PARIS, May 23: The Israeli Embassy in Paris was completely destroyed by fire on Thursday. The fire began on the second floor of the structure, which was undergoing renovation.

It started at 2am local time (6am PST), and in spite of the arrival of several brigades of firemen, it could not be contained. Five firemen sustained injuries.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, as well as France’s new interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, also visited the site.

Police said they were unable to determine the cause of the fire, but at the same time ruled out subversion.

Agencies add: Israeli ambassador Elie Barnavi said most probably an accident had sparked the fire, but added that more investigation was needed.

“We don’t rule anything out,” Barnavi told Israel Radio when asked whether terrorism was suspected.

“The investigation has not yet begun. The police are here of course but they have not yet been able to enter the building.

The initial assumption is that it was caused by an electric fault, but the investigation will only begin in the morning.”

“The embassy is totally destroyed,” Paris police chief Jean-Paul Proust told reporters. “At this moment, we have no indication of the cause of this fire.”

Barnavi said nothing remained but the build’s facade.

“Basically there is no embassy anymore. That is the story, everything that was inside has been destroyed.

‘‘The only thing that remains is outside of the building...everything we had, all our memory, our computers have gone,” he said on Israel Radio.

A recent wave of anti-Israeli attacks in France, including a threatening letter containing a bullet sent to Barnavi last month, has heightened concern about any incidents related to Jewish sites here.

“Everything concerning Israel is serious at this time,” said Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who rushed to the scene with his Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. President Jacques Chirac telephoned Barnavi to express concern.

“We came to express our sympathy and concern to the Israeli ambassador and Israeli people at this incident, whose cause we do not know,” Raffarin said.

“For an embassy, this is a particularly cruel event, for its archives, information and all that concerns the work of the diplomats,” he said.

“It’s most probably an accident,” Barnavi told reporters near the site. “We’ll know more during the day,” he said.

Firemen said the blaze in the old building was so intense that stone blocks cracked from the heat.

Two firefighters hurt in the blaze were injured when the floors they were standing on collapsed, sending them falling to a lower floor.

Officials had first said the building was an unoccupied structure belonging to the embassy, but Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe later said it was in fact the embassy itself.

He said the city would do its best to find alternative facilities for the embassy, which was located in the capital’s chic eighth district, close to the Elysee presidential palace.

“Everything is being done to establish the cause of this fire,” an Elysee official said.

THREAT TO AMBASSADOR: On April 15, Barnavi told Europe 1 radio he had received a letter containing a bullet for a Magnum calibre .44 revolver but that he would not tighten personal security as a result.