Israeli PM's office rejects Macron UN claim on Hamas in the West Bank

The Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement on Tuesday responding to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in which, according to the Israeli government, Macron asserted among other things that Hamas is not active in Judea and Samaria. The statement published by the Israeli government called the assertion a "grotesque absurdity" and said the claim was "staggering".

The office said that on Sunday, the eve of Yom Kippur, Netanel Shukrun, described in the statement as a French citizen and a father of six, was killed in his car by a Hamas attacker in Judea and Samaria. The statement said that with his final breath he told his son to run, that Hamas operatives carry out attacks against Jews almost every day, and that "ignorance is NO EXCUSE for erasing their blood". The Israeli release linked to Macron's own posting of his address.

What the Prime Minister's Office is

The Prime Minister's Office, often abbreviated in Israeli usage as the PMO, is the government body that serves the sitting prime minister and issues statements in his name on foreign policy, security and diplomatic disputes. Statements of this kind are the standard Israeli channel for an official rebuttal to a foreign leader's remarks, distinct from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which handles relations with individual states through its embassies and its spokespeople. The release was filed by the Israeli government under the topics of foreign policy and terrorism, with bilateral relations and Palestinian terror and incitement listed as secondary subjects.

Judea and Samaria, and why the wording matters

Judea and Samaria is the official Israeli term for the territory west of the Jordan River that is more widely known internationally as the West Bank. Israeli government documents use the Hebrew-derived biblical names, which appear in English-language releases as Judea and Samaria. Readers encountering the Israeli statement and international coverage of the same exchange will therefore see two different names for the same area. The Israeli statement does not use the phrase West Bank at any point.

Yom Kippur and the timing

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn date in the Jewish calendar, marked by a full day of fasting and prayer during which most public life in Israel comes to a halt. The Prime Minister's Office placed the killing it described on the eve of the fast, which it said fell on Sunday, and said this was two days before the statement was issued. The timing is part of the Israeli argument: the office presented the incident as contemporaneous evidence against the claim it was contesting rather than as a historical example.

The French citizenship point

The statement emphasised in capital letters that Netanel Shukrun was a French citizen. Dual French-Israeli nationality is common, and France has one of the largest Jewish communities outside Israel and the United States. By naming the nationality of the man it says was killed, the Prime Minister's Office directed its response at the French president specifically rather than at the General Assembly as a whole. The Israeli government release included a link to a separate page on Shukrun.

What the exchange sits inside

Addresses to the United Nations General Assembly in New York are delivered in an annual high-level session at which heads of state and government set out their positions, and they are routinely answered by rebuttals from governments that dispute what was said. The Israeli statement is a response of that type. Hamas is the Palestinian Islamist movement that Israel, the European Union and others designate as a terrorist organisation; the question of the extent of its organisational presence and activity in the West Bank, as distinct from Gaza, is a recurring point of disagreement between Israel and European governments.

What the material does not say

The Israeli statement does not quote Macron's words directly and does not reproduce the passage of his address it is contesting. It gives no fuller account of what the French president said about Hamas, the West Bank, or any other subject, and it does not indicate whether his remarks touched on recognition of a Palestinian state or other policy questions. No French response to the Israeli statement appears in the material.

The circumstances of the killing described in the statement are given only in outline. The material does not name a location within Judea and Samaria, does not say whether the attacker was arrested, killed or is being sought, and does not identify the body that investigated the incident. It offers no evidence beyond the assertion itself for the affiliation attributed to the attacker. The phrase "countless Israeli civilians" is used without figures. This account rests on a single official Israeli source, and the claims in it have not been independently confirmed here.