Sayeret
05-28-2004, 02:00 PM
Israeli Police have uncovered a network that smuggled senior Palestinian Authority officials, including members of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17 presidential guard, into Israel in fake ambulances. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Peter Hansen demanded that Israel apologize for suggesting that a UN ambulance had transported body parts of Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
Israeli Channel Ten television broadcast video footage this week showing armed Palestinians using UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency) ambulances to flee Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip.
The television report, filmed in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood on May 11, on the same night the first IDF armored personnel carrier was destroyed, killing six Israeli soldiers, clearly showed armed Palestinians boarding a UN-marked ambulance with a UN flag, and fleeing the scene.
The Channel Ten reporter stressed that this was not a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, known to have transported armed Palestinians in the past, but rather a supposedly neutral ambulance of the UN.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said on May 14 that the Palestinians had also used the UNRWA ambulances to transport the body parts of Israeli soldiers killed in the explosion of the APC.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Mofaz mentioned "the inhumanity and depravity of Palestinians in violating the honor of Israeli soldiers and the fact that they used UN ambulances and UNRWA to spirit away body parts from the site of the attack."
"I hope that the UN secretary-general will say his piece on this issue," Mofaz said.
According to media reports, ******* has a video cassette of pictures taken during the Israeli army operation in Zeitoun on May 11 showing armed Palestinians using UNRWA ambulances to transport terrorists and possibly also remains of fallen Israeli soldiers. It wasn't immediately clear if the Channel Ten report referred to the same video images.
Earlier this month, UNRWA issued a statement saying that armed militants had threatened the lives of one of its ambulance crews and forced them to transport an injured gunman and two of his armed comrades to a Gaza City hospital.
Even so, Hansen yesterday issued a statement demanding "an apology and retraction from the Israeli government and military for the damaging and baseless allegations they have made against UNRWA's ambulance drivers in the Gaza Strip."
Fake ambulances and documents
Meanwhile, police arrested a resident of Azariya, east of Jerusalem, on suspicion that he posed as an ambulance driver and illegally brought into Israel dozens of Palestinians disguised as sick patients. Other arrests are expected to follow.
The "patients" were hooked up to medical devices inside the ambulances and presented soldiers or police officers with forged documents at Israeli checkpoints. Police said the network may also have smuggled terrorists into Israel using the same method.
Police also raided a warehouse in Azariya, where the GMC vans were transformed into ambulances. They said they are investigating the possibility that the vans were stolen from Israeli hospitals.
"There is a strong possibility that Yasser Arafat was directly involved in the ambulance smuggling ring," Judea and Samaria Police Spokesman Doron Ben-Hamo said, adding that documents allegedly signed by Arafat and connected to the ring were found during a raid on a Force 17 office in Azariya on Wednesday.
Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat told ******* that the accusations were "another attempt to undermine the Palestinian Red Cross and Red Crescent" and noted that Israel stops and thoroughly checks every ambulance that goes through a checkpoint.
"I don't know why such accusations are being leveled at this time, when they are not even allowing patients to reach medical institutions," Erekat said.
Previous misuse of UNRWA ambulances
According to information provided by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, Palestinian terrorists have in the past misused the neutral standing of the UNRWA organization and its ambulances.
Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist from Kalkilya who worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and was arrested in August 2002, admitted he had used one such vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists and had also exploited the freedom of movement he enjoyed to transmit messages to and from Hamas activists in various places.
Nahd Rashid Ahmad Atallah, a senior UNRWA employee working in the Gaza Strip who was in charge of distributing aid to refugees and who was arrested in August 2002, admitted that during June and July 2002 he had given rides in his car - an UNRWA vehicle - to armed terrorists belonging to the Popular Resistance Committees. The terrorists were on their way to attack Israeli soldiers at the Karni Checkpoint and to fire rockets at Israeli settlements in the northern Gaza Strip. Atallah also used his UNRWA car to transport a bomb weighing 12 kilograms (about 25 lbs) to his brother-in-law, a Popular Resistance Committees operative.
Israeli Channel Ten television broadcast video footage this week showing armed Palestinians using UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency) ambulances to flee Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip.
The television report, filmed in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood on May 11, on the same night the first IDF armored personnel carrier was destroyed, killing six Israeli soldiers, clearly showed armed Palestinians boarding a UN-marked ambulance with a UN flag, and fleeing the scene.
The Channel Ten reporter stressed that this was not a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, known to have transported armed Palestinians in the past, but rather a supposedly neutral ambulance of the UN.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said on May 14 that the Palestinians had also used the UNRWA ambulances to transport the body parts of Israeli soldiers killed in the explosion of the APC.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Mofaz mentioned "the inhumanity and depravity of Palestinians in violating the honor of Israeli soldiers and the fact that they used UN ambulances and UNRWA to spirit away body parts from the site of the attack."
"I hope that the UN secretary-general will say his piece on this issue," Mofaz said.
According to media reports, ******* has a video cassette of pictures taken during the Israeli army operation in Zeitoun on May 11 showing armed Palestinians using UNRWA ambulances to transport terrorists and possibly also remains of fallen Israeli soldiers. It wasn't immediately clear if the Channel Ten report referred to the same video images.
Earlier this month, UNRWA issued a statement saying that armed militants had threatened the lives of one of its ambulance crews and forced them to transport an injured gunman and two of his armed comrades to a Gaza City hospital.
Even so, Hansen yesterday issued a statement demanding "an apology and retraction from the Israeli government and military for the damaging and baseless allegations they have made against UNRWA's ambulance drivers in the Gaza Strip."
Fake ambulances and documents
Meanwhile, police arrested a resident of Azariya, east of Jerusalem, on suspicion that he posed as an ambulance driver and illegally brought into Israel dozens of Palestinians disguised as sick patients. Other arrests are expected to follow.
The "patients" were hooked up to medical devices inside the ambulances and presented soldiers or police officers with forged documents at Israeli checkpoints. Police said the network may also have smuggled terrorists into Israel using the same method.
Police also raided a warehouse in Azariya, where the GMC vans were transformed into ambulances. They said they are investigating the possibility that the vans were stolen from Israeli hospitals.
"There is a strong possibility that Yasser Arafat was directly involved in the ambulance smuggling ring," Judea and Samaria Police Spokesman Doron Ben-Hamo said, adding that documents allegedly signed by Arafat and connected to the ring were found during a raid on a Force 17 office in Azariya on Wednesday.
Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat told ******* that the accusations were "another attempt to undermine the Palestinian Red Cross and Red Crescent" and noted that Israel stops and thoroughly checks every ambulance that goes through a checkpoint.
"I don't know why such accusations are being leveled at this time, when they are not even allowing patients to reach medical institutions," Erekat said.
Previous misuse of UNRWA ambulances
According to information provided by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, Palestinian terrorists have in the past misused the neutral standing of the UNRWA organization and its ambulances.
Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist from Kalkilya who worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and was arrested in August 2002, admitted he had used one such vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists and had also exploited the freedom of movement he enjoyed to transmit messages to and from Hamas activists in various places.
Nahd Rashid Ahmad Atallah, a senior UNRWA employee working in the Gaza Strip who was in charge of distributing aid to refugees and who was arrested in August 2002, admitted that during June and July 2002 he had given rides in his car - an UNRWA vehicle - to armed terrorists belonging to the Popular Resistance Committees. The terrorists were on their way to attack Israeli soldiers at the Karni Checkpoint and to fire rockets at Israeli settlements in the northern Gaza Strip. Atallah also used his UNRWA car to transport a bomb weighing 12 kilograms (about 25 lbs) to his brother-in-law, a Popular Resistance Committees operative.