The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that Israel’s military has been preparing for a radiation strike by Hezbollah or Palestinian groups. The Israeli military has determined that Iran and Syria were helping insurgency groups assemble radiation bombs in an attempt to conduct a mass-casualty attack. They said the radioactive material could be inserted into a rocket, missile or placed aboard an unmanned aerial vehicle.

“Both Iran and Syria have accumulated arsenals of radiation material that could be used in dirty bombs,” an Israeli military official confirmed.

Yesterday, the Israeli Defense Ministry launched an exercise meant to respond to a radiation strike in Tel Aviv. Officials said this was the first such Israeli exercise and envisioned thousands of casualties.

“This is the first time that all of the country’s relevant authorities will be tested in real time on how to respond to a dirty bomb and not a missile attack,” a defense official told the Israeli media. “There are a number of scenarios that are all extreme. They include the contamination of our water system as well as the detonation of a suitcase carrying radioactive material.”

Iran and Syria are believed to be preparing squads to smuggle radiation, chemical or biological weapons for attacks against Israel. They said such an attack could serve as retaliation for any Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“A dirty bomb would have no fingerprints and would be just as damaging as a missile strike by either Iran or Syria,” another official said. “You could smuggle such a bomb anywhere.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.

©The Bulletin 2008

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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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