2023-10-13 02:12:39
After the Hamas attack on Israel, France deplores 13 French people dead and around twenty missing, including “several children (…) probably kidnapped”, deplored Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Wednesday. The PNAT (national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office) announced this Thursday evening that it would take action and open an investigation. Investigations were also opened for “kidnapping and sequestration of people, including minors under the age of fifteen, by an organized gang and in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. Seventeen French people, including four children, were also missing on Thursday according to French authorities.
The investigation was entrusted to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), in co-responsibility with the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) of the National Directorate of Judicial Police (DNPJ), said the Pnat in a press release . This so-called “mirror” investigation, carried out in parallel with Israeli investigations, will notably allow French victims – dead, injured or missing – or their relatives to be interviewed and informed of the progress of the investigations by Israel.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations throughout France
On October 7, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel in vehicles, by air and sea, to kill more than a thousand civilians in the streets, in their homes or in the middle of a rave party, spreading terror under a barrage of rockets. More than 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, according to the Israeli army.
Around 150 Israelis, foreigners and dual nationals, were taken hostage by Hamas, according to the Israeli government. According to an AFP count, 105 deaths of foreign nationals, many of whom also had Israeli nationality, were confirmed by the authorities of their countries. Israeli reprisals killed 1,350 people, according to a latest report from the authorities in Gaza.
VIDEO. Hamas attacks: what to remember from Macron’s speech
Since this attack in Israel, “more than a hundred anti-Semitic acts” have been recorded in France, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. When questioned, the Paris prosecutor’s office for its part indicated that the National Center for the Fight against Online Hate (PNLH) had opened 23 preliminary investigations for advocating terrorism, death threats due to religion, public provocation not followed by effect to commit a crime. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations took place Thursday evening in several cities, including Paris where around 3,000 people gathered, according to the police headquarters.
In a televised address, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the French to remain “united”. He assured the Jewish community that the Republic would be there to “protect” it and would be “ruthless with all bearers of hatred”.
The president also hoped that everything would be done “to bring back” the hostages captured by Hamas “safe and sound to their home”.
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