Israeli police officer shoots himself in the head yards from French president Nicolas

[Snowden]

Israeli police officer shoots himself in the head yards from French president Nicolas Sarkozy and wife Carla Bruni


By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:02 PM on 24th June 2008

Security forces scrambled to protect French First Lady Carla Bruni and her husband Nicolas Sarkozy today after an Israeli border guard shot himself in the head at a ceremony they were attending.

Dark-suited men were pictured on television hustling the pair up the stairs to their airplane at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport seconds after the shot was fired. In a panic, Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy rushed up the stairs to the plane ahead of her husband.

Security forces also rushed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert safely to his car.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, denied reports that there had been an assassination attempt on the French leader.

French First Lady Carla Bruni reacts with terror as security forces surround her and the president in the seconds after the shots are fired



A security guard rushes a panicked Carla Bruni up the stairs to the waiting plane as husband Nicolas is shielding by another guard at the bottom

The incident marred Sarkozy's three-day trip to Israel, a visit meant to improve relations between the two countries.

French presidential spokesman Franck Louvrier could not be reached for comment on his mobile phone. Another presidential spokesman who was on another scheduled flight out of Tel Aviv said he knew nothing about the incident.

Israel Radio said the soldier who was shot was stationed 100 metres to 200 metres (yards) away from the plane. He shot himself as a band was playing. Two women soldiers who witnessed the shooting fainted and were treated by medics.

Israel's volunteer medical service Zaka said the soldier apparently committed suicide.

Police say there was no assassination attempt on Sarkozy.

Armed Israeli security guards leap into action as the fatal shot is fired

The suicide came today as militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip fired several rockets into southern Israel, breaching a five-day-old ceasefire after Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

"This is a blatant violation of the calm, and we will weigh options," an aide quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying after the rockets struck.

The Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect last Thursday, calls on Hamas to prevent cross-border fire from the Gaza Strip, which it seized by force a year ago.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attack, calling it a "first response" to Israel's killing overnight of a local commander of the militant group and another Palestinian, who was affiliated to Hamas, in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, responded by urging "all Palestinian factions to abide by the calm agreement", adding: "Hamas is keen to maintain the deal."

The ceasefire, under which Israel agreed to halt its own operations in the Gaza Strip and to ease its economic blockade of the impoverished enclave, does not apply to the West Bank.

Security forces form a protective circle around the presidential couple in the seconds after the short is fired

An Israeli police spokesman said at least three makeshift rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip and one hit a house in the border town of Sderot. No one was seriously hurt.

The rockets landed in Israel only hours after Olmert thanked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in talks in Egypt for brokering the ceasefire, which came into effect on Thursday.

The Nablus operation was the first fatal Israeli raid since the truce took hold in Gaza. Similar West Bank operations and Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip led to the breakdown of previous truce deals.

Islamic Jihad said Tarek Juma Abu Ghali, killed in Nablus, was one of its most senior commanders in the northern West Bank.

Nablus Governor Jamal Muheisen called the raid in the city an "unjustified crime" but said he did not believe it would threaten the Gaza truce.

Officials on both sides said from the start that they doubted the truce in the Gaza Strip would last.


Israeli police officer shoots himself in the head yards from French president Nicolas Sarkozy and wife Carla Bruni | Mail Online

[john mclaughlin]

Was it an accident?or political statement.