PARIS: Paris police shot and critically wounded a woman wearing a hijab in a metro station on Tuesday morning, after commuters reported her shouting extremist slogans and behaving in a threatening manner, the government said.
France is on its highest state of alert after the Oct. 13 murder of a schoolteacher in a suspected extremist attack, which officials have linked to what they called a “Jihadist atmosphere” linked to the Israel-Gaza war.
The fully-veiled woman was shot at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France station. Commuters had earlier reported her “uttering aggressive, Jihadist comments,” government spokesman Olivier Veran said.
When police arrived, “they pulled the woman aside and first asked her to calm down but also to show her hands to show they presented no particular danger,” he added.
“What happened then was that law enforcement officers had no option but to open fire on this woman given the danger of the situation.”
The fire service, which provided emergency care for the woman, said she was shot in the abdomen. She was transferred to a nearby hospital.
Veran said the woman had in the past threatened urban patrols of the counter-terrorism Sentinelle operation.
The metro station, on the RER C line, was evacuated after the incident, police said.
Two investigations were opened, one against the woman and a second into the use of weapons by police, the government spokesman said
Hijab-wearing woman shot by police in Paris metro, condition critical
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Hijab-wearing woman shot by police in Paris metro, condition critical
- Woman was struck by a bullet to her abdomen and was transferred to a nearby hospital
- France is on its highest state of alert after the Oct. 13 murder of a schoolteacher in a suspected extremist attack
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
