Israel slams EU chief for Gaza analogy

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday condemned the EU’s foreign policy chief for remarks she made drawing a parallel between Monday’s Toulouse attack and the plight of children in Gaza. “The minister felt that the declarations of Catherine Ashton were not appropriate and he expressed the hope that she would reexamine and reverse them,” a statement from Lieberman’s office said. A gunman on Monday killed three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse. After the incident, Ashton paid tribute to children “who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances,” referring to a fatal coach crash in Switzerland, a massacre in Norway, the situation in Syria, the Toulouse shooting and “what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world.” Lieberman said there could be no comparison between the Toulouse shooting and the situation in Gaza. “The minister affirmed that Israel is the most moral country in the world even as it is forced to fight against terrorists who act from within a civilian population,” the statement said. “The Israeli army does everything possible to avoid harm to that population, even though it supports terrorists,” it added. “The children Ashton should be talking about are those in the south of Israel who live in fear after the rocket attacks coming from the Gaza Strip.” Initial reports said all four of those killed in the Toulouse attack were dual French-Israeli citizens, but there were later reports suggesting the adult killed in the incident had lived in the Jewish state but did not hold Israeli citizenship. The Israeli foreign ministry said on Monday evening, however, that the families of all those killed had expressed a desire to see them buried in the Jewish state. Funerals were expected to take place on Wednesday for the victims, whose killer has yet to be apprehended. Authorities in France said the attack appeared to be linked to earlier incidents in the same region where a gunman attacked several soldiers, killing three.