Page 1 of 1

Dumping refugees in Sinai

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:32 am
by Ebikatsu
Tuesday 07 July 2009

Israel Deceives Egypt by Dumping Refugees in Sinai
Reported By Mohamed Aboud

A lawsuit before the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice revealed that the Israeli army has been periodically crossing the Egyptian border to dump refugees and infiltrators on Egyptian territory, after having detained them for a while in military bases on the border with Sinai.

The case papers said Israeli soldiers took advantage of the absence of police patrols to commit these intrusions. They then claim to have foiled an infiltration attempt and begin to hand the refugees over to Egypt.

The Supreme Court of Justice will, this week, hear a lawsuit filed by a group of human rights organizations that are concerned with defending the rights of refugees and illegal immigrants, accusing the Israeli army of alleging infiltration attempts into Israel and taking advantage of the chaos caused by such false alarm to deceive the Egyptians by dumping refugees in Egypt.

They called for a judicial resolution that prohibits Defense Minister Ehud Barak from returning refugees to Egypt before allowing them to use their legal rights and request political asylum, and before investigating the magnitude of the risk they would face in the event they are deported from Israel.

The lawsuit relied on a written and documented testimony of an Israeli reservist soldier who had served in a military unit in the border area between Egypt and Israel up until the end of June. The testimony was included in the case documents. Israeli soldier said in his testimony that the deputy commander of the unit ordered them after a few days to throw all the refugees inside Egypt, and that he ordered the surveillance soldiers to make sure there was no Egyptian police patrol when doing so. He also ordered them to alert over the radios in case the Egyptians suddenly appeared.

The Israeli soldier said that a secret surveillance female soldier asked: “Shall we return the infiltrating lady, too?" The deputy commander confirmed it, although the Israeli soldier cautioned him against the dangers that may threaten the lady’s life if she were returned across the border. The military official retorted: “I have been serving here for some time without any such problems." The Israeli soldier continues in his testimony that was attached to the case documents: “I asked the officer in charge, 'Why we are doing this operation in this way if it is legal?'" The officer said: “Because Egypt refuses to take back intruders to Israel, especially if they spent some time in Israeli prisons, yet they take them if arrested while trying to cross the border, or if they are returned without delay by the Israeli side." Revealing how refugees are gotten rid of after detention in Israel, he said: “The Israeli army dumps refugees in Egypt, then shoots beacons in the air and makes the soldiers scream into the communication devices that they found an infiltration attempt for the Egyptian police patrols to hear, and for them to handover the infiltrators."

The Israeli soldier said that he took part in returning 10 infiltrators that way at the beginning of his service at Aarvy military base, and that the refugees begged to stay in Israel.

http://www.almasryonline.com/portal/pag ... 14&pType=1