Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boarded a plane to Paris on Sunday morning where he was set to take part in a massive anti-terror and unity march alongside world leaders after the two bloody terror attacks against a weekly newspaper and a kosher supermarket, something he says he "has been calling on for a long time."
During remarks before his flight, Netanyahu said that he will be meeting with French President Francois Hollande at the Great Synagogue of rue de la Victoire Sunday night. He will also meet with members of the Jewish community.
He said that he plans on telling the French Jewish community that "any Jew who wants to come to Israel will be welcome with a warm embrace."
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky were on the plane with Netanyahu. The leader of Bayit Yehudi party Naftali Bennett was also expected to attend.
Hours prior, AFP reported that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would also be traveling to Paris to take part in the rally.
More than a million people are expected to converge on central Paris on Sunday afternoon for a “national unity” rally in solidarity with the victims of the week’s attacks and in support of freedom of the press.
Security forces will be on the highest alert for the event, which will attended by about 40 heads of state and government.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will march with French President Francois Hollande.
“It will be an unprecedented demonstration that will be written in the history books,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.
“It must show the power and dignity of the French people, who will cry out their love of liberty and tolerance,” he said.
''If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure,” he stressed, in a reference to the fact that more and more Jews in France leave the country for fear of growing anti-Semitism.
The attack on the kosher supermarket 'Hyper Cacher' on Porte de Vincennes Friday left four people dead and several others wounded.
The march is due to start at 3pm local time and will be made in silence.
Hundreds of thousands turned out for marches and vigils in cities across France on Saturday, including more than 80,000 in Toulouse, 30,000 in Nantes and 22,000 in Nice.
Valls has encouraged people to take to the streets of Paris on Sunday, saying the demonstration would show the French people’s “love of freedom and tolerance” and their attachment to republican ideals.
At the head of the march on Sunday will be François Hollande, making it the first time since 1990 that a French president has joined a street demonstration. In May of that year, the then head of state, François Mitterrand, took part in a march against racism and anti-Semitism after the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in southern France.