Posted on 05/05/2003 10:30:28 AM PDT by yonif
Foreign volunteers in the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement said Monday they had tea with two Britons later involved in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing, but said they had no idea at the time of the assailants' intentions.
One of the Britons, Asif Hanif, 21, blew himself up in a Tel Aviv bar last week, killing a waitress and two musicians. The second man, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, fled when his bomb failed to detonate and remains at large. Both were British citizens.
On April 25, five days before the Tel Aviv bombing, Sharif and Hanif toured the Gaza Strip, including the Rafah refugee camp. At one point, they met with members of the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that sends volunteer to serve as buffers between Israeli troops and Palestinian civilians.
The two Britons, along with 15 other people, came to an apartment rented by the ISM in Rafah, said Raphael Cohen, an ISM member from Britain. "Our group ... offered all of them tea," Cohen told a news conference Monday.
Cohen said he asked the two Britons who they were and to which organization they belonged. "They answered that they weren't with any particular organization," said Cohen who described the men as quiet. He said that among the visitors also were four other Britons who wanted to establish a summer camp in Gaza.
After 15 minutes of drinking tea, the group attended a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an ISM volunteer crushed to death last month as she stood in the path of an Israeli bulldozer to try to prevent a house demolition in Rafah.
Cohen said the group spent only a few minutes at the spot where Corrie was killed, and that the different groups then went their separate ways.
Cohen said said that once he saw pictures of the bombers published in the media he realized who they were. "I was shocked," he said.
Cohen said he has not been in touch with Israeli police.
On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz revealed that the two British bombers entered Israel several weeks ago from Jordan with the explosive devices hidden inside a copy of the Quran, the Muslim holy book. They crossed to the West Bank and then to Israel. Mofaz told the Cabinet that after entering Israel, the two moved into the Gaza Strip for talks with local Palestinian militants.
Mofaz said that the two men apparently were recruited by a Syrian-based terror group while they were studying Arabic in Damascus.
Israel's defense minister said that in the wake of the bombing, Israel would tighten checks on foreigners visiting Palestinian territory.
"We are at a time of war and they are going into enemy territory," said Tova Ellinson a spokesperson for the Israeli Interior Ministry, noting that this policy has been in effect for over a year and that dozens of people have been deported "for breaking the law."
It was the first suicide attack carried out by a foreigner during 31 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
According to its own literature, the International Solidarity Movement is "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles."
An ISM spokeswoman, Huwaida Arraf, said that Hanif and Sharif never had any other contact with the group and never attended the training program all volunteers have to go through before being sent into the Palestinian territories.
Arraf ridiculed suggestions that the bombers entered Israel by posing as peace activists. "Doing so would have ensured that they would have been turned away," she said referring to Israel's policy of barring openly pro-Palestinians activists from entering Israel. Dozens of activists have been deported.
In a statement sent to media outlets, Arraf stated that "we believe that significant fault for the Tel Aviv attack lies the Israeli security apparatus—which clearly failed its own citizens."
(With The Associated Press)
Shocked, shocked to find terrorism here!
So It is the Jews fault, because they failed to stop both of them, one got through? Gee, somehow it had to be the Jews fault and not the guys that killed the Jews...
(dont ya just want to puke?)
With names like this, they are not Britons, but Arab infiltrators. All the political correct reporting never seems to notice that all the players in this madhouse are Arabic. This interview, isn't it all a bit like asking the cats who ate the goldfish?
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