Posted on 09/06/2006 5:39:13 AM PDT by SJackson
The father of one of 3 soldiers abducted in 2000 charges that UNIFIL cooperated with Hizbullah in their murders. A film documentary of the abduction also includes the voice of Ron Arad (pictured).
The families of Benny Avraham, Omar Souad and Adi Avitan - captured and killed in October 2000 and returned for burial in early 2004 - say the United Nations withheld information about film footage which shows their sons’ capture at Har Dov along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The documentary about the kidnappings also features a clip that shows missing IAF navigator Ron Arad, who was captured after he was forced to bail out of his damaged aircraft over Lebanese territory in 1986. Arad’s voice is heard in the segment for the first time since his capture 20 years ago, stating his name and the names of his parents, Batya and Dov Arad. It is not known when his voice was taped.
The kidnapping segment was aired in both Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday night, while the Arad tape will be shown in the Arabic-language documentary's Part 2 on Wednesday night.
The rights to air the report were purchased Monday by Israel’s Channel 10 TV news department from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) for $200,000. A statement by the Lebanese television network said it does not know the source of the footage.
The film shows how Hizbullah terrorists trained for the kidnapping, and then the abduction itself: the arrival of the unescorted IDF jeep, explosions, terrorists running to the site, more shots, the actual taking of two soldiers into a dark-colored car, and the get-away of the car into Lebanon.
Avi Avitan's father Yaakov declared that a UNIFIL member filmed the kidnappings and then sold the film to Hizbullah terrorists.
The film shows that at least two of the three soldiers were alive at the time of their capture. Avraham’s father therefore concluded that Hizbullah terrorists had murdered the soldiers in cold blood – “the ones who were alive,” he added. He accused Hizbullah leader Sheikh Nasrallah of pure evil in toying with the soldiers' families for many months while pretending that the soldiers were alive.
Avitan also accused the U.N. of having cooperated in the killing. “Hizbullah made sure to erase the United Nations’ cooperation in the film – but the U.N.’s lies become clear here. They filmed the kidnapping and knew what was happening all along,” he charged.
The first hint of the existence of the tape came to light shortly after the kidnapping when a UNIFIL officer said the operation had been caught on film. Yaakov and Tzipora Avitan searched desperately for the tape, but were told by the United Nations that there was no such footage. Only months later did representatives of the world body later admit that the tape did indeed exist.
Avraham warned that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is not to be trusted. “We have to watch him with a magnifying glass,” he said. “He had this information and he hid it from us.”
Annan claimed Monday that he was asked by both Israel and Hizbullah to negotiate for the release of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, abducted by Hizbullah on July 12th, at the same location as Avraham, Avitan and Souad.
Israel flatly denied the claim, and foreign news services reported that a government spokesman said, "A mediator is not needed... The UN resolution determines that the soldiers will be released unconditionally.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev added that Israel was prepared for Annan to "assist" but not to mediate for the two soldiers, whose whereabouts and fate are still unknown.
Although watching the film was very painful for all the family members whose sons are shown in the footage, there was nonetheless a sense of closure. “We were aware of a great part of the information,” said Avraham, "but not about their last moments – and the State of Israel also did not know.”
Avraham added that the film “proves that our sons carried out the mission like they were supposed to." Rumors that the soldiers were carrying out a drug deal had been circulated shortly after the abduction, but were quickly disproved. "The State of Israel, through the State Prosecutor’s Office, should prepare a report today about our children’s murder and about all of UNIFIL’s lies. The State of Israel must not trust UNIFIL.”
Yaakov Avitan is shown in the film saying he has no gripes against the IDF, and that the IDF in fact "embraced" the families from the beginning.
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It's twenty years since his capture.
Why anyone would think the UN is anything but completely evil is beyond me.
It's time for sane nations to end their association with an organization so filled with terrorist enablement, corruption and incompetence. Send the UN to some jihadistan..
Certainly possible. After all you average U.N. type isn't gonna see accessory to Jew killin' as any worse that raping young African girls.
Telling it like it is.
Ain't that the truth too!
Some kind of alternate reality we're living in right now.
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