A request for justification. France has called on Israel to provide explanations after a strike that hit the French Institute in Gaza, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “We were informed by the Israeli authorities that the French Institute in Gaza had been targeted by an Israeli strike. We asked them to communicate to us without delay by the appropriate means the tangible elements which motivated this decision,” indicates the Quai d’Orsay, specifying that no French agent or national was within the Institute.
In a second statement, the ministry “condemned the attacks against United Nations sites and humanitarian personnel, whose work is essential to the civilian populations of Gaza, as well as against the media headquarters.”
The AFP office in the Gaza Strip was seriously damaged by a strike on Thursday. The Israeli army affirmed that there had been “no air strike [l’armée israélienne] on the building” of AFP, the only one of the three major international press agencies to have a “live video” transmitting live images from Gaza City.
The protection of civilians, “a moral imperative”
“France expresses its very deep concern at the number of civilian victims in Gaza, which amounts to several thousand, and at the serious humanitarian situation,” the Quai d’Orsay also declared. “The protection of civilians is both a moral imperative and an international obligation. We demand that concrete measures be taken by Israel in this direction,” the statement added.
The Hamas government announced Thursday that at least 27 people were killed in an Israeli strike near a UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the third bombing on the camp in three days. Strikes Tuesday and Wednesday on the Jabaliya camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip, left 195 dead, 777 injured and 120 missing under the rubble, according to Hamas. According to Israel, Tuesday’s bombing made it possible to “eliminate” a senior Hamas leader.