Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi defended on Wednesday the mistaken killings of five Palestinian police earlier this week in the West Bank, reported Army Radio.
Israel’s Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz admitted on Tuesday that “Israeli soldiers killed the five Palestinians in error, mistaking them for militants of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 Presidential Guard.”
But Ze'evi told the radio that the “killings were justified,” said Haaretz newspaper.
"They were terrorists who were brought over with the great army of terrorists from Tunis," Ze'evi said, in a reference to thousands of Palestinian security forces personnel who arrived in the Palestinian territories from Tunis following the 1994 implementation of peace agreements ceding parts of the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinian control.
"Then they dressed them up with police uniforms - the police are police in quotation marks," he said.
The killings triggered an unusual angry tone on the part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who said that Israel will pay for the killings. He described the murder as dirty and immoral – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
