Explosion Hits Building in Paris, Injuring 24

Smoke billows from rubbles of a building at Place Alphonse-Laveran in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, on June 21, 2023. (Photo by ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP)
Smoke billows from rubbles of a building at Place Alphonse-Laveran in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, on June 21, 2023. (Photo by ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP)
TT
20

Explosion Hits Building in Paris, Injuring 24

Smoke billows from rubbles of a building at Place Alphonse-Laveran in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, on June 21, 2023. (Photo by ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP)
Smoke billows from rubbles of a building at Place Alphonse-Laveran in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, on June 21, 2023. (Photo by ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP)

A strong explosion hit a building in Paris' Left Bank on Wednesday, leaving 24 injured and igniting a fire that sent smoke soaring over city monuments and prompted the evacuation of surrounding buildings, police said. The cause of the blast was not immediately known.

The facade of a building in the 5th arrondissement, or district, collapsed, and emergency services were working to determine if anyone was still inside, a Paris police official said. The explosion happened near the historic Val de Grace military hospital.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said the building where the explosion occurred was a private school, the Paris American Academy, which was founded in 1965 and offers teaching in fashion design, interior design, fine arts and creative writing.

The fire was contained but not yet extinguished. Some 270 firefighters were involved in putting out the flames and 70 emergency vehicles were on the scene.

A Paris police official told The Associated Press that 24 people were injured, including four in critical condition and 20 with less severe injuries. The official says the injuries were sustained mainly when people were blown off their feet by the blast.

Officials from the 5th arrondissement attributed the blast and blaze to a gas leak.

District Mayor Florence Berthout said, “The explosion was extremely violent,” describing pieces of glass still falling from buildings.

The Paris prosecutor said an investigation was opened into aggravated involuntary injury and the probe would examine whether the explosion stemmed from a suspected violation of safety rules.

Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said investigators would seek to “determine whether or not there was failure to respect a rule or individual imprudence that led to the explosion.”

Nunez, the Paris police chief, said firefighters prevented the fire from igniting two neighboring buildings that were “seriously destabilized” by the explosion and evacuated. The explosion blew out several windows in the area, witnesses and the police chief said.

Smoke was no longer visibly rising from the building by Wednesday evening. Sirens still wailed as ambulances passed through the neighborhood, but residents were starting to move freely again on the street, rue Saint-Jacques, which was cordoned off earlier.



Palestinian Protest Leader Detained by US Misses Son’s Birth 

Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP)
Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP)
TT
20

Palestinian Protest Leader Detained by US Misses Son’s Birth 

Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP)
Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP)

Detained pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil missed the birth of his son on Monday after US authorities refused a temporary release, his wife said.

A graduate student at New York's Columbia University who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza, Khalil was arrested by immigration authorities on March 8.

He was ordered deported even though he was a permanent US resident through his American citizen wife, Noor Abdalla.

Abdalla said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied a request to release Khalil temporarily for the birth of their child.

"This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud and our son suffer," she said in a statement.

"My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud's support for Palestinian freedom," she said.

She gave birth in New York. Khalil was transferred to the southern state of Louisiana in an apparent bid to find a judge sympathetic to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Trump's advisors have accused pro-Palestinian protesters of promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism, charges the activists deny.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy.

Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review.

Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records.

Immigration authorities last week arrested another Columbia University student active in the protests, Mohsen Mahdawi, as he attended an interview seeking to become a US citizen.