June 23, 2004
Suicide bombers arrested at Karni Crossing

Palestinian security officer who dispatched Ashdod Port suicide bombers arrested at Karni Crossing. was planning a second double suicide bombing

1. On June, 6, 2004, in a joint operation at the Karni Crossing, the GSS and IDF forces arrested Muin Abdel Aziz Atallah, an officer in the Palestinian preventative security service involved in dispatching the two suicide bombers who carried out the suicide attack in the Ashdod Port on March, 14, 2004. Atallah was operating to dispatch another double suicide bombing attack into Israel. In his investigation, Atallah said that his position gave him access to the whole crossing area, and so was able to smuggle the two suicide bombers who carried out the suicide attack in the Ashdod port. The attack, in which 10 civilians were murdered and 12 others were injured, was directed by the Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades terrorist organizations. Atallah noted that in the weeks prior to his arrest, the Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades tried to carry out another double suicide bombing into Israel, using the Karni crossing as the route for smuggling the suicide bombers. Atallah was responsible for arranging the release of the containers from the crossing; the suicide bombers were to be hidden under a double floor within a container. Atallah said that the terrorist organizations view the Karni crossing as a weak point, lacking full security checks, and providing an attractive route for smuggling terrorists into Israel. For that matter, the Hamas, assisted by Atallah, was planning to purchase trucks and establish a company for transporting containers from the Gaza Strip into Israel and use it as a guise for smuggling terrorists into Israel. Atallah said that he was arrested a few days prior to the planned attack.
   
   
2. The Karni industrial zone and crossing: The Karni crossing, located near Gaza City, is used for the transfer of goods between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Nevertheless, the Karni crossing and the neighboring Erez industrial zone have been frequent targets for terror attacks carried out by Palestinian terrorist organizations. In 1996, the Islamic Jihad took advantage of the transfer method of the crossing to smuggle a suicide bomber along with an explosive suitcase hid in a truck delivering goods through the crossing. The suicide bomber carried out his attack on Dizingoff St. in Tel- Aviv, murdering 13 Israelis, and injuring 125. Following this attack, the regulations for security checks in the Karni crossing changed. Today, the transfer of merchandise in the Karni crossing is carried out using the "Back to Back" system, in which Palestinian and Israeli trucks deliver merchandise simultaneously. The crossings in the Gaza Strip are a focal point of terror activity, with the various terrorist organizations making great efforts to carry out different attacks through them. The Karni area, as well as the Erez industrial area, was a scene of dozens of different attacks, including shootings, explosive charges and rockets attacks since September 2000. One of the significant attacks was carried out on April 2003, when a terrorist opened fire and activated explosives in the crossing itself, killing two civilians and injuring three.
   
   
3. The terrorist organizations use the trucks delivering merchants to the Gaza strip to smuggle weapons:
   
   
   • In two different incidents, on April 2004 and May 2004: An explosive belt hidden in a textile cargo shipment departing the Gaza Strip to the West Bank was uncovered during the security checks. The belt did not contain metal parts in order to avoid the security checks.
     
     
   • March 2004: A double suicide attack took place in the Ashdod port, as two suicide bombers exited the Gaza Strip in a double side wall of a cargo container departing the Gaza Strip for Israel.
     
     
   • June 2003: A fake documentation of a transfer of 20 tons of concentrated sulfuric acid to the Gaza Strip through the Karni crossing was confiscated. The acid is often used as a substance of explosive charges, was already transferred into the Gaza Strip.
     
     
   • December 2002: A truck containing 7,500 bullets was stopped at the crossing. The ammunition was to be sent to terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
   • October 2002: A truck transferring a caravan was stopped at the crossing as 2,000 bullets were hid on the caravan's roof.
     
     
   • August 2002: Bassel Arif, a member of the Palestinian security apparatus in Ramallah, admitted in his questioning that more than 1,500 automatic rifles and over 500,000 bullets were smuggled in different means to the Gaza Strip, through the Karni crossing, in a three-year period.
     
     
   • June 2001: A truck containing a number of rifles and ammunition (including 30,000 bullets) was stopped at the crossing.
     
     
4. The dangerous increase of the smugglings and the attacks carried out in Karni is damaging to the industrial factories located in the industrial zone, near the crossing. Since the Karni crossing is the main route for the raw materials and importing and exporting merchandise, most of the claims that there is a lack of food in the Gaza Strip are a direct result of the economic interest of the sources of power in the PA as opposed to the humanitarian interest, which harms the Palestinian population and its ability to maintain a reasonable standard of living. The smugglings and the attacks damaged the industrial zones and caused significant decrease in the activity in those areas and also badly damaged the Palestinian residents who earned their living in the industrial zones and those who use the crossings for working inside Israel and trading with Israel.