France says no nationals killed, wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza

PARIS, July 23 (KUNA) -- The French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that none of its 30 or so nationals known to be in Gaza had been killed or wounded in the more than two weeks of Israeli bombardments of the Palestinian territory.
"Concerning French residents in Gaza, who number around thirty, we are in permanent contact with them. According to the latest information we have, there are no dead or wounded among the French community," spokesman Romain Nadal said in a briefing.
Nadal added that there are around 80,000 French nationals registered as living in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
The bulk of these have dual nationality and most of them, around 67,000 are Franco-Israelis, he said.
Earlier this week, a Franco-Israeli serving in the Israeli Special Forces was killed in the Gaza operation, which has left more than 650 mainly civilian Palestinians dead, over 100 of them children, while several thousand Palestinians are now reported to have been wounded in the air, sea and land strikes against the territory.
Around 30 Israelis have also died, two of them civilians and one a foreign worker. The other casualties have been Israeli soldiers taking part in the invasion of Gaza. (End) jk.tg