The French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has abandoned a visit to a holy site in Jerusalem under French control after armed Israeli police entered the site and briefly arrested two French gendarmes.
France has summoned the Israeli ambassador over the incident, the latest of several controversies involving the Eleona sanctuary on the Mount of Olives, which along with three other sites make up the French national domain in the Holy Land.
The sites have been the focus of diplomatic incidents in the past. The national domain was attributed to France before Israel’s creation in 1948 and is administered as a private property by the French consulate in Jerusalem.
According to an AFP journalist who witnessed the incident, Israeli police entered the site and surrounded the two French gendarmes before pushing one of them to the ground.
The gendarme identified himself and shouted “Don’t touch me” several times, according to the journalist. Both gendarmes were then led into police cars, before being later released.
It remained unclear why the Israeli police had entered the site.
“I will not enter the Eleona domain today, because Israeli security forces entered with weapons, without prior French authorisation, without agreeing to leave today,” the French foreign minister said at the scene, describing the situation as “unacceptable”.
“This violation of the integrity of a domain placed in the care of France is liable to weaken the ties that I came here to cultivate with Israel, at a time when all of us need to help the region advance on the path towards peace,” Barrot said.
“The Eleona has not only belonged to France for more than 150 years, but France also ensures its security, maintains it.
“The integrity of the four sites that France is responsible for here in Jerusalem must be respected,” he added.
The Eleona, which incorporates a Benedictine monastery, is situated on the Mount of Olives in occupied East Jerusalem, and is associated with the so-called Pater cave, where Christ is said to have taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer.
In a previous incident in January 2020, the French president Emmanuel Macron reprimanded an Israeli police officer in front of the Sainte-Anne basilica during a crush of people, saying: “I don’t like what you did in front of me.”
In 1996, President Jacques Chirac told Israeli soldiers surrounding him too closely: “Do you want me to go back to my plane?” demanding that the soldiers leave the Sainte-Anne site.
