Middle East Roundup: Aid Workers Taken & Released; Arbour Misses Attack; Cdn. Soliders Hurt In Bomb Blast
Posted November 21, 2006 12:00 pm.
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Two Italian aid workers – one apparently carrying a Canadian passport – were briefly kidnapped in the Gaza Strip. Authorities confirm 36-year-old Claudio Moroni and Gianmarco Onorato, 63, were both abducted in Deir el-Balah, after their car was stopped by gunmen.
The elder man was apparently travelling on a Canadian passport, but the panic was short lived. Both were released later in the afternoon.
Across the border in Israel, another Canadian has received a rude welcome in a place that’s already on edge. U.N. human rights official and ex-Supreme Court judge Louise Arbour narrowly missed being hit by rockets after Palestinian rebels fired missiles into the town of Sderot.
The explosion hit just a kilometre away from where she was touring the area on a fact finding mission. One man was injured in the rocket attack. And while Arbour emerged unscathed, the locals were clearly not happy about her presence either.
Several workers stormed her car, with one woman throwing dirt and pebbles. The anger stemmed from her comments that the Israeli government was guilty of massive human rights violations in Gaza.
There’s also chaos in another neighbouring country, after prominent anti-Syrian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beruit, Lebanon.
Gemayel is the son of a former Christian president of Lebanon. His murder comes as Syrian-backed Hezbollah demands more say in cabinet decisions by the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon’s parliament .
And in Afghanistan, two more Canadian soldiers were injured when soldiers on foot patrol triggered a hidden landmine. It happened in the troubled Panjawii district and the outcomes were vastly different for both men.
Corporal Michael Barnewall, of the Royal Canadian Regiment based in Petawawa, Ontario, suffered what officials are calling “severe lower body injuries”. He’s being treated at the Kandahar base and will be transported to hospital in Germany.
A second unidentified soldier escaped with only minor injuries.
