PARIS: French citizen, an employee of France’s consulate in Jerusalem, on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Palestinians.
In a statement, the Shin Bet security service said Romain Franck used a consulate vehicle to elude Israeli security checks and move a total of 70 pistols and two assault rifles across the Gaza-Israel border and on to the occupied West Bank on at least five occasions.
A spokesman for the French Embassy in Tel Aviv described the suspect as “a member of the consulate-general in (occupied) Jerusalem” and said France was taking the case seriously and cooperating with Israeli authorities.
The suspect was arrested in an investigation of what the Shin Bet described as a Palestinian network that smuggled military-grade weaponry from the Gaza Strip, an enclave controlled by Hamas, to the occupied West Bank.
