France announced it is sending two planes with humanitarian aid to Libya's opposition stronghold of Benghazi on Feb 28, in what its Prime Minister described as the start of a "massive operation" to push Moammar Gaddafi from power.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon spoke in Paris as Foreign Ministers from around the world, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, gathered in Geneva to coordinate action against Gaddafi's regime.
Fillon said the planes would leave "in a few hours" for Benghazi with doctors, nurses, medicines and medical equipment. "It will be the beginning of a massive operation of humanitarian support for the populations of liberated territories," he said on RTL radio.
France's government is studying "all solutions to make it so that Colonel Gaddafi understands that he should go, that he should leave power," Fillon said. Military options and no-fly zones are among the options under study, he said.
Fillon did not say whether the aid planes could also take refugees out of Libya, as anti-government rebels deployed tanks and anti-aircraft weapons to brace for an attack by troops loyal to Gaddafi, the Associated Press reports.
Over the weekend, British and German military planes swooped into Libya's desert, rescuing hundreds of oil workers and civilians stranded at remote sites. Tens of thousands of foreigners have been evacuated from Libya in the past week but others are still stuck in Tripoli by bad weather and red tape.
