Israeli forces arrested two staff members of France’s Consulate General in Jerusalem on Nov. 7.
Agencies
PARIS: France decided to “sanction” the Israeli ambassador in the wake of last week’s temporary arrests of some of its consulate staffers in Jerusalem, the French foreign minister said Tuesday.
“It is a situation that is unacceptable, and that is why I decided to summon Israel’s ambassador to France,” Jean-Noel Barrot told broadcaster France 24.
The minister said: “France would not tolerate that Israeli security forces enter its premises,” without authorization.
“We considered this incident extremely serious, so I decided to activate the first of sanctions,” Barrot said and added: “This signals that France would not accept that such an incident reoccurs… I sanction the ambassador.”
Ambassador Joshua Zarka was called to the ministry on Tuesday following Israeli forces arrested two staff members of France’s Consulate General in Jerusalem on Nov. 7.
The staffers were released after Barrot intervened, and the ministry called the arrests “unacceptable,” noting that they took place even though the staffers had diplomatic status.
During a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, Barrot was due to visit Eleona, a French national estate, the ministry said in a statement last week.Saying that Israeli security forces “armed without authorization” entered the site, the statement added that Barrot “did not wish to visit the estate under these conditions.”
