Officials in Moscow have accepted the offer of Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak to dispatch an Israeli plane to transport the bodies of the 24 Russian travel agents who were killed in the Tuesday bus accident near Eilat back to Russia.

Twenty-seven injured people are still being treated in five Israeli hospitals. The conditions of nine are very serious; two are in serious condition and the rest sustained moderate and light injuries. The Israeli transportation minister said that “hooliganism of drivers” caused the accident.

About 50 relatives of the travel agents hurt in the accident gathered on Tuesday night at the airport in St. Petersburg, Russia. A special Russian government plane belonging to the Emergency Ministry of Russia collected the relatives and headed for Israel.

The plane carried psychologists and physicians, forensic experts and equipment for flying bodies. Two planes arrived in Israel from Russia yesterday morning, bringing family members of the people killed and injured in the accident, as well as medical staff.

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“The relatives will identify their loved ones based on information they will receive from the Russian embassy,” said Tamara Halavskaya, CEO of the Russian tourism company partnered with the Israeli company Travelux, which hosted the travel agents.

According to Israeli government sources, Travelux, which organized the visit for the 49 Russian travel agents, is a “veteran company, with a good reputation and a great deal of experience with the Russian market.”

The Israeli company booked the transportation services and the guides. The goal aimed to familiarize the agents with Eilat hotels and give them a tour of other tourist spots in Israel. “To sell Israel to them,” Ms. Halavskaya said in a phone conversation from St. Petersburg to the Voice of Israel Radio.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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