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Stretching the truth? The IDF now says it cannot be sure it was a rocket and not a stretcher loaded onto the ambulance, and has pulled the video from its website
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners October 6, 2004 |
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The IDF revealed on Tuesday that 13 Palestinians employed by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency had been arrested for alleged involvement in terror activities.
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.
Ziv said he IDF will be filing indictments against the suspects in the near future. "We have in our hands a list of 13 detainees who are to be indicted. They are UN people with suspected links to terrorism."
Stretching the truth
Meanwhile, the army climbed down from previous claims that an UNRWA ambulance was used to transport a rocket, an allegation that it promoted in a video distributed to television and posted on the Internet. Today the IDF pulled the clip from its web site.
An anonymous "senior security official" told Israel Radio that Israel's handling of the whole affair was "amateurish." "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."
Another IDF source said the army is "not innocent of mistakes. There is always the danger that important information will not be checked well enough."
Still, Israel refused to let up its attack on the UN agency.
In a CBC-TV interview yesterday, UNRWA Gaza chief Peter Hansen admitted that his agency probably has Hamas members on its payroll but saw no problem with that.
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 referred to statements made by UNRWA director-general Hansen that Hamas supporters were likely on its payroll.
"We don't hire terrorists," said Eckhard.
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