UN gives 'shelter to killers'

2004-10-02 21:57

Jerusalem - Israel is to lodge a strong protest with the United Nations after releasing footage of what it says are Palestinian militants using a UN ambulance to transport rockets, Israeli army radio reported on Saturday.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman is to address a written protest to Secretary General Kofi Annan, the radio said.

"The UN's role is to bring peace and not to give shelter to killers of women and children," it quoted the letter as saying.

"The UN must set up a commission of enquiry to look deeply into the matter and find out if its employees have collaborated or been used," Gillerman told the station.

He went on to accuse Peter Hansen, the director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, of being "heavily implicated in this problem".

"Peter Hansen is far from being considered a friend of Israel, on the contrary, he hates Israel," Gillerman continued.

Israeli television broadcast video footage taken by a drone in the northern Gaza Strip of what it said were Palestinian militants carrying a Qassam rocket launcher getting into a vehicle with the United Nations logo on the roof.

The Israeli army said that one of its drones had shot the footage on Friday evening above Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Israel has been conducting a massive and bloody incursion into the northern Gaza Strip centred on Jabaliya since Tuesday, aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israeli territory.

Fifty-four Palestinians have so far been killed in the operation, as well as two Israeli soldiers, a settler and two Israeli children killed by a Palestinian rocket in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday.

The Israeli accusation against the United Nations followed a UN complaint against Israel that its troops had taken over UN-run schools in the Gaza Strip, while children were still in class, and used them as firing positions for tanks.

- AFP