Posted on 02/11/2002 8:36:08 AM PST by veronica
The discovery that the first female Palestinian suicide bomber may have exploited her status as a field worker with the Palestine Red Crescent to gain entry to Jerusalem last month has increased focus on Israeli charges that elements of this medical society are aiding and abetting terrorism. It has taken several weeks to unravel the mystery surrounding the bomber who carried out the attack on the morning of January 27 in downtown Jerusalem, which killed an 81-year-old Israeli man and wounded close to 200 others.
But it is now known that Wafa Idris left for work from her Ramallah home, telling her family she would be back later that day, and never returned. She made her way to Jaffa Street with a powerful explosive device, which detonated in the middle of the busy traffic artery, shattering storefronts and ripping through human flesh.
Israeli security sources are now fairly certain Idris was not just transporting the bomb, but intended it to be a suicide mission. Among other evidence, the Fatah member told her mother of her desire to become a "shaheed," and Palestinian media broadcasts have glorified her "heroic martyrdom."
But exactly how she got into Jerusalem with her deadly cargo is now the focus of controversy, since Idris was a volunteer medic for a Palestinian ambulance service. Israeli investigators are now charging she may have used her immune status and a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance to get past IDF checkpoints into Jerusalem.
This is not the first such charge made by Israel that Palestinians are using Red Crescent ambulances as cover for terrorist activity. The same day Idris as identified as a PRCS worker, the IDF also reported capturing a wanted Palestinian terrorist disguised in a doctor's uniform and riding in a PRCS ambulance as it tried to pass through a roadblock near Nablus.
While the allegations of Red Crescent complicity in the deadly mission of their paramedic cannot be proven because of her death and a lack of PRCS cooperation, such incidents present many complications for Israeli border police and IDF soldiers in the territories.
Throughout the 17-month-old intifada, Israeli security forces say the Palestinians have used the immunity enjoyed by Red Crescent ambulances to smuggle weapons and terrorists.
For instance, IDF officers said last November that a Red Cross vehicle in the Jenin area was seen ferrying gunmen to a site where they could shoot at Israeli soldiers. In another incident early last year, the IDF insisted Palestinian gunmen fired at Israelis from inside a Red Crescent building near Ramallah. The IDF was reluctant to return fire.
Early in the intifada, Israeli soldiers at such major flashpoints as the Netzarim junction in central Gaza and the Ayyosh junction outside Ramallah reported observing numerous instances of Red Crescent ambulances carrying gunmen and other combatants to the front-lines and then whisking away the wounded.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Geneva, says none of these claims have been substantiated. And local Red Crescent spokesman Mohammed Iyad said Israel's recent allegations regarding Idris are "entirely incorrect."
According to their records, none of the PRCS ambulances were in Jerusalem on the day of the explosion and Idris was not working, he said.
Iyad said the IDF has been leveling accusations against the PRCS because it has been criticized for holding up emergency vehicles at checkpoints, delays that have cost lives, according to Palestinian sources. In two recent cases, a baby died during childbirth because IDF soldiers did not allow ambulances to get through checkpoints in the Jenin area. Iyad said also that 68 Red Crescent ambulances have been attacked by the IDF, leading to one death and 122 injuries.
Most of these Palestinian claims have proven false. The IDF says it instructs soldiers to let ambulances through if they are carrying patients, but they are to examine the ambulances first. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers and medics have actually treated a number of emergency cases in the field, even delivering a Palestinian baby at a roadblock last year.
On the other hand, there are numerous instances of Palestinian militants shooting at Israeli ambulances and targeting rescue teams arriving on the scenes of terrorist attacks.
Even as such charges and counter-charges are volleyed by both sides, Red Cross officials allow that there is a problem with Red Crescent emblems being misused. About 20 percent of the ambulances in the territories are not affiliated with the International Red Cross or the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said ICRC official Uri Massad.
Vincent Lusser, spokesman in Geneva for the Middle East Division of the ICRC, said misuse of the Red Crescent symbol exists, popping up on cars of private drivers or non-PRCS ambulances.
"It's a problem when people use or abuse it," Lusser told ICEJ news, but added, "the teams we work with, we work very closely with and they have log books. If there are allegations that PRCS is involved (in terrorist activities), then we'll discuss it. But (the PRCS has) always denied it."
Lusser said that if they find evidence linking the PRCS to terrorist activities, the International Red Cross would intervene, but added, "We are absolutely sure they have not been involved in such incidents."
Lusser noted the main concern is not doing away with Israeli searches of ambulances, but speeding them up. If Israel hesitates to trust the PRCS or even the International Red Cross itself, it stems from the contentious relationship between the two since Israel's own medical society, Magen David Adom (Red Star of David), was first denied membership by secret ballot among Geneva Convention signatories in 1949.
According to the ICRC, the MDA's application has been repeatedly rejected ever since because its symbol carries "religious" connotations, a nice way of explaining the anti-Jewish bigotry among its members. Since then, 25 Red Crescent societies from Islamic nations have been admitted.
The American Red Cross has backed Israel's admittance as a member of the International Red Cross, unlike some of its European counterparts, who want to exclude Israel because of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Some Muslim nations have said they will resign if Israel is admitted.
The American chapter has withheld $5 million in annual support since 1999 in protest of the exclusion of Israel's MDA. The US branch criticized ICRC official Rene Kosirnik last year when he called Israel's activities in the territories a "war crime." The US chapter demanded he retract his statement, saying the ICRC had traditionally maintained a policy of neutrality on political issues and Kosirnik had crossed that line.
Israeli leaders also are upset with the lax approach Red Cross officials have taken towards Israelis kidnapped by Hizb'Allah and other militias in Lebanon. The Red Cross has failed to visit or obtain information on any of the eight Israeli POW/MIAs missing in Lebanon from as far back as 1982.
The international federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies has a similar relationship to both Israel's MDA and the Palestinian Red Crescent. The PRCS does not have full official standing with the ICRC because only independent states are recognized, but the group is allowed to use the Red Crescent logo.
According to its web site, the ICRC supports the PRCS, the key provider of emergency medical services for the Palestinian population, with radio communication, a comprehensive training program and more than 20 medical first aid posts.
Since May 2001, the ICRC has been covering the running costs of the PRCS's fleet of up to 100 ambulances and the salaries of the over 220 employees involved. The ICRC also offers its services to the MDA to help develop its dissemination and tracing activities.
While the use of Palestinian ambulances and emergency medical services in terrorist activities is difficult to prove, it does seem to fit within the Palestinian leadership's calculated efforts to involve all Palestinian assets in the renewed intifada against Israel.
During the summer of 2000, the New York Times gave prominent coverage to Fatah summer camps teaching some 25,000 youths the "order of battle" for the coming conflict with Israel. The 12-year-olds were taught how to transport and throw stones; the 15-year-olds were trained to make and throw firebombs; and those 17-and-up were drilled in handling and firing rifles.
At the same time, there were hushed but just as telling signs of preparations for hostilities on another front, as Palestinian elements readied to treat an anticipated wave of casualties. A rash of break-ins was reported at numerous pharmacies inside Israel and in Jewish communities in the territories. A clear pattern emerged of intruders carting off medical supplies, not cash.
In addition, up to eight Israeli ambulances were reported stolen in the same period, which baffled Israeli authorities since Palestinian car thieves had never targeted such emergency vehicles before.
Israeli security analysts began pointing to these developments as an indication that the Palestinians were expecting to have a lot of wounded on their hands, and wanted their medical services to be ready.
Once the intifada started last year, Dr. Fathi Arafat, brother to PLO chief Yasser Arafat, stepped down as head of the Red Crescent in the "West Bank," though he still enjoys an honorary position in the organization. The PRCS says the measure was taken to remove any negative impression their family relationship might create.
Yet the impression that the Palestine Red Crescent is being used to help carry the battle to Israel is getting harder and harder to shake.
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