Sayeret
10-05-2004, 05:55 PM
IDF: 13 UN employees were arrested in past 4 years for terror links
UNRWA employees "are exploiting the organization's vehicles in order to support terror-related activities," head of IDF Operations Directorate Brig.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv told reporters at an IDF press conference in Tel Aviv Tuesday night.
The IDF revealed on Tuesday that in the past four years of violence, 13 Palestinians employed by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency were arrested for alleged involvement in terror activities. Some of those arrested were released and never indicted.
The IDF on Tuesday has hastened a retreat on the rocket-or-stretcher and the UN van affair, conceding that its footage of a Palestinian allegedly loading a Kassam rocket onto an UNRWA vehicle might indeed have been a stretcher as the UN organization has claimed since the controversy erupted this Sunday.
The IDF pulled from its Web site a video filmed by an unmanned aerial drone flying over the Gaza Strip, which Israel had asserted on Sunday clearly depicted a man loading a weapon onto the UNRWA ambulance.
An anonymous "senior security official" told Israel Radio that Israeli officials at all levels handled the entire affair in an "amateurish" fashion.
"The tests being conducted now should have been carried out before the tape was released to the media," the official said, adding that the army's removal of the video from its website "speaks for itself."
A senior IDF source said the army is "not innocent of mistakes. There is always the danger that important information will not be checked well enough."
During a press conference in Tel Aviv Tuesday night, the army showed an extended video - the entire clip of the UNRWA vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip – as well as video that shows Palestinian combatants preparing mines presumably for IDF tanks operating in the area. The army said the mines were big enough to destroy tanks. At the same time the frame showed video images of a UN vehicle standing nearby the Palestinians laying the mines.
The video showed several oblong objects loaded onto the van. Asked if the army could tell if Palestinians loaded a Kassam rocket or stretcher onto the UN vehicle, Ziv said, "I suggest we don't deal with the object but rather with the context."
"The UN vans are providing cover for combatants planting bombs," the Ziv said. In addition, the IDF suspects that the Palestinians were using UN assets as shields.
The estimated length of Kassam rockets varies widely and their weight can go anywhere from 7kg up to 30 kg. Previous surveillance video shows men running with these rockets.
At issue are two smudges on the grainy image, one at the fore and the other at the back of the oblong object carried under the arm of a man in the image. UNRWA has claimed that the smudges are flaps of a stretcher, the IDF that they are rocket fins.
A tight-lipped IDF released a one-sentence statement saying that "the IDF is reviewing the analysis of the footage in which UNRWA vehicles are seen involved in suspicious activity in the combat zone in Gaza."
Meanwhile, other sections of the government, including the Foreign Ministry, scrambled with little success to get clarification on the video, which was also published on the much-surfed Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
IAF officers who spoke with the Jerusalem Post Tuesday said that the onus of the workload on the crews operating and analyzing the data gathered by the unmanned drones is overwhelming. "They've been on war-footing for four years now," said one person.
Budgetary shortfalls have forced the IDF to slash its reliance on reservists over the past several years. Yet the reservist officers, NCOs and other soldiers dealing with the drones are constantly called to duty. Each hour of flight requires several hours of manpower including a remote control flyer, someone to monitor the instruments, and then others to analyze the data.
The drones fly in circular patterns above fixed or moving targets in the Gaza Strip. The strip's size, barely 340 sq. km. – has made it a perfect testing ground for the unmanned aerial vehicles. Often, said the officer, the IAF distorts the image it publishes for security reasons.
While the images published by the IDF this week may or may not depict a man loading a Kassam rocket onto a UN vehicle, both IDF staff and some UN workers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, agree that members of terrorist groups work in and sometimes exploit UN agencies.
Last year a similar IAF drone filmed masked gunmen jumping out of UN ambulances during an IDF incursion into the strip.
On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to investigate Israeli allegations that Palestinian terrorists are using its ambulances, even though he supports initial findings by his staff in the Gaza Strip that the claim is untrue.
Speaking to reporters, Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard also addressed statements made by UNRWA director-general Peter Hansen that Hamas supporters were likely on its payroll.
"We don't hire terrorists," said Eckhard
UNRWA employees "are exploiting the organization's vehicles in order to support terror-related activities," head of IDF Operations Directorate Brig.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv told reporters at an IDF press conference in Tel Aviv Tuesday night.
The IDF revealed on Tuesday that in the past four years of violence, 13 Palestinians employed by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency were arrested for alleged involvement in terror activities. Some of those arrested were released and never indicted.
The IDF on Tuesday has hastened a retreat on the rocket-or-stretcher and the UN van affair, conceding that its footage of a Palestinian allegedly loading a Kassam rocket onto an UNRWA vehicle might indeed have been a stretcher as the UN organization has claimed since the controversy erupted this Sunday.
The IDF pulled from its Web site a video filmed by an unmanned aerial drone flying over the Gaza Strip, which Israel had asserted on Sunday clearly depicted a man loading a weapon onto the UNRWA ambulance.
An anonymous "senior security official" told Israel Radio that Israeli officials at all levels handled the entire affair in an "amateurish" fashion.
"The tests being conducted now should have been carried out before the tape was released to the media," the official said, adding that the army's removal of the video from its website "speaks for itself."
A senior IDF source said the army is "not innocent of mistakes. There is always the danger that important information will not be checked well enough."
During a press conference in Tel Aviv Tuesday night, the army showed an extended video - the entire clip of the UNRWA vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip – as well as video that shows Palestinian combatants preparing mines presumably for IDF tanks operating in the area. The army said the mines were big enough to destroy tanks. At the same time the frame showed video images of a UN vehicle standing nearby the Palestinians laying the mines.
The video showed several oblong objects loaded onto the van. Asked if the army could tell if Palestinians loaded a Kassam rocket or stretcher onto the UN vehicle, Ziv said, "I suggest we don't deal with the object but rather with the context."
"The UN vans are providing cover for combatants planting bombs," the Ziv said. In addition, the IDF suspects that the Palestinians were using UN assets as shields.
The estimated length of Kassam rockets varies widely and their weight can go anywhere from 7kg up to 30 kg. Previous surveillance video shows men running with these rockets.
At issue are two smudges on the grainy image, one at the fore and the other at the back of the oblong object carried under the arm of a man in the image. UNRWA has claimed that the smudges are flaps of a stretcher, the IDF that they are rocket fins.
A tight-lipped IDF released a one-sentence statement saying that "the IDF is reviewing the analysis of the footage in which UNRWA vehicles are seen involved in suspicious activity in the combat zone in Gaza."
Meanwhile, other sections of the government, including the Foreign Ministry, scrambled with little success to get clarification on the video, which was also published on the much-surfed Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
IAF officers who spoke with the Jerusalem Post Tuesday said that the onus of the workload on the crews operating and analyzing the data gathered by the unmanned drones is overwhelming. "They've been on war-footing for four years now," said one person.
Budgetary shortfalls have forced the IDF to slash its reliance on reservists over the past several years. Yet the reservist officers, NCOs and other soldiers dealing with the drones are constantly called to duty. Each hour of flight requires several hours of manpower including a remote control flyer, someone to monitor the instruments, and then others to analyze the data.
The drones fly in circular patterns above fixed or moving targets in the Gaza Strip. The strip's size, barely 340 sq. km. – has made it a perfect testing ground for the unmanned aerial vehicles. Often, said the officer, the IAF distorts the image it publishes for security reasons.
While the images published by the IDF this week may or may not depict a man loading a Kassam rocket onto a UN vehicle, both IDF staff and some UN workers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, agree that members of terrorist groups work in and sometimes exploit UN agencies.
Last year a similar IAF drone filmed masked gunmen jumping out of UN ambulances during an IDF incursion into the strip.
On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to investigate Israeli allegations that Palestinian terrorists are using its ambulances, even though he supports initial findings by his staff in the Gaza Strip that the claim is untrue.
Speaking to reporters, Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard also addressed statements made by UNRWA director-general Peter Hansen that Hamas supporters were likely on its payroll.
"We don't hire terrorists," said Eckhard