PARIS, March 1 — France wants an independent inquiry into the deaths of scores of Palestinians during an aid delivery in the northern Gaza strip, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said today.

"We will ask for explanations, and there will have to be an independent probe to determine what happened,” Sejourne told the France Inter broadcaster after Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in a chaotic incident that the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said killed more than 100 people.

France would not apply "double standards” to the Mideast conflict, Sejourne said, adding: "France calls things by their name”.

"This applies when we designate Hamas as a terrorist group, but we must also call things by their name when there are atrocities in Gaza.”

If an investigation should conclude that the Israeli shooting was a war crime, "then obviously this becomes a matter for the judiciary”, he said.

Sejourne also said the thought of people dying of hunger in Gaza was "unbearable” for France. — AFP