Israel Green Forum: Dummy IEDs Smuggled Over the Green Line

In Yehudah and Shomron dozens of quarries have been operating for many years, some of them illegal, which severely damage the environment, the soil, the flora and fauna, and now it has been revealed – expose Israel to a serious security breach. It is possible for anyone to smuggle anything over the Green Line, via the trucks leaving the quarry loaded with quarried materials.

For years, thousands of trucks cross over the Green Line to transport quarried materials, things needed for the Israeli economy. The law requires inspection of every truck whereby a person accepted by the security authorities is supposed to ensure that the trucks are loaded with quarried materials only. He needs to ascertain that no materials that are prohibited from entering Israel are on the trucks.

However, the Israel Green Forum reveals that in practice these procedures are not enforced at all, which has led to a severe security breach. The Israel Green Forum, an organization working to document environmental hazards in Israel, monitored the nonenforcement of environmental laws in the pirate quarries in Yehudah and Shomron, and its members were surprised to find that security procedures were not enforced. They found that many trucks do not undergo a security check at all.

The experiment was held in a quarry near the village of Jam’in in Shomron. The crew tossed a dark bag into the empty back of the truck. The team then recorded by means of a drone, how the truck arrives at the quarry when it is empty – except for the bag in the rear container, and how it is loaded with quarry materials, without any inspection or the presence of a security trustee.

Later, the team followed the truck through the Shaar Shomron checkpoint, where it passed without any inspection when the driver presented the trustee’s certificate and unloaded the quarried materials inside the Green Line in the industrial zone of Tira. In the documentation of the field team one can see the bag that was thrown out of the pile with the quarry materials.

At no stage was the truck inspected by anyone, from the entrance of the quarry to the unloading of the quarried materials, which constitutes a serious security failure that enables the smuggling of weapons, ammunition, drugs and the like into the territory past the Green Line.

The Israel Green Forum notes that this is not a single event, as they conducted another experiment, two days after the first experiment, with similar results.

“The pirate quarries in Yehudah and Shomron trample every procedure and law, ignoring all the environmental aspects related to the preservation of nature and the existence of the area,” they said in a statement. “In addition, as we have shown, the quarries also ignore the security officials, who are committed to the security of the residents of Israel.

“We call upon the authorities to regulate the issue of pirate quarries in Yehudah and Shomron, thereby saving both the environment and protecting the security of Israeli residents.”