AFP
UN chief launches probe into Israeli charges over UN ambulances
Date: Tuesday October 5
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN chief Kofi Annan will launch an investigation into Israeli allegations that Palestinian militants have used UN ambulances to carry weapons and will ask Israel for proof to support its accusations, his spokesman said.
However, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said the UN secretary general "has no reason whatsoever to doubt" the conclusions of Peter Hansen, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees who demanded a retraction and apology from the Israeli government.
The Israeli army released Saturday video footage purporting to show Palestinian militants using a UN ambulance to transport rockets in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been conducting a massive and bloody incursion into the northern Gaza Strip since Tuesday aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israeli territory.
After viewing the footage Sunday, Hansen said the blurry pictures, taken by an Israeli drone, showed nothing more than paramedics throwing a folded portable stretcher into the vehicle.
In a letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Hansen demanded Monday "an immediate public retraction and apology from the government of Israel."
Annan met with Israel's ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman to ask what evidence Israel has to support the allegations.
Gillerman reiterated the charges, saying that he "made it very clear" to Annan that there is "a very worrying pattern of UN involvement in terrorist activities.
"Too many times, has the UN found either its staff, its personnel, its vehicles or its logistics too near of terrorist activities or being used or maybe even cynically manipulated by terrorists," Gillerman told reporters after the meeting.
"The mere fact that this is happening time after time after time is something which the UN should be very worried about," he said.
According to Gillerman, the Israeli army "is convinced that the object that was actually put in that UN vehicle was indeed a weapon and not a stretcher."
Gillerman also said it was "worrying and incredible" that Hansen said in an interview with Canadian CBC network that the UN agency employs members of the Palestinian group Hamas, and that Hansen said there was a distinction between the group's political and military wings.
Canada, the United States and Europe all consider Hamas a terrorist group and reject such a distinction, Gillerman said.
"For a high ranking UN official to make that allegation to us is totally unacceptable and very disturbing and should be disturbing to the UN as well," Gillerman said.
Annan told Gillerman "that the UN and he personally are taking these allegations very seriously" and will send a team to investigate the charges.
A UN team which will travel to Israel from New York on Tuesday, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The UN Security Council later discussed the Middle East after Algeria submitted a draft resolution calling on Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza, but the United States quickly criticized the measure.
The draft, presented by Arab nations and up for a vote Tuesday, was introduced amid a massive Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip that was launched six days ago to establish a buffer zone that would prevent militants from firing rockets at Israel.
The proposed resolution "demands the immediate cessation of all military operations in the area of Northern Gaza and the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from that area."
US ambassador John Danforth dismissed the text as "one more step on the road to nowhere."
"The Security Council and the General Assembly, instead of saying 'stop' to both sides, act as the cheerleaders of the Palestinians," Danforth said.
Dutch ambassador Dirk van den Berg, who spoke for the European Union, said Israel's response to Palestinian attacks was "disproportionate."
"Though Israel has the right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks, the exercise of this right should take place within the boundaries of international law," he said.
Algerian ambassador Abdallah Baali denounced "the disgraceful methods used by Israel today against defenseless civilian populations."
The council must "demand that Israel put an end immediately to the operations it is carrying out in Gaza," Baali said.
The Algerian text calls on Israel and the Palestinian Authority "to immediately implement their obligations under the roadmap" for peace backed by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.
The text also "calls on Israel, the occupying power, to ensure the unfettered access and safety of United Nations personnel ... and calls for the respect of the inviolability of the facilities of the United Nations agencies in the field, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East."
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