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HAARETZ
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Israel's Leading Daily Newspaper. Established 1919

Israel: UNIFIL ignored intelligence on weapons cache that exploded
By Barak Ravid, Zvi Bar’el, Amos Harel and Jack Khoury
UNIFIL learned a few months ago about the cache of Katyusha rockets that exploded
in the southern Lebanese village of Hirbet Salim last Tuesday, a government source
in Jerusalem said. The source said UNIFIL had precise information about the cache
and a number of other installations where Hezbollah is storing rockets, but that
UNIFIL had done nothing. A discussion is scheduled in the UN Security Council for
late August on renewing UNIFIL’s mandate in southern Lebanon; Israel hopes last
week’s explosion will show the need to strengthen UNIFIL. Israel believes that
UNIFIL could sharpen its rules of engagement and act more forcefully with the Lebanese
army in southern Lebanese villages. Government officials dealing with the Lebanon
issue say UNIFIL soldiers encounter armed Hezbollah fighters or are detained by them,
but the incidents do not appear in the reports submitted to the Security Council.
Yesterday it was reported that that area residents prevented UNIFIL soldiers from
searching an abandoned building near the building that blew up last week, in which
it is believed Hezbollah stored weapons, against UN Security Council resolution 1701.
A Lebanese security official said dozens of civilians surrounded UNIFIL vehicles
and blocked the road leading to the building. The UNIFIL forces retreated with the
assistance of the Lebanese army. Earlier, Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech marking
a year since the exchange of Lebanese prisoners for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser
and Eldad Regev; the Hezbollah leader said Israel still held one Lebanese prisoner
and a number of bodies, and that there is still uncertainty surrounding the disappearence
of four Iranian diplomats. Nasrallah said he would continue working to bring back
all Lebanese prisoners and remains from Israel, implying that the Lebanese government
is not up to the task. Meanwhile, Hezbollah “allowed” 12 Lebanese civilians to
infiltrate a few dozen meters into Israeli territory on Mount Dov yesterday near
Shaba Farms, raising a Lebanese flag. They returned to Lebanon shortly thereafter.
The Israel Defense Forces said it did not respond because the civilians were unarmed
and not danger-

Jerusalem calmer after child-abuse suspect released
By Jonathan Lis
The Jerusalem woman suspected of starving her baby was released to house arrest Friday
following 10 days in custody. The woman’s release was made possible following mediation
between her, the police and the state prosecution, initiated by Magistrate’s Court
judge Shulamit Dotan. During the mediation the woman pledged to undergo psychiatric
evaluation. The evaluation, which will seek to determine whether she suffers from
Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy and whether she is fit to stand trial, will likely
take place today. The prosecution said she would soon be indicted on abuse and neglect
of her three-year-old child. Police said testimony they had received from doctors
led them to believe the woman had also abused two of her other children. The woman
was released to house arrest at the home of ultra-Orthodox leader Rabbi Avraham Freulich,
who put up half of her NIS 400,000 bail. The other half of the money was paid by
deputy health minister Yaakov Litzman (UTJ), who was present during the mediation.
The woman’s release calmed ultra-Orthodox unrest over the past few days. Police
said yesterday was the most quiet Saturday the capital had seen in the six weeks
since ultra-Orthodox protests first began over the operation of a parking facility
during Shabbat. Ultra-Orthodox Jews earlier Saturday hurled stones at passing vehicles
on Jerusalem’s Bar Ilan Street, lightly wounding four people, and a group of 10
Haredim who blocked the entrance to the Carta parking lot were removed by police.
Police told the court Friday that they had significant evidence against the mother,
including testimony from a hospital staff member whom the child told (in response
to a question) that his mother had disconnected his feeding tube. At the mediation
session, Dotan said, “The riots in Jerusalem cannot be placed on the shoulders
of one woman.” The judge opposed the police and the prosecution, who wanted the
woman to remain incarcerated until her psychiatric evaluation, but ordered her to
stay under house arrest until Thursday and forbid her from contact with her children,
husband and other relatives.

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Nasrallah speaking in a live broadcast to supporters in Beirut Friday.
ous. The border between Israel and Lebanon in the area is not fenced. IDF lookouts
said the group, which included children, also had a Hezbollah flag, but did not raise
it.

AP

Israeli forces were placed on alert and the IDF informed UNIFIL command of the matter,
ask-

ing them to intervene. By the time the UNIFIL force went to the site, the group was
on its way back to Lebanese territory. Security officials say the civilian incursion
was intended to draw attention away from the explosion, which embarrassed Hezbollah,
as it revealed the presence of weapons in southern Lebanon. A senior defense official
told Haaretz that he believed Hezbollah does not want to escalate the situation in
the north, but that the group was seeking to attack Israeli targets abroad. The infiltration
of civilians onto Mount Dov is also apparently connected to Saudi and American pressure
on Syria to demarcate its border with Lebanon to bring about an Israeli withdrawal
from Shaba Farms. Such an Israeli withdrawal would neutralize Hezbollah’s justification
to continue to remain an armed group to liberate occupied Lebanese territory. Nasrallah
is not part of these diplomatic efforts and views them as an Israel-American-Saudi
“plot.” Hezbollah says the government and foreign interests are not the “owners”
of the Shaba Farms “project,” and if anyone is to make political hay from an
Israeli withdrawal, it must be Hezbollah.

Health Ministry to HMOs: Create hospice network within 7 years Sorry,
By Dan Even
Haaretz Health Correspondent

A hospice facility at Sheba Medical Center.

Archive: Ofer Vaknin

Health Ministry Director General Avi Yisraeli, has instructed the country’s hospitals
and health maintenance organizations to create a nationwide network of hospice care
within the next seven years. The system would provide medical treatment and emotional
support for terminally ill patients. There are only four residential hospice facilities
in Israel, and end-stage counseling is provided only in certain areas. The envisioned
hospice network is intended to pro-

vide care to children and adults with incurable cancer; people diagnosed with cancer
at least six months prior to admittance who are unresponsive to treatment and whose
physical and mental condition is poor; people with chronic cardiac, respiratory,
liver or kidney insufficiency; stroke patients whose condition is serious; people
with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”); and long-term
coma patients. Under the plan, the country’s HMOs − Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet
and Leumit − will be required to provide patients with

home hospice care available 24 hours a day. At present, the HMOs are not obligated
to provide such services and they are available only in certain areas of the country.
The hospitals owned by Clalit Health Services will be required to provide hospice
counseling services, on an outpatient basis, and will also be encouraged to establish
residential hospice care facilities. The four hospices currently in operation have
only 87 beds in total − spread out among Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, just
outside Tel Aviv; Hadassah University

Hospital, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem; Saint-Louis Hospital (“the French hospital”),
also in Jerusalem; and the Hannah Eshed Hospice at Haifa’s Nof Hadar Hospital.
The average stay at these facilities is 21 days, and the staff is not required to
undergo special training in caring for patients in the final stages of life. The
new directive was issued in the wake of numerous delays within the Health Ministry
in creating a framework for endof-life care, four and a half years after a committee
of experts issued its recommendations on the subject.

The committee estimated that every year 20,000 people in Israel, 500 of them children,
who could benefit from hospice counseling die of incurable illnesses. In the coming
months, academic institutions will be asked to create training programs for the physicians,
nurses, psychologists and social workers who will provide hospice services in the
future. Hospitals are to begin training staff for the new programs, as well as report
regularly to the Health Ministry on their progress.
See HOSPICE, Page 2

here’s your mosaic back
By Fadi Eyadat
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority recently received an unusual package in the
mail from the United States − nine small bags full of white mosaic stones. In an
accompanying letter, Gail Weeks of Florida wrote that she had been touring Caesarea
National Park with her husband when she picked up the mosaic tiles. Only later did
they notice in their pamphlet that taking antiquities is forbidden. Weeks also wrote
that she thought there might be more stones in the sand, and asked that they tell
her if anything was found. Along with the stones, Weeks sent a parks authority map,
and marked where she found the mosaic. “This is the second time I recall someone
returning an antiquity they took,” said the parks authority’s chief archaeologist,
Dr. Tsvika Tsuk. “A Roman stone we had set up in Makhtesh Ramon disappeared, and
when a news report appeared, the person who took it realized he had made a mistake
and returned it.” Tsuk said the roughly cut white stones that returned from Florida
to Caesarea had come from the floor of a house or an agricultural installation.

Hezbollah-Vatican conspiracy story distributed to soldiers on IDF bases
By Ofri Ilani
The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah
members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed
to Israel Defense Forces soldiers. Officials encouraging the booklet’s distribution
include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon
Battalion of the Kfir Brigade. The booklet was published by the Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations of America, in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi
Shmuel Eliahu, and has been distributed for the past few months. The booklet, titled
“On Either Side of the Border,” purports to be the testimony of “a Hezbollah
officer who spied for Israel.” “The book is distributed regularly and everyone
reads it and believes it,” said one soldier. “It’s filled with madeup details
but is presented as a true story. A whole company of soldiers, adults, told me: ‘Read
this and you’ll understand who the Arabs are.’” The copy obtained by Haaretz
included a Pesach greeting from Shalom, “in the name of the Nahshon Brigade.”
The story is narrated by a man named Avi, who says he changed his name from Ibrahim
after he left Hezbollah and converted to Judaism. Avi says he was once close to Hezbollah
leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and describes Hezbollah’s purported close relationships
with the Vatican and European leaders. The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in a statement:
“The book was received as a donation and distributed in good faith to the soldiers.
After we were alerted to the sensitivity of its content, distribution was immediately
halted.” According to the book, Nasrallah was invited to join a delegation to tour
France, Poland and Italy, including the Vatican. Nasrallah could not refuse an invitation
from the Vatican, Avi explained: “We knew [the Pope] identified with Hezbollah’s
struggle.” The book describes the alleged visit of Hezbollah officials to Auschwitz,
led by the Vatican: “We came to the camps. We saw the trains, the platforms, the
piles of eyeglasses and clothes ... We came to learn ... Our escort spoke as he was
taught. We quickly explained to him: Every real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan
of the Nazis.” The booklet also describes how European politicians and journalists
ostensibly work against Israel. “Our escort introduced us to important figures
who identify with our causes. Rich people, people with authority ... They allocate
big budgets to all sorts of Israeli organizations that erode the standing of the
IDF ... We have a special budget for encouraging politicians and journalists who
serve our purposes. Every opinion piece that conforms to our position is rewarded
generously.” Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, the son of former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai
Eliahu, is known for his extremist views, and was once charged with incitement to
racism after calling for the expulsion of all Arab students from Safed College after
a terror attack in the area. The younger Eliahu was also behind an online video in
which he described the “miracle of our matriarch Rachel,” whom he claims appeared
before Israeli soldiers in Gaza to warn them of booby-trapped buildings during Operation
Cast Lead. “In some of the places we went in Gaza there was a woman who warned
them ... ‘Did they tell you who I am,’ she said, ‘I am the matriarch Rachel,”
Eliahu says in the video. He claims his father confirmed the veracity of the story,
and told him that he had prayed to Rachel: “I told her: Rachel, there’s a war...
Go to God, Blessed Be He, pray over the soldiers who sacrifice themselves for the
People of Israel, so that they will strike and not be struck.” David Menahemov,
an aide to Eliahu, claims the book is not fiction. “Avi is a real person and everything
in the book is absolutely true,” insists Menahemov. “It’s a totally true story,
I know the guy personaly. He’s an Arab, who even though he converted still acts
like an Arab. We helped him to write and to translate it. We changed a few details
to protect him and his family.”

Walter Cronkite 1916-2009

AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS: Cronkite, in a 1996 photo, passed away after a long illness.

AP

America loses ‘one of its most trusted men’
By Shai Golden
Haaretz Correspondent and AP

“It is my sad duty to tell you that our friend and colleague Walter Cronkite has
died.” That is how CBS News anchor Katie Couric announced the death of her predecessor.
The American television station CBS was Cronkite’s home for nearly half a century.
Ironically and a bit symbolically, it was Couric, the

first solo female anchor of a national television network, who broke the news. Though
an outstanding television personality in her own right, in all probability this will
be the most important moment in Couric’s undistinguished career as anchor, certainly
when compared to Cronkite’s. Walter Cronkite died Friday at his Manhattan home
with his family by his side, following a long illness, CBS vice president Linda

Mason said. Marlene Adler, Cronkite’s chief of staff, said he died of cerebrovascular
disease. He was 92. Cronkite covered the Democratic Party’s national convention
in 1952, when he became the first reporter to earn the title of anchor. About ten
years would pass before Cronkite − with his deep voice, his serious demeanor and
his distinguished background
See CRONKITE, Page 2

The letter from Weeks.