France Irate Over IAF Gaza Air Strike

Israeli Ambassador to France Yossi Gal was summoned by the French Foreign Ministry Wednesday to receive a tongue lashing about Israel's air strike Sunday in Gaza.

The IDF had retaliated against the Palestinian Authority terrorists who were raining mortar shells and rocket fire on cities and towns in southern Israel for days.

One Hamas “police officer” was killed in the raid, and four other members of the terrorist organization were wounded.

But it turned out that the French consul, his wife and 13-year-old daughter were also living in the area where the targeted terrorists chose to hide. And all three were hit by flying shrapnel during Sunday's night air strike.

“We reminded the Israeli ambassador how much we deplore the consequences of this raid for the head of our consulate and his family,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero in a routine Internet briefing following Gal's meeting,Reuters reported.

“While we need to recognize Israel's need to ensure its security, [the ambassador] was reminded about the importance of keeping civilians and the French presence in Gaza from being affected.”

French president Nicolas Sarkozy this week sent a letter of apology to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the wake of an embarrassing incident in which he was caught off-mike confiding to U.S. President Barack Obama that he “cannot stand” Israel's top leader, who he called “a liar.”

Obama's response, equally revealing, was, “You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

Sarkozy's letter, sent along with condolences following the death of his father-in-law, Shmuel Ben-Artzi, said that Netanyahu has the French president's “friendship” despite their “differing views on the problems of the Middle East.”

France files protest after Gaza envoy hit by shrapnel

Well, who the heck told them to send a diplomat to Gaza?

France has filed a formal protest because its envoy in Gaza, and his wife and daughter, were hit by shrapnel from an IDF strike two days ago. The strike took place 200 meters from their home.

France's consul to the Gaza Strip, his wife and 13-year-old daughter were injured during an Israeli air strike on Sunday night, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Valero told reporters the three were were hit by shrapnel at their residence in Gaza, which is located 200 meters from the site of an Israeli missile attack, he added.

"France condemns the consequences of the raid," he said. "While we are all for Israeli security, France recalls the utmost necessity to avoid civilian harm," Valero said, without specifying the nature of their injuries.

The raid killed one policeman and wounded four others after Palestinian militants from the coastal territory fired a rocket into southern Israel.

The French foreign ministry ought to ask itself why it has an envoy living 200 meters from what even they all but acknowledge is a legitimate military target. Perhaps, if they insist on maintaining an envoy in Gaza, they ought to take that up with the de facto rulers of Gaza, i.e. Hamas.

Israel Radio reports that the envoy's wife miscarried as a result of the missile strike.

But the real issue here, as I stated at the outset, is why France has an envoy in Gaza. The fact that the envoy lives 200 meters from a military target ought to tell them all they need to know. Hamas is a terror organization and terror organizations don't deserve to be treated as legitimate states.