Letter leads to sacking of embassy press officer

THE press officer of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin has been fired following her public condemnation of an Israeli air attack on Gaza City in a letter to the Irish Examiner.

Dr Noreen O’Carroll wrote the letter in July saying she wished to add her voice to that of Israel’s President Katsav in condemning what she called a horrific attack.

She wrote the letter after an Israeli F-16 warplane bombed a building in Gaza, killing the military chief of Hamas with his bodyguard and 13 civilians, including nine children on July 22. The letter, published in the Irish Examiner on July 25, was written on Embassy headed paper, and signed by Dr O’Carroll in her capacity as press officer.