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Foreign Diplomats Furious over Israeli Army's Searches
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Israel's army searches everything and everybody |
JERUSALEM, June 7 (IslamOnline &
News Agencies) – Foreign diplomatic legations, posted in Israel, are
increasingly tense over the Israeli army’s searching diplomats’
cars traveling in the Palestinian occupied territories, according to
news reports Friday, June 7, 2002.
The Israeli army’s policy resulted
in strong protests from the diplomatic missions, however, the army
said it was not backing down from the practice, according to
Israel’s daily newspaper, Ha’aretz.
During a recent tour by military attaches of an Israeli army base in
Gaza, some of the attaches raised the issue, saying soldiers are
stopping them systematically and conducting thorough searches of their
cars.
Senior Israeli officers, on the tour, said they thought the searches
were necessary, claiming the army has intelligence that Palestinian
resistance groups are trying to exploit the free passage given to
diplomats to try and smuggle weapons, explosives and even activists
from place to place.
According to Ha’aretz, a few weeks
ago, a search of a Canadian car found a British citizen in the vehicle
as well as remnants of TNT. The British woman was held for some time
and later released.
For their part, the attaches warned the Israeli army of the searches'
ramifications. They said the searches violate international law, and
the diplomats will refuse to accept them.
Some foreign diplomats suspect the
real purpose of the searches is to deter them from making independent
trips into Gaza for first-hand looks at the situation there, and the
practices of the occupation army against Palestinians.
The semi-official Israeli paper claimed the army relied on a legal
opinion that gives a broad interpretation to the Vienna treaty, which
allows searches of diplomatic cars in case of suspicion of customs
violations.
A senior military source said the
Israeli army will continue conducting the searches, and that the
diplomatic immunity does not extend to drivers, when there is no
diplomat in the cars. Other officers admitted the searches are also
taking place in cars with diplomats as passengers. Western security
officials in Israel confirmed the Israeli army is conducting the
searches.
Israel
rarely gives weight to international agreements, UN resolutions or
even agreements it signed with other parties. In early May, a UN
mission assigned with investigating Israeli war crimes in the
devastated Palestinian Jenin Refugee Camp was canceled by UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan, two weeks after being first created, because of
Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the UN delegation.
Israeli
roadblocks pose a daily threat to Palestinians’ lives, not just
their cars. Palestinian women, in particular, are target of Israeli
fire, once they try to cross the roadblocks, no matter where they are
headed. In February, 2002, two Palestinian women came under fire from
Israeli troops in the West Bank as they rushed through the same
Israeli checkpoint on consecutive nights, both risking their lives to
reach hospital in time to give birth.
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