Paris pays tribute to fallen Palestinian agents of the French Institute in the Gaza Strip

“France will remain faithful to those who served it and their loved ones. » French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet on Monday paid tribute to Palestinian agents of the French Institute in the Gaza Strip who were killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli army fire in retaliation for Hamas attacks. “We felt great emotions this morning as we paid tribute to our colleagues, the French Institute agents who died in Gaza, together with their families and friends,” he said in a message posted on the X network (formerly Twitter).

France managed to evacuate more than 200 people (the French, their beneficiaries and agents of the French Institute) from the Gaza Strip, but Palestinian agents were unable to leave the enclave after the bloody Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. One of these agents died in December “as a result of being wounded during an Israeli bombing in Rafah”, reported the newspaper Quai d’Orsay, which “condemned” the bombing and “demanded that full light be shed” on its circumstances. A female agent also died in October under circumstances that have not been disclosed.

Then, in February, diplomatic sources reported that a French teacher who had worked for twenty years at the French Institute in Gaza died as a result of illness due to lack of treatment due to a “catastrophic health condition” on the spot. The agents’ families were in attendance Monday, as were department officials and elected officials.

Time for reflection at the end of February.

The minister first received the families “privately” before paying tribute to the dead, a union source explained to AFP. The Foreign Office trade union organized a time of reflection on February 27 in memory of three of its French Institute colleagues who “tragically disappeared” in the Gaza Strip.

The Oct. 7 attack in Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas killed 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP. In response, Israel launched an intense bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, followed by a ground offensive on October 27 that killed at least 30,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the Islamist movement’s health ministry.