PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday opened a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza by calling for a “ceasefire”, echoed by other delegates looking to support the Palestinian territory under bombardment by Israel since the October 7 attack by Hamas.

“In the immediate term, we need to work on protecting civilians. To do that, we need a humanitarian pause very quickly and we must work towards a ceasefire,” Macron told delegates in Paris.

Israel has stayed away from the talks on aid for civilians in the enclave of 2.4 million people, where the Hamas-run health ministry says Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 10,500 people, many of them children.

Hamas militants stormed across the border from Gaza into Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 hostages, Israeli officials say.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel retaliated with a massive, relentless bombardment and ground invasion.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled towards the south of the Gaza Strip.

But Moshe Tetro, an Israeli military officer handling civil affairs in Gaza, said on Thursday that although “the civil situation in the Gaza Strip is not an easy one”, the state sees “no humanitarian crisis”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated that “there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” saying he wanted to “put to rest... false rumours”.

A Hamas source had earlier told AFP talks were underway for the release of a dozen hostages held by the Islamists, including six Americans, in return for a three-day ceasefire in Gaza.

“Israel has the right to defend itself and the duty to protect its own people,” Macron said.

But the government “also has a clear responsibility... to respect the law and protect civilians,” he added, warning that the humanitarian situation “is worsening more and more each day”.

Thursday’s aid conference has been put together in a hurry on the sidelines of the annual Paris Peace Forum on November 10-11.

It has brought together government representatives from many European countries, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority and a slew of aid groups, but no heads of government from the Arab world.