TIPH Summoned by Prime Minister Over Vandalism

Days after security camera footage was released of a TIPH member vandalizing a car, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned the foreign observer group for questioning. Members of
the Temporary International Presence in Hebron were caught puncturing the tires of a
vehicle belonging to local Hebron resident Elad Pass. The car, with Israeli license
plates was parked outside of a Jewish residential building when the TIPH members,
wearing their identifying vests and uniforms, walked over and punctured the
tires.

 

The incident was revealed only days after another TIPH member was filmed slapping a 10-year-old Jewish boy
in the face. The incident resulted in a official apology from the Swiss ambassador, the
country of origin of the offending TIPH member, who left Israel the next
day.

 

The newly revealed incident also resulted in the offending TIPH member fleeing the
county. 

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned the TIPH commander to clarify the
incident.

TIPH head Brig.-Gen. Einar Johnsen met with the Foreign Ministry and expressed regret
over the incident. He made clear that any TIPH members found to have acted
inappropriately will be sent home immediately.

Johnsen assured Alon Bar, the Foreign Ministry’s head of international organizations
department, that TIPH was taking action to prevent similar issues in the
future.

Meanwhile The Jewish Community of Hebron has publicized photos of Johnsen meeting wit
the mayor of the Palestinian Authority controlled part of Hebron, Tayseer Abu Sneineh, a convicted
terrorist responsible for an attack that killed six Israelis.

The Time of Israel reported that Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the
government would most likely renew TIPH’s mandate despite calls for its
ouster.

Member of Knesset Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Jewish Home) is the latest elected official to
denounce TIPH stating, “This is not the first time that their people have been
documented working against the people of the Jewish community, and who knows what other
injustices were not recorded? Instead of serving as a factor that is supposed to calm
the area, they are doing the opposite.” She called the extension of the group’s presence
“absurd” and “pointless.”

MKs Michael Oren (Kulanu), Yoav Kisch (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) have
also joined the call not to extend TIPH charter, which comes up for renewal every six
months.

“There is no justification for the presence of observers in Hebron, even if they were
law-abiding and objective; but certainly not when reality proves that they are
one-sided, hostile, and violent,” said Kisch and Smotrich in a joint
statement.

 

The Council of Community of Judea and Samaria has compiled a list of past
grievances with TIPH which they say attests to their anti-Israel
bias. 

Local Hebron residents released a statement which read:

“The Jewish community in Hebron calls on the prime minister and the foreign
minister not to make do with “clarifying” with the head of the observer team, but to
draw the necessary conclusion and to inform him immediately of the end of their mandate
and their expulsion from the country. Hebron has no place for a hostile and provocative
group whose actions violate the peace and well-being of the residents of
Hebron.“

TIPH was formulated in 1994 and deployed in 1997 to monitor potential abuses that
Israelis may possibly commit against Palestinian Authority residents in the city.
Observers originally came from Denmark, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey,
with Denmark dropping out in recent years. 

However, there has been tension between TIPH and PA residents as well. On March 26, 2002
two TIPH observers, Catherine Berruex of Switzerland and Turgut Cengiz Toytunç of Turkey
were killed in an ambush shooting by a Palestinian Arab gunman near Halhul, a city
adjacent to Hebron. Three members of TIPH were riding westward on the Trans-Judea
highway when they came under fire from short range, although their car was clear marked
with the letters TIPH.

 

Huseyin Ozaslan, also from Turkey, who was injured in the attack, related that he
clearly saw the attacker, who was wearing the uniform of the PA’s security forces and
was carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle. “We shouted that we are observers, members of
TIPH,” he said. “But he did not hear us and continued to shoot.”

 

On February 8, 2006 following an attack on their headquarters by rioting Palestinian
Authority residents, all TIPH observers were temporarily withdrawn from Hebron. TIPH
members began to resume their duties in April 2006.

NOTES:

 

*
TIPH Observer Stands by While Palestinian Throws Rocks at Israeli
Soldiers

* MK
Moalem-Refaeli: Expel observers from Hevron

* Video reveals Foreign
observer punctures tire in Hevron

* New
Report Reveals Radical Anti-Israel Organization TIPH in
Hebron

* YESHA
Council Report on TIPH observers: Harm to the State of Israel

* Documentation
revealed: TIPH observer punctured vehicle tires in
Hebron

* TIPH
‘REGRETS’ HEBRON TIRE SLASHING INCIDENT, FM SOURCE SAYS AFTER
MEETING

* Foreign
Ministry raps Hebron observer group, stops short of ending
mandate

* Hebron
Jewish community calls on Netanyahu to throw out international
observers

* PM
Netanyahu Summons TIPH Commander After More TIPH Violence Against Jews
Exposed

* TIPH
Observer Flees Israel, Escapes Probe of Vandalism of Hebron Jewish
Vehicle

* ‘Compensate
child attacked in Hevron’

 

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