Explosives Found in “Red Crescent” Ambulance

Despite sweeping denials by the head of the Red Crescent in Ramallah, who described Israel’s allegation as “lies of the occupation,” officials in Israel from the Red Cross — the organization also sponsors the Red Crescent — admitted that they were shown information corroborating Israel’s allegations.

On Wednesday morning reserve soldiers at a roadblock on the road leading to the Kalandiya intersection from Nablus noticed a Red Crescent ambulance. The soldiers ordered the driver to stop, but he continued driving and was stopped only after he was pursued. The driver behaved strangely and after a short time admitted to the soldiers that an explosives belt was hidden inside the ambulance. The soldiers immediately took out a mother and her children who were also inside, and the woman was taken for questioning.

It turned out that the driver was a Tanzim activist wanted by the GSS. In his interrogation he admitted that he had agreed — for a sum — to bring the explosives belt in the ambulance and to bring it to Tanzim activists in Ramallah. The woman in the car was his sister-in-law and the explosives belt, comprised of 16 pipes and containing ten kilo of explosives, was hidden under the stretcher on which one of her children was lying. “The belt was ready for a terror attack. All that needed to be done was to hand it over to a suicide bomber,” a senior security source said, who also praised the soldiers’ conduct and their alertness.

Israeli security sources said that there has been information for several months on the use of Red Crescent workers to pass weapons and armed men in ambulances almost freely through IDF roadblocks, exploiting the fact that there are clear instructions to try not to hinder medical teams in the territories from operating.

Only a few months ago it was learned that a Red Crescent woman volunteer in Ramallah named Wafa Idris transported a very large bomb into Jerusalem in a Red Crescent ambulance. [… ] At the time, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent said there was no proof to Israel’s allegations. But the picture changed around on Wednesday and the Red Cross expressed great regret at the use made of the Red Crescent ambulance to smuggle an explosives belt from Ramallah.

Israeli security sources believe that Tanzim-Fatah leaders, including Marwan Barghouti, intended to give the belt to a suicide bomber from the El-Aksa Martyrs Brigades to carry out a terror attack inside Israel. This attack may have been scheduled to take place during Passover in Jerusalem.

This piece ran in Maariv on March 29, 2002