Two French children have been killed in the Gaza Strip, with their mother and her third child believed to have been injured, the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. "France has learned with sadness of the death of two children of French nationality in the northern Gaza Strip with their French mother who was herself injured, as well as her third child," the Quai d'Orsay said in a statement, which did not specify the circumstances of the deaths.
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The Consulate General of France in Jerusalem "does not, however, manage to establish direct contact on the ground with this national", which does not allow "to verify at this stage the situation of this family", continued the French authorities, who say they continue their efforts to "reach this national and provide her with assistance and support, as well as his family." According to a French source close to the case, who does not know the age of the children, the 43-year-old mother "has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since July 2016 for criminal association with a view to the preparation of terrorist acts and financing of a terrorist enterprise."
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International Arrest Warrant for Mother
Born in Talence (south-west), she is, according to this source, the president of an association that had carried out a fundraising campaign in 2013 aimed at transporting medical equipment and medicines to Syria, funds that had in fact "been channelled in the summer of 2013 to the Idlib region, for the benefit of jihadists, with a view to acquiring weapons and ammunition". In February 2019, the mother was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison in Paris for distributing money collected by her association to members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another movement close to Hamas, in 2012 and 2013 in Gaza. At the hearing, it was stated that she had to live in Gaza since 2016.
The Israeli army is incessantly bombing Gaza in retaliation for the bloody attack on its territory on 7 October by fighters from the Islamist movement Hamas, who killed more than 1400,8500 people, the majority of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or killed by mutilation. Hamas' health ministry announced the latest death toll of more than <>,<>, mostly civilians, in the Israeli bombardment. France "urges once again that foreign nationals and especially our compatriots be able to leave Gaza," according to the Quai statement. Paris says it "also reiterates its urgent call for a humanitarian truce so that humanitarian aid can reach those in need." "Humanitarian access must be continuous, rapid, safe and unimpeded, so that aid can respond in a sustainable way to the needs of the civilian population in Gaza," according to the Quai d'Orsay.