Israel has been asked to send military personnel to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to serve in U.N. peace-keeping forces.
It is the first time the international body has ever asked Israel to send its military on an international peacekeeping mission, although such forces have often been sent to this region to monitor Israeli-Arab cease-fires.
Senior Foreign Ministry officials met Wednesday to discuss the legal and defense implications of the request before replying to the U.N. appeal.
A letter was sent to all U.N. missions on Aug. 3 asking for their participation in the 15,000-strong U.N. Protection Force, which is operating in the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to the Israeli Mission at the United Nations in New York.
But this is the first time the Jewish state was specifically invited to join other U.N. member nations in contributing personnel to a peacekeeping effort.
The forces would go first to Zagreb, Croatia, where U.N. forces are overseeing disengagement agreements between Serbs and Croats, according to Matthew Nerzig, a U.N. spokesman in New York.
The U.N. forces are also attempting to operate in Bosnia, most notably in the Sarajevo sector, where they are trying to secure safe conduct for relief flights of humanitarian aid, Nerzig said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday discussed the situation in Bosnia to examine how Israel can provide medical and humanitarian aid, particularly in the war-torn area of Sarajevo.
WIESEL INVITED TO MAKE TOUR
Attending the meeting was Knesset Member Yossi Sarid, who returned from the region on Tuesday. Sarid had hoped to coordinate Israeli humanitarian relief efforts in Sarajevo. But he remained stranded in Zagreb because of the fighting in Bosnia.
Sarid complained Tuesday that the United Nations had done nothing to help him, an official representative of a state wishing to help the war-ravaged victims, reach the war zone.
Dr. Rami Ditza, a physician with Israel’s Kupat Holim sick fund, was due to leave for Zagreb on Wednesday night to check out the types of medical aid and equipment required in the beleaguered areas.
An Israeli cargo plane, loaded with medical and other supplies, is due to take off next week for Zagreb and Sarajevo.
Meanwhile, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was studying a request to lead a mission to the region, where recent allegations of Serbian-perpetrated atrocities have shocked the world.
Wiesel told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Dobrica Cosic, president of the truncated Yugoslav republic, had written a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali asking to have him organize a mission to investigate Serbian-run prison camps.
(JTA staff writer Susan Birnbaum in New York contributed to this report.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
