05 October 2004	Tuesday	19 Shaban 1425

JERUSALEM, Oct 4: A UN agency chief demanded an "immediate public retraction" from the Israeli government on Monday after it accused his staff of allowing an ambulance to be abused by Palestinian militants to carry weapons.

In a strongly worded letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, Peter Hansen, said the Israeli charges were "malicious propaganda" that endangered the lives of UN staff in the Gaza Strip.

"It is appalling that, with the serious conflict now raging in the northern Gaza Strip, where UNRWA ambulances are operating in constant danger alongside those of other humanitarian agencies to try and save and transport scores of wounded Palestinians to hospital, the government of Israel would put out such deliberately inciteful, false and malicious propaganda," Hansen wrote.

He said such allegations were likely to endanger UN staff in the territory as it would encourage "soldiers on the ground, or in the air, to think that UNRWA ambulances and other humanitarian vehicles are transporting terrorists and weapons".

"I request an immediate public retraction and apology from the government of Israel," he said. The grainy footage released by the Israeli army purporting to show Palestinian militants using a UN ambulance to transport rockets sparked a furious war of words.

After viewing the film clip on Sunday, Hansen said the blurry pictures showed nothing more than paramedics throwing a folded portable stretcher into the vehicle. In his letter, the UNWRA chief said the only explanation for the distortion was deliberate malice on Israel's part.

"Given the technical means and military expertise at the disposal of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) to enlarge and analyse the pictures taken by the drone, it is inconceivable that the IDF could have made this egregiously erroneous allegation in good faith." -AFP