Report: Israeli police unit disguised as medics
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By Ma'an News Agency
News Article
Monday, Oct 12, 2009
While Israel often accuses Palestinians of misusing ambulances as cover for
attacks, a new report from the country's second-largest newspaper suggests
Israel may want to clean up its own house.
In its "The Magazine"
supplement, the Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv exposed an undercover unit created
by Israeli police that disguises its operatives as medics, Bedouins,
ultra-Orthodox Jews, or even civilians faking car trouble.
According to
the report published on Saturday, the special unit specializes in targeting
Palestinians listed on Israel's long "wanted" list.
Seventeen policemen
form the unit, which was created at the end of July, which was described by
Ma'ariv as the first of its kind. The team is reportedly most often deployed in
Bedouin communities in the Negev Desert, while it boasts 30-40 arrests each
month from all over Israel.
Yousi Makhluf, who heads the special unit,
proudly explained that its members "are the best men, very experienced, a lot of
investigative intelligence experience, speak Arabic, and have relations with
Bedouins."
"There are no geographical borders that limit the work of the
unit, which works in Ramle, Haifa, Ashdod..." he added. "A number of [its
members] have served in the army's undercover unit and worked in the West Bank
and Gaza, where they were trained in the most advanced methods of disguise and
blending in."
Meanwhile, a nongovernmental media organization expressed
concern on Saturday about reports that undercover Israeli operatives were posing
as photojournalists during Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli policies
in Jerusalem.
In a statement, Awad Awad, a photojournalist working with
the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), said that
concerns arose from reports the organization received from residents of the East
Jerusalem neighborhood Ras Al-Amoud.
Awad quoted residents saying they
saw Israeli agents carrying cameras and disguised as press photographers on
Thursday and Friday. The same agents, they, arrested young men who participated
in the demonstration.
Speaking to Ma'an on Saturday, residents of the
area reported identical incidents. Witnesses said they saw Israelis dressed as
photographers seize several young male protesters.
Ras Al-Amoud saw some
of the fiercest clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israeli riot
police. Reported intrusions by Israeli settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque
compound, the third holiest site in Islam, have sparked over a week of
demonstrations.
The next day, a photo published on the website of The New
York Times also showed plainclothes Israeli officers seizing a Palestinian man
during a demonstration in East Jerusalem.
In its statement, MADA warned
that Israeli operatives disguising themselves as photographers could endanger
the lives of actual photojournalists.
Ma'an News Agency
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