ÉVIAN, France, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As heads of government and top diplomats arrived at this week’s G7 Leaders’ Summit in Évian-les-Bains, they are entering intense policy discussions around the Middle East crisis with a groundbreaking blueprint in hand: fresh multilateral funding commitments and a set of comprehensive recommendations jointly developed by 150 Israeli and Palestinian civil society leaders.
ALLMEP Executive Director John Lyndon and civil society leaders join Ministers Barrot, Cooper, and Anand for a private diplomatic breakfast. (Photo by: Judith Litvine/MEAE)
The policy framework, summarized in “The Paris Call 2026,” and the accompanying funding surge are the direct results of a day-long pre-Summit conference convened on Friday by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. The gathering brought top diplomats on their way to the G7 from over a dozen nations face-to-face with on-the-ground peacebuilders. It was organized in partnership with the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), as well as Les Guerrières de la Paix and Principles for Peace.
Through five intensive working groups, the joint Israeli and Palestinian delegations collaborated with diplomats to deliver concrete actions to emerge from a seemingly frozen status quo after nearly three years of acute violence. The recommendations outline pathways to stabilize fragile ceasefires, expand humanitarian aid, and move toward disarmament, reconstruction, and a region-wide peace and security framework.
The proposals were presented through an unusual format: a series of panel discussions in which civil society representatives sat on stage alongside foreign ministers, accompanied by direct appeals from representatives personally affected by the violence.
Major Civil Society Funding and Policy Measures Announced
In conjunction with the conference, ministers announced a number of major new initiatives to scale up and strengthen civil society infrastructure. UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced the launch of a new International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace to scale grassroots peacebuilding efforts following a 17-year campaign by ALLMEP. Anand also shared that Canada will provide another $100 million in urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The European Union’s chief diplomat, High Representative Kaja Kallas highlighted the EU’s €18 million investment in civil society peacebuilding, and refused to allow such work to be sidelined or deprioritized, stating, “Civil society is not an afterthought of diplomacy. It is indispensable for building peace.”
French Foreign Minister Barrot assured the delegations that their joint mobilization has already fundamentally reshaped the diplomatic narrative, leading toward last year’s UN New York Declaration and the subsequent ceasefire and hostage return. Addressing the leaders on their sweeping recommendations, Barrot declared: “Your proposals pave the way… and you can count on us to relay them directly to world leaders,” starting with those attending the G7 Summit.
A Powerful Voice of Consensus Amid Gridlock
“While many wonder if the G7 leaders themselves will be able to find common ground on key Middle East policy questions, it is telling that hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian civic leaders have already reached a clear, detailed and actionable consensus on what needs to happen,” said ALLMEP Executive Director John Lyndon. “They are demanding bold diplomacy—and are ready to knock on doors and take to the streets to show that people in both societies are sick of bloodshed, ready to engage and are demanding a genuine political process.”
Avi Meyerstein, ALLMEP’s founder and president, added: “Together, these funding and policy steps signal a sea change: there’s a growing recognition that top-down diplomacy alone cannot resolve this conflict, and that civil society peacebuilding is essential to ensure the Israeli and Palestinian peoples are full partners in shaping what comes next.”
The frameworks developed in Paris were informed by a year of exhaustive cross-border consultations and fed by real-time data from ALLMEP’s AI Pulse public-opinion polling. The data consistently reveals that despite intense polarization, large majorities of both Palestinians and Israelis continue to accept or support a comprehensive regional peace and security framework that secures both Israel and a Palestinian state side-by-side.
About the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP)
The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is the largest network of Palestinian and Israeli civil society peacebuilding organizations, comprising over 200 member NGOs – a coalition that has expanded by more than 30% since October 7th. ALLMEP works to connect, amplify, and expand the impact of its members, including scaling up financial resources and integrating community-led civic power directly into high-level international diplomacy. Since 2009, ALLMEP has led a global campaign to establish an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
Learn more at www.allmep.org.
