Israel Offers Humanitarian Aid to Iranian Earthquake Victims

Israel's offer to Iran of rescue units and humanitarian aid was
rejected, as thousands remain buried under rubble. Photo: Reuters

By Joel Leyden

Jerusalem...... December 27.......The Israeli Government offered condolences today following the devastating earthquake in Iran, saying it had "no conflict" with the Iranian people, despite its enmity with the Islamic regime.

"The Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, addresses in the name of the Israeli Government and the people of Israel condolences to the Iranian people after the catastrophe," the Foreign Ministry said.

International rescue and relief organizations in Iran are now estimating that up to 50,000 people may have perished in the Iranian ancient city of Bam.

"The disaster is far too huge for us to meet all of our needs," President Mohammad Khatami told state television in a plea for international assistance.

"We need help, otherwise we will be pulling corpses, not the injured, out of the rubble," added Brigadier Mohammadi, commander of the army in southeast Iran.

Tehran officials stressed the need for sniffer dogs and aid equipment, medicines, blankets and tents, over volunteers.

But as the death toll soars from the world's most serious earthquake since 25,000 were killed in the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2001, Tehran continued its longstanding hostility toward Israel, declaring it would not accept its assistance.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran accepts all kinds of humanitarian aid from all countries and international organizations with the exception of the Zionist regime," Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, a spokesman for Iran's Interior Ministry, said following word that unofficial Israeli sources were considering sending aid to Iran.

Iran is the world’s "No. 1 terror nation" and is plotting relentlessly to attack Israeli targets, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service said last Tuesday, calling on Western nations to restrain Tehran.

Israel has in the past accused Iran of sponsoring terror groups that attack Israel, but the remarks by the Shin Bet chief, Avi Dichter, appeared particularly harsh.

Addressing a conference on national security, Dichter said Iran is sponsoring terrorism and developing non-conventional weapons, and poses a strategic threat.

"It is clear that because of terror, Iran presents a strategic threat to Israel. And if you connect the other abilities that Iran is developing to this, the threat is even bigger," he said, in an apparent reference to Tehran’s nuclear program.

"Iran is the No. 1 terror nation in the world," Dichter said.

"Iran acts against Israel and Israeli interests around the world," he said, citing the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded more than 200 in Argentina’s deadliest terror attack.

Some Argentine and Jewish leaders allege the bombing is linked to the Lebanon-based Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah and the Iranian government, charges Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. group, censured Iran for not declaring certain aspects of its nuclear activities and warned the country to abide by the rules in the future to assure the world it is not making nuclear weapons. Iran has said it will sign a protocol allowing IAEA inspectors access to any nuclear site but has yet to do so.

Meir Dagan, director of Israel's Mossad, told a parliamentary committee this month that Iran posed an "existential threat" to Israel, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. He reportedly assured committee members that Israel could deal with this threat.

Like the US, Israel estimates that Iran is three to four years away from building a nuclear bomb. But Israel believes that in 2004, Iran will reach the point at which their nuclear program cannot be stopped.

On the same US trip, Mr. Mofaz told a pro-Israeli lobby group that a nuclear Iran was "intolerable."

"The implicit message of his statements was that if the Iranian nuclear program is not stopped in the next number of months, Israel will have to take action of its own - perhaps even to attack - to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into Iranian hands," analyst Amir Rappaport wrote in the Ma'ariv newspaper.

It would not be the first time Israel has taken preemptive action against a perceived threat. In 1981, Israeli fighter jets launched a successful surprise attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor, destroying it.

In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has upgraded Israel's efforts against Iran's nuclear program by putting all related committees under Mr. Dagan's command. Mr. Sharon himself will head a ministerial committee.

In this multipronged effort, Israel's foreign ministry will launch a diplomatic campaign to persuade other countries to work against Iran's nuclear program. The Mossad will work with foreign intelligence agencies, the National Security Council will work with the US-Israeli Joint Committee, and Israel's atomic energy body will focus on technical aspects of Iran's program and work with the IAEA.

Israel's concern about Iran stems from the country's proximity, its long-standing hostility to Israel, and its support for groups like Lebanese Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.

While these groups launch attacks on Israel and its citizens with Iranian support, some analysts here say there remains the potential for direct confrontation between the nations of Iran and Israel.

Israel "will dig its own grave" if it attacks Iranian nuclear sites, the head of the Iranian air force General Seyed Reza Pardis told a news agency close to the Islamic regime's hard-liners.
"The threats of the Zionist regime hold no value for us," Pardis was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency in reaction to mistranslations which appeared in the Haaertz newspaper by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. Mofaz never threatened Iran with a nuclear attack, in fact Mofaz had emphasized the importance of the friendship which had prevailed in Iranian-Israeli relations prior to the rise of the fundamentalist regime in Teheran.

"The Israeli regime knows that the armed forces of the Islamic republic, in particular our air force, have such high capabilities... that it would be digging its own grave in the region if it launches military attacks against Iran," Pardis said.

"An attack (by Israel) would have serious consequences beyond the imagination of Israeli leaders," he warned.

"Whether these threats are serious or not, our armed forces are totally prepared to defend sensitive sites and our country's air space," Pardis countered.

Elite IDF rescue units were welcomed by Turkey in response to an earthquake in 1999.

President George W. Bush, who labeled Iran part of the "axis of evil" along with North Korea and the former regime in Iraq for alleged production of weapons of mass destruction, similarly offered his condolences and pledged humanitarian aid even though Washington has no diplomatic ties with Tehran.

"We stand ready to help the people of Iran," said Bush in a statement.

The State Department later announced the U.S. will send 150,000 pounds of medical supplies and dispatch teams of about 200 search-and-rescue and medical experts from Virginia, Los Angeles and Boston.

The vast human tragedy for which Iran's earthquake has created now casts a shadow over all Israeli and Iranian threats.

"The Government and people of Israel are moved by the human tragedy experienced by the Iranian people and believe that despite all differences a mobilization of the whole international community is needed to come to the help of families of the victims and wounded," it said in a statement.

Tehran has called for international relief aid from any country except Israel following Friday's quake in southeast Iran, according to a provisional official estimate.

With the Associated Press

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY