A United Nations official appeared Wednesday to be working on obtaining the release of an Arab terrorist whose arrest purportedly sparked Israel’s clash with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza last weekend.
Following the cessation Sunday evening of Operation Breaking Dawn against the PIJ, the Islamic group crowed that Israel had agreed to the release of Sheikh Bassem el-Sa’adi in exchange for the ceasefire.
Israel’s defence minister, Benny Gantz, has strenuously denied that the government had “paid anything” for the agreement.
El-Sa’adi has been incarcerated in an Israeli prison since his arrest in northern Samaria last Monday. He is the PIJ leader responsible for growing the organisation’s following in Samaria and Judea.
On Wednesday, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process [SIC] Tor Wennesland released a statement warning that the ceasefire was fragile, and sent a delegation of UN officials to visit el-Sa’adi in the Ofer penitentiary.
Today, I dispatched a #UN team to visit Sheikh Al-Sa’di in Ofer prison to follow-up on UN commitments to maintain calm in #Gaza. I reiterate that the ceasefire in Gaza is very fragile and I call on all sides to preserve the calm.
— Tor Wennesland (@TWennesland) August 10, 2022
According to reports, Wennesland had popped into the terrorist’s Jenin home to call on his family at the weekend, while the fighting in Gaza was still underway, and hundreds of PIJ rockets were being launched at Israeli population centres.
Long proven to be anti-Israel in his words and actions, Wennesland provoked Israel’s ire during Breaking Dawn by expressing concern over the killing of one of the PIJ’s senior commanders.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, tore into Wennesland, tweeting:
“While the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is launching missiles at Israeli civilians, the UN envoy expresses ‘deep concern’ for the neutralization of a senior terrorist behind an imminent attack on Israelis. Will he also express deep concern over the neutralization of al-Zawahiri?”
