Large police and Magen David Adom teams were dispatched to the British Embassy in Tel Aviv Thursday noon. Police reported that Nadim Injahz, a 28-year-old Palestinian collaborator from Ramallah, has entered the embassy's complex on Hayarkon Street, carrying a gun and threatening to hurt himself if he is not granted political asylum in Britain. Injahz demanded to be provided with a plane that will fly him from the Sdeh Dov airport in town to Europe.
An embassy employee told Ynet that Injahz was detected immediately upon entering the compound, and described him as a short and thin man. He added that the embassy's security guards have asked their superiors whether they should try and subdue the man themselves, but were ordered to leave the handling of the matter to the Israeli police. Special elite units and dozens of policemen arrived at the place. A police helicopter is circling over the area.
A police negotiation team is currently attempting to persuade Injahz to surrender himself. Police officers were equipped with bullet proof vests, for fear the suspect may shoot at their direction.
Lior Goldbrenner, who was at the scene, told Ynet that Special Police forces arrived armed with weapons. “Police from the senior rank of the Tel Aviv district are in the parking lot of the embassy, and they are preventing people from entering,” he added.
Goldbrenner said embassy workers are all outside of the building, and a police spokeswoman is at the scene. “The whole area is closed, but the road is open to traffic. Police are spread out along the street,” said Goldbrenner.
Tel Aviv police chief, Major General David Tzur said that Injaz is "a man that we know. He owns a gun and is threatening to commit suicide. He was a collaborator but he was disappointed and now he wants to leave the country."
Ynet has background on Nadim Injahz:
Nadim Injahz, detained in the protected wing of Ashmoret Prison, hopes he is never released. As far as he is concerned, he is better off in jail, where at least he has a roof over his head. For the past eight years, Injahz, 28, a Palestinian, has been seeking a quiet place to rest where his life is not in danger and he need not worry about getting arrested. Meanwhile, he alternates between the Palestinian Authority, where the Tanzim threaten to kill him, and Israel, where is categorized as an illegal alien.
At the conclusion of every jail sentence, representatives of the Israel Prison Authority drive him to the Tul Karem checkpoint and deposit him on the Palestinian side. Realizing that his life is once again in danger, Injahz inevitably escapes back to Israeli territory, where he is eventually arrested as an illegal alien and sentenced to prison. He serves his time and is released, and the process begins again.
In fact, Injahz is painfully aware that there is a way to break out of this vicious cycle. He can rehabilitate himself in Palestinian society and cancel the looming death threat by killing an Israeli. So far, Injahz has refused to do so, but he admits that time is running out.
Read the rest here.
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