woensdag 18 februari 2009

Hamas stal niet-ontplofte bommen uit VN waarhuis

 
Vorige week stal Hamas voedsel en dekens van de VN, en ook tijdens Israels offensief in Gaza heeft Hamas meermaals hulpgoederen van UNRWA geconfisceerd.
 
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Last update - 23:00 17/02/2009
IDF: Hamas seized unexploded ordnance fired during Gaza op
By Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064943.html

 
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that Hamas has commandeered a large cache of unexploded weapons fired by Israel into the Gaza Strip during its offensive last month.

The cache had disappeared while under guard by Hamas officials. United Nations experts had planned to dispose safely of the stockpile, which includes aircraft bombs and white phosphorous shells.

UN officials discovered earlier this week that most of the contents of a Gaza warehouse being guarded by Hamas were missing. Israel Defense Force spokesman Peter Lerner said the cache had been "commandeered by Hamas."
"We were told of the disappearance of the bombs, our understanding is that Hamas took them," he said.

UN officials said that they were urgently seeking out the location of the weapons and calling for their return. They said some of the unexploded devices were extremely volatile and could easily be set off by accident.

"We are anxious to get the return of this ordnance. It's clearly extremely dangerous and needs to be disposed of in a safe manner," Richard Miron, the senior UN spokesman in Jerusalem said. "This is our primary concern."

A UN team trained to remove and destroy unexploded ordnance has been operating in the Gaza Strip for three weeks, but its work is being held up because Israel has not approved the entry of its equipment nor an area for storing and neutralizing ordnance.

For now some of the latter, located by the Palestinian police, is being stored in locations that are dangerously close to population centers in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City. The team is waiting for permission from the IDF to use two safe areas to dispose of the ordnance.

Despite the delays, the team has made some progress that does not depend on equipment, especially in searching out unexploded ordnance - many of which have already been collected by Hamas officials.

White phosphorus bombs found in Gaza City and in the northern Gaza Strip last month and placed in a lot near police headquarters in Gaza City, near bombs with a collective weight of 7,500 kilograms, were neutralized by being submerged in water and covered with sand.

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304810241&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Five tons of unexploded Israeli bombs stored in the Gaza Strip under Hamas police guard have been stolen, UN officials said Tuesday.
 
UN spokesman Richard Miron said the explosives were being stored in Gaza until a UN team of disposal experts could disarm them, but they disappeared.
 
The bombs were dropped on Gaza during Israel's offensive there last month, according to another UN official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said three one-ton bombs and eight quarter-ton bombs were taken from the warehouse.
 
Miron said, "It's clearly extremely dangerous and needs to be disposed of in a safe manner." He said the material was under Hamas guard between Feb. 4 and 14 "in a warehouse in Gaza City under guard by Hamas police when it was stolen."
 
IDF spokesman Peter Lerner told The Associated Press that the explosives were probably taken by Hamas. He said Israel had been informed by the UN about the missing ordnance.
 
Hamas officials in Gaza contacted by the AP said they had no knowledge of the matter.
 
 

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