France summons Israeli ambassador

Israeli Ambassador to Paris, Daniel Shek France has summoned Israel's ambassador to lodge a formal complaint about Israeli soldiers, who fired warning shots at European diplomats. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said the country's consul general and several of his colleagues traveled to Gaza Tuesday to assess the reopening of border-crossings and to inspect projects funded by Paris. "At the end of this visit, the convoy, which had planned to go back to Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in the evening, was blocked by the Israeli authorities for more than six hours at the Erez border crossing," Chevallier told reporters. "The convoy, which also included other European diplomats, had two warning shots fired at it from Israeli soldiers" he added, The spokesman said the Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador, Daniel Shek, 'to protest against this unacceptable incident and demand explanations from him'. This is while Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said all border-crossings were closed for several hours on Tuesday after an Israeli army patrol was targeted in a bomb attack that left a soldier dead. "This measure was not specifically aimed against the French consul general," Levy said. The development came after on Tuesday Israel resumed aerial and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip despite a ceasefire being in place. According to Gaza medics, over 1300 Palestinians - among them 460 children - lost their lives since Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead against the costal sliver on December 27. At least 5450 others also sustained injures in the conflict. MP/MMN http://samotalis.blogspot.com/