Major diplomatic incident between France and Israel this Thursday, November 7. In a scene filmed by RFI, Israeli police arrested two French gendarmes who accompanied the visit to Jerusalem by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. A few hours after the incident, the two gendarmes were released. France has announced that it will summon the Israeli ambassador to Paris.
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The incident took place in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city occupied and annexed by Israeland more precisely in Eléona, one of the French estates in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives. Three armed Israeli police officers illegally enter the grounds of the Christian religious site, also called the Pater Noster. It is one of France’s four national domains in Jerusalem. At the entrance, the tricolor flag flies.
The Israeli police, who have no right to be there, insist on protecting the French delegation visiting the site. Two French gendarmes ask the Israeli police to leave.
Then arrives the head of diplomacy Frenchwho first refused to enter the place in question, because the Israeli police had entered without authorization and armed. Jean-Noël Barrot spoke immediately at the microphone of Sami Boukhelifa for RFI. He denounced a “ unacceptable situation »:
I will not enter the Eleona grounds today because Israeli security forces entered there armed [sic]without first obtaining authorization from France and without agreeing to leave. I want to say it very firmly and very seriously: this situation is unacceptable. And this attack on the integrity of an area placed under the responsibility of France is likely to weaken the links that I had come to cultivate with Israel at a time when we all need to move the region forward on the path of peace.
The entry of Israeli police into the French site of Eléona, in Jerusalem, is an “unacceptable situation”, denounces Jean-Noël Barrot
The minister leaves. In the process, the Israeli police violently arrested the two gendarmes. It is therefore a major diplomatic incident, which recalls the anger of French presidents Emmanuel Macron in 2020 and Jacques Chirac in 1996, when the two presidents raised their voices in front of Israeli police officers. This happened at the time at another French-run estate, St. Anne’s Church, in Jerusalem’s Old City.
No reaction yet from the Israeli authorities, but a few hours after the incident, the two French gendarmes were released. French diplomacy announced that “ the Israeli ambassador to France will be summoned to the ministry [des Affaires étrangères] in the coming days » to protest this entry « army ” And ” without permission “. The ministry hammered home Jean-Noël Barrot’s remarks, affirming that the presence of Israeli security forces on this pilgrimage site as well as the brief arrest of two French gendarmes were “not not acceptable “.