Haaretz
Tishrei 21, 5765
The IDF yesterday publicly admitted for the first
time that intelligence experts are divided over the identity of the object
that was filmed being loaded into a UN ambulance in Jabalya last week.
Some think that it was a Qassam rocket, others say it was just a stretcher
as the UN Relief and Works Agency said all along.
When the film was
released last Friday, Israeli spokesmen insisted it showed a Qassam being
loaded into the ambulance. But last night, Major General Israel Ziv, head
of the IDF Operations Directorate, called a news conference and admitted
that IDF analysts who reexamined the picture had their doubts.
"The reexamination revealed there are doubts among the analysts as
to what it is," he said. "The argument continues to this minute. Some say
it's a weapon and some say the high is it's an innocent object."
It the army concludes it was wrong, Ziv said, it will apologize.
Meanwhile, it has removed the pictures from its web site. Nevertheless,
Ziv said, the film also shows two UN vehicles near a group of Palestinians
placing bombs at the entrance to Jabalya.
"To our understanding,
the aim was to provide cover for terrorist activity. The circumstances
under which the UN vehicle moved - that has a connection to terrorist
activity," he said.
Ziv said the IDF has arrested 13 Palestinian
employees of various UN organizations on suspicion of being involved in
terrorism, some of whom will be indicted soon. In addition, he said, the
IDF has collected testimony about the help employees of UN organizations
have given to Palestinian terror organizations.
"We will present
these facts to the UN committee when it arrives," he said, referring to
the panel that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan set up on Monday to
investigate Israel's allegations against UNRWA.
Ziv refused to
answer reporters' questions on whether the hasty public relations use of
the film was spurred by pressure on the army from the Prime Minister's
Office.
In an interview with Haaretz yesterday, UNRWA director
Peter Hansen accused Israel of incitement against the UN organization and
said he doubted Israel's "mistake" over the stretcher was innocent. He
said he hopes Israel will apologize.
"It's good Israel is
recanting," he said. "I only hope that the correction will be disseminated
as widely as the accusations against us were."
Hansen charged that
the Qassam affair reflected a typical pattern of Israeli behavior toward
the UN - crude accusations unsubstantiated in fact and which eventually
fizzle out but without Israel ever bothering to apologize. He also
complained that Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints have now been
expressing hostility toward UNRWA workers, accusing them of helping
terrorists.
Meanwhile, the United States last night vetoed a UN
Security Council resolution condemning Israel's operation in Gaza and
demanding that it end immediately. Eleven countries voted in favor of the
resolution; Britain, Germany and Romania abstained.
U.S. Ambassador
to the UN John Danforth had said on Monday that the U.S. would veto any
resolution that did not mention Hamas terrorism, but yesterday, he was
more outspoken and leveled unusually blunt criticism at the
council.
The resolution, he said, was totally one-sided. "It tends
to put the blame on Israel and absolves terrorists in the Middle East -
people who shoot rockets into civilian areas, people who are responsible
for killing children, Hamas. Nothing was said in this resolution about
that problem."
Terming the resolution "one more step on the road to
nowhere," Danforth accused the council of acting "as the adversary of the
Israelis and cheerleader for the Palestinians." Should it pass, he added,
"it would be a very terrible statement for the Security Council to make,"
because it acquiesces in terror against Israelis.
Britain, Germany
and Romania abstained after the resolution's sponsor, Algeria, acting at
the Palestinians' behest, rejected a European proposal to balance the
condemnation of Israel with a condemnation of Hamas's Qassam attacks on
Sderot.