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Tense Meeting between Macron, Netanyahu due to Trump’s Jerusalem Decision

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris. (Reuters)
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Tense Meeting between Macron, Netanyahu due to Trump’s Jerusalem Decision

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris. (Reuters)

Despite the aspirations of French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to add some warmth to their meeting Sunday at the Elysee Palace in Paris, a joint press conference that followed their talks revealed the tensions between them over Washington’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

It was evident that Macron sought to push Netanyahu in the direction of adopting moderate positions or initiative to defuse tension with the Palestinians.

His efforts however fell on deaf ears and each side remained attached to his known stance concerning Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The French President reiterated that his country refused the move based on two main justifications: The decision contravenes all rules of international law and poses a threat to peace in the Middle East.

Paris believes that the region does not need further hotbeds of tensions that add to the existing wars.

Macron had previously even directly talked by telephone with Trump and said his move on Jerusalem was “regrettable.”

Faced with the French positions, Netanyahu had no choice but to reiterate his previous statements delivered last Wednesday. “Recognition of Jerusalem was essential for the peace process because peace must be built on the foundation of truth,” the Israeli Prime Minister said.

And like every occasion, Netanyahu held the Palestinian side responsible for its consistent refusal to resume talks with Tel Aviv since spring 2014 because of the Israeli cabinet’s rejection to freeze the building of settlements.

In this regard, despite Macron’s repeated calls that Netanyahu initiate a courageous move and build trust with the Palestinians to end the current stalemate, his cries were not positively received by the Israeli PM.

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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”