A visit by diplomats close to Jenin in the occupied West Bank was reportedly disrupted by warning shots from Israel’s armed forces, fired on Wednesday, May 21st.
A number of European Union member states have responded by summoning their Israeli ambassador. These include France, whose foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot called the shots “unacceptable”; Ireland’s deputy PM Simon Harris, who said the incident was “completely unacceptable”; Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul, who called the shots “unprovoked”; Portugal, who said the event “calls international law into question”; and Spain, whose Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares wrote on X, formerly Twitter:
Faced with the intolerable shooting by the Israeli army during the visit of Spanish, EU and other countries’ diplomats, we are summoning the head of Israel’s embassy in Madrid.
Also present at the time were representatives of Egypt and Turkey.
The Israeli military said in a statement that, while the visit had been approved, the delegation “deviated from the approved route” and its soldiers fired warning shots into the air to distance the diplomats from the area.
This latest pile-on shows the failure of EU leaders to back Israel amid an existential threat to the Jewish state.
