Ban Visits Terror Tunnel, Laments Cramped Conditions Inside

Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Israel, October 14 – The United Nations Secretary General today visited southern Israeli communities battered this summer by Hamas rocket and mortar fire, and climbed into one of the tunnels used by the terrorist organization to infiltrate into Israel and attempt to kidnap soldiers or civilians, expressing his shock at the narrowness of the passage and his sympathy for the Hamas fighters who had to make their way through it.

Ban Ki-Moon told reporters the tunnel conditions were “unacceptable,” and that no one should be forced to crawl for hundreds of meters underground to kidnap Israelis. He said the international community must do more to provide the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip with a more dignified way of killing Jews, one that would not compete with Gaza’s real civic needs for UN-provided cement and concrete.

The secretary general also toured some of the Israeli communities affected by the war so he could claim to be evenhanded when, later, he would stand amid devastated areas of the Gaza Strip and deplore Israel’s use of force to defend itself from Palestinian rockets. He also met the family of Daniel Tragerman, a four-year-old who was killed by a Hamas mortar shell in Nahal Oz. Ban called his death “tragic,” noting that better tunnel conditions would have enabled the organization to kill Daniel and many other Israelis face-to-face instead of having to resort to less honorable ballistic munitions.

Earlier, Ban met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and urged him to avoid “provocations” such as allowing Jews to live in their ancestral homeland or to visit their holy sites. He further warned Netanyahu of adverse diplomatic and political consequences if Israel continued to value its citizens’ lives and to insist that they be afforded the right to live in peace and security.

“None of the other nations in this region enjoy peace or security, and it is unjust for Israel to seek those goals for its people when all around them, peace and security have become ever more remote,” he said. “Israel should lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.”

Ban also intends to visit Egypt on this journey, where he will pointedly ignore Egypt’s continued closure of its border with the Gaza Strip.