the current situation. We are likely, after seeing these resolutions fail that will be for resolutions in the space of about a week that will fail regarding this war we are likely to seek yet another resolution be put forward by what is called the letter e10, the elected 10 members of the council, meaning that they five permanent members, and we expect that to be similar to the brazilian resolution that was rejected last week, but one thing is certain, that the council is slowly moving towards having a resolution that will make way for some kind of humanitarian pauses to let aid in. Mark as ever, thank you for talking us through the language. What happens at the United Nations, all important stuff, but not easy to understand the language. Thank you for joining us. Lets get more on the row over the words of Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretarygeneral. The Communications Director at human rights watch, thank you, sir, for joining us. Was terrence was Antonio Guterres wrong to say that the attacks from hamas did not happen in a vacuum . Of course he was not wrong. No matter how many times they hammer it, this conflict has been going on for 75 years. For over half a century, there has been abusive occupation over palestinians, and for 75 years, citizens have been the right to return to the area to the area they are from originally. Inhuman acts are carried out as government policy. We have documented that in the past years. The clearly stated objective is to maintain domination by jewish israelis over palestinians, and this amounts to crimes of persecution, which are called crimes against humanity. That is the context that the secretarygeneral was talking about. Not even talking about gaza because this blockade right now that is illegal and a war crime, it was there before. It was not as crushing before, but for 16 years, it has been unlawful. Israel has close gaza including a generalized travel ban with very few exclusions. We call it the largest openair prison in the world. Israel is no better. No blockade but a bad situation as well. This past year in the first nine months of 2023, Israeli Security forces killed more civilians than in the 80 years since they started counting, and theres a record high number of palestinians held without charges or trial. That is the context the secretarygeneral was talking about, and he was absolutely right to do so. Mark i have to ask you, do you think this in any way excuses what thomas did . Most people say you could not excuse what hamas did . Absolutely not. What hamas did was inexcusable and unjustifiable. Targeting civilians and killing and capturing them is unjustifiable. Those are war crimes. That is why the secretarygeneral used the expression not in a vacuum. I suppose his words were very well thought out, and these are the words we use as well. Because there is context does not mean there is justification. Absolutely not. Theres no justification whatsoever for killing innocent civilians in such a horrendous way. These are gruesome war crimes, and hamas should be called for doing it, they are war criminals. Mark do you see any way out of the situation . Clear there is lots of diplomacy happening now. Nonetheless, we have heard from Benjamin Netanyahu that a Ground Invasion is in preparation. Is there any way out, do you think . Any way of stopping this . Wars are regrettable but not illegal. His its not our business to call out wars. There was a response by the israeli army, fine as long us civilians are not targeted. This is what we care for as a human rights organization. We are not saying there should not be wars. We can regret it as human beings. I regret it as a citizen. I think there should be no wars in the world. But if there have to be wars, they should comply with the laws of war. The geneva conventions and several protocols, their goal is that no civilian should be targeted ever, either intentionally or by reckless acts. When you bomb, just like israel has been doing for two weeks, highly densely populated civilian areas with explosive weapons, you cannot avoid killing civilians, and this is theres a high suspicion that these are severe and serious infractions of the laws of war. The total blockade, that is not a suggestion not a suspicion. It is in fact a collective punishment, which is a war crime as well. 2 million people, think about that. More than 6000 people died, including a majority of civilians. Not even wounded. There are more than 16,000 wounded now. The hospitals are overflowing. Theres no electricity, there is no water. Sewage water is running in the streets. Mark i am stopping you because we have to. Im sorry. It has been hard listening to you and fascinating at the same time. I will just add something, a large majority a large number, rather, of those killed are children and women, which of course adds to the pain. Thank you, sir, for joining us here on france 24. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Next, french president Emmanuel Macron said he believed it would be an error for israel to launch a massive Ground Invasion of gaza even though macron reformed israels reaffirmed israels right to defend itself. He visited egypts president in cairo. He added to the total of 31 french citizens who have died in the gaza strip this month. Tell us more about this macronalsisi meeting. What came out of it . Quick they met this afternoon in cairo and communicated during a press conference. The thing they both agree on is that there needs to be humanitarian aid into gaza. They were both very clear on that. They said there needs to be fuel going into gaza. We just heard how badly needed it is there. They talked about hostages and the situation releasing hostages held by hamas, and they talked about french citizens not being able to get out, so those were things discussed there. They also talked about the destination of the war. In their remarks, also the differences came out. Egypt is saying israel exceeded its right to selfdefense, and what israel is doing is mounting to collective punishment. On talks about civilian deaths, he mentioned 31 french killed by attacks. President alsisi mentioned more than 6000 gazans being killed, many of them children. At the same time, when they talk about the right of self defense, sisi sorry. Mark we can leave it there. Thank you very much indeed. You covered almost everything that has been spoken about, and in great detail already. Thank you, sir, very much indeed. Clearly differences between the two men, but some important points, like the desire of both sides that peace should somehow be achieved as soon as possible. Our correspondent there in cairo. Time for business. We are joined by brian quinn, starting with a major Eu Investment forum aimed at competing with chinas belt and Road Initiative. This sounds fascinating. Tell us more. It took place in brussels, based on an initiative launched by president ursula von der leyen in 2021. The goal, to mobilize 300 billion euros in public and private funding for Infrastructure Development projects around the world. 87 such projects have already gotten underway. Brussels saw the eu sign a deal with the philippines to boost the countrys transition to a greener economy. Europeans came to, as we said, to build a counterweight to chinas Massive Health and Road Initiative that has already drawn in 147 projects, including 18 from the eu. Next, a mounting crisis as israel continues its bombardment of the gaza strip. Economists and officials are growing increasingly worried about the prospect of lasting economic damage from expanding conflict. From Regional Tourism driving Oil Prices Higher to problematic at least shipping lanes. A day after the world bank held the war in gaza one of the biggest threats to the global economy, the imf is now ringing the alarm bells. To expand the circle and look at the neighboring countries egypt, lebanon, jordan, the channels of impact are already visible. You have tourismdependent countries. At the heart of these concerns are worries the war could escalate into a full on regional conflict. In this scenario, the Economic Impact could be felt way beyond the tourism industry. Economists fear it could disrupt major shipping lines like the suez canal, which accounts for nearly 15 of global trade. They also predict a sharp increase in oil prices if major producers like saudi arabia and iran were to be drafted into the conflict. This could see lenders drive up Interest Rates at a time when Central Banks are already tightening the purse strings. Beyond these global projections, the war is already having a disastrous impact on gazas economy. It is destroying the stock of capital, buildings, hospitals. This is difficult to make the proper assessment, but it is going to be in the billions of dollars. Of that there is no doubt. Its going to be in the tens of billions of dollars. The wars Economic Impact is also being held in israel were the mobilization of some 360,000 reservists has brought production and Economic Activity to a near standstill in several sectors. Brian we will wrap up the Business Update with a check in on the days trading action. European indexes marked minor gains on wednesday. The cac 24 ended the day of around. 3 . Wall street tumbled to its lowest levels in months. The yield on the 10year u. S. Treasury creeping back about. 9 as analysts fret about rising risks to the global economy. Microsoft up 3 amid accelerating growth of its azure Cloud Computing unit. Google Parent Company alphabet down 9. 5 . All eyes now on meta which is due to release results any minute now. Analysts saying the tech sector suffering from a bit of ai over enthusiasm perhaps. Mark the real brian quinn, not the ar version, the real mark owen, not the ar version. Over to catalina, the real catalina, not the ar version. We are hearing Artificial Intelligence being used to misinform on the ongoing war between israel and hamas. Tell us more. Misinformation and disinformation at the center of the war between israel and hamas, this time around using Artificial Intelligence. Lets begin with this first viral image that has been seen over 2 million times on x, posted on october 19, where this user claims that these are real madrid fans that support palestine, while holding up this giant palestinian flag in the middle of the stadium. Then we have the second image that was posted on x as well on october 22, where we see dozens of tents in the colors of the israeli flag set up on what seems to be a beach. Users claim this image shows an israeli refugee camp illegally built in palestinian territory. The post reads, the occupation bills the first camp for displaced zionists in our occupied territory. Mark lets take a look. At the post with the palestinian flag. How were you able to conclude this was generated using ai . The image to impressive to be real because it was generated using Artificial Intelligence, but we will break it down for you. The first inconsistency in this photo, it was posted in october 19 and only matches played between october 7 and october 19 was october 8 according to this calendar, and we know this match was played during the day. As you can well see on their twitter page where they posted bits of this match from october 8, where we can clearly see the match was played in broad daylight, unlike the picture in the fake claims where we can see a stadium during the night. This one right here is impossible unless madrid played two games that day. We zoom in to the picture for you where we saw a characteristic, a telltale sign, if you will, of Artificial Intelligence. The arms of these fans, they are completely deformed and distorted, which is a typical characteristic of an image generated using Artificial Intelligence. Furthermore, we also tested the image in vera. Ai, a brandnew software that detects if an image is created using ai. It is only now available for professionals and journalists but so far seems to be very trustworthy as it has not given us any false positives just yet. It concludes with a 99 certainty that this image has been generated with a diffusion model algorithm, which is an algorithm used by Artificial Intelligence programs. There are other softwares out there available for all of the public, open to the public, not only professionals, for instance ai or not, but they seem to be less trustworthy since it has been shown to give false negatives in the past. Mark indeed, that flag looked bogus from the start. Much too big for where it was situated. 10 25 23 10 25 23 [captioning made possible by democracy now ] amy from new york, this is democracy now suffering facilitate the release of hostages i reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Amy United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres calls again for an immediate ceasefire in gaza but israel, with the backing of the United States, has rejected the call and is