Israelis spirit at-risk Afghan women to safety
Details revealed of secret operation to evacuate athletes, activists and robotics experts to UAE
‘They had to do rounds around the city in alleys to pick up these people and try not to create any suspicious movement’
‘The stressful part really was around the border. We were very stressed that someone might find them’
ISRAELI aid workers and the United Arab Emirates have completed a daring rescue mission that saw dozens of sportswomen, female rights activists and a singer, all at risk of Taliban reprisals, spirited to safety in Abu Dhabi.
The evacuation used local contacts to gather 41 Afghans from various locations in Kabul and take them on a bus through Taliban checkpoints and over the northern border into Tajikistan before flying them to the UAE.
The Israeli-emirati mission, which happened earlier this month, is the first joint humanitarian project between the two Middle Eastern countries and is part of growing cooperation following the signing of the Abraham Accords last year, which normalised relations.
Yotam Polizer, chief executive of Israaid, said the team behind the evacuation had to be extremely careful while collecting the young women from across Kabul without alerting the Taliban. “The issue was they had to collect them from hiding,” Mr Polizer said.
“They [the rescuers] had to do rounds around the city in alleys to pick up these people and try not to create any suspicious movement.”
The evacuees included a prominent Afghan singer, 19 cycling team members, three robotics team members, their relatives and a number of human rights activists. Some of the relatives evacuated were men.
All were considered to be at risk of reprisals from the Taliban, which has cracked down on female sports players and other performers since taking over Afghanistan last month.
After clearing several checkpoints while driving across the country’s north, the escapees were temporarily stuck at the Tajikistan border, forcing them to spend a two-day period in a nearby safe house as they awaited permission to cross.
“The stressful part really was around the border. There were a lot of Taliban in the area, they were not allowed to leave the shelter and we were very stressed that someone might find them,” Mr Polizer said.
The rescue team eventually secured permission from the president of Tajikistan to cross the border, at which point Israeli aid workers met the women in the capital of Dushanbe.
They were then escorted onto a jet chartered by the Canadian-israeli billionaire, Sylvan Adams, which arrived in the UAE in the early hours of Sept 6.
Mr Adams also helped in lobbying Tajikistan’s government, among others, to support the rescue.
The operation was very politically sensitive, as the Taliban despises Israel and said it was the only country with which its government would not form relations.
The evacuees were picked with the help of female activists who reached out to his aid group and the mission was partly assisted by an anonymous family foundation.
The rescue was first revealed by Afra al-hameli, the UAE’S deputy director of strategic communications, in a post on Twitter.
“Working alongside international partners to ensure that those in need may reach safety, the UAE has welcomed 41 Afghan evacuees, including vulnerable members from the Afghan girls’ cycling and robotic teams, as well as at-risk human rights activists and their family members,” she wrote on Sept 6, including emojis of the Israeli, Canadian and Emirati flags.
Emirati officials say that their new relationship with Israel will secure around $1trillion (£740billion) in trade deals over the next decade.
The two countries also have similar security interests, in particular their concerns about Iran and its proxies increasing their presence in the Middle East.
It is not the first mission to rescue members of Afghanistan’s robotics teams from the war-torn country. Nine other members of the team, which won a US robotics award in 2017, were recently evacuated to Doha, with help from Qatari officials.