French consul, family injured in Israeli airstrike

The French consul in the Gaza Strip and his family were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Monday, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said. Majdi Jameel Yaseen Shaqqoura and his daughter were injured by shrapnel and his wife suffered a miscarriage when Israeli warplanes bombed a police building in Beit Lahiya early Monday morning, PCHR said in a statement. Shaqqoura told PCHR he was watching TV in his home when an explosion shattered the windows in his sitting room. He rushed to protect his children when a second blast broke all the windows in the house, injuring him in the leg and his 13-year-old daughter Rawan in her hand and back. Shaqqoura's pregnant wife Majda was on her way home with her brother at the time of the airstrike. She was 150 meters from the site of the bombing and suffered a hemorrhage. Her brother took her to the al-Awda Hospital where she miscarried, PCHR said. A representative of the French consulate could not be reached for comment. Police officer Muhammad Kilani was killed and four of his colleagues injured in the strike which flattened a naval police building. The Israeli army said in a statement the strike "hit a terror activity center" in the northern Gaza Strip. PCHR said the attack was "part of systematic violations perpetrated in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly the Gaza Strip, which reflects Israeli forces' disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians." The rights group urged the international community to take action against Israeli war crimes.