MIDEAST-CRISIS/ISLAMIC STATE-ROSENBERG Jewish woman who helped Kurds fight IS returns to Israel

Record ID: 147292

  • Title: MIDEAST-CRISIS/ISLAMIC STATE-ROSENBERG Jewish woman who helped Kurds fight IS returns to Israel
  • Date: 13th July 2015
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (JULY 13, 2015) (REUTERS) CANEDIAN-ISRAELI WHO FOUGHT AGAINST ISLAMIC STATE, GILL ROSENBERG, WALKING AWAY WITH SECURITY
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAD0XX6RJ6DUVLOVH0K9PQMYQCI
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A Canadian-Israeli who was the first foreign woman to help Syria's Kurds fight Islamic State has left the front lines and returned to Israel, citing the spread of Iranian influence in the war zones among her reasons.
    After eight months in which she was often incommunicado, stirring rumours that she had fallen captive, Israeli media feted Gill Rosenberg's sudden return on Sunday. But she may still face a legal reckoning for her unauthorised travels.
    The 31-year-old former Israeli army volunteer said the lessons of the Holocaust drove her to help protect the Kurds and other Middle East minorities menaced by Islamic State advances.
    "You know as Jews, we say 'never again' for the Holocaust, a genocide and I don't think there's any difference between Jews and anybody else. Never again means never again for anybody."
    Rosenberg told Israel's Army Radio on Monday.
    "So I was in Iraq from January until now fighting with the Assyrian Christians right alongside the Peshmerga, the frontlines are 600 meters apart from each other, yeah, the political situation is changing with the Iranian involvement making.....advances, the dynamics are really changing. I felt like it was time for me to leave," said Rosenberg.
    Rosenberg started out with Kurdish YPG guerrillas in Syria before moving to the Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia in Iraq. Both countries are formally at war with Israel, which bars its citizens from travelling there. Iran is among regional powers sending forces to battle Islamic State in Iraq.
    The Israeli internal security agency Shin Bet said it questioned Rosenberg after she landed in Tel Aviv. It did not elaborate on whether she would face criminal charges, but an Israeli justice official told Reuters it appeared unlikely.
    Rosenberg's native Canada, from which she emigrated alone to Israel, had also urged her to get out of Syria. The Canadian embassy in Israel did not immediately comment on her return.
    U.S. authorities could pose more of a challenge, however.
    In 2009, Rosenberg was arrested in Israel over an international phone scam and extradited to the United States, where she served time in prison. Yahel Ben-Oved, one of her lawyers, said Rosenberg won early release in 2013 on condition that she remain paroled either on U.S. or Israeli soil.
    "I believe she may have violated this by going to Syria," Ben-Oved told Reuters. "This could be a problem for her."
    U.S. officials said they were looking into the case.
    Rosenberg declined a Reuters request for an interview, saying she would speak to foreign media later in the week.
    Reuters sources familiar with the YPG and Dwekh Nawsha confirmed that Rosenberg had served with both. They described the latter militia as an easier posting in terms of living conditions and exposure to combat risk.
    She said she was ordered to keep quiet about her Israeli citizenship while with the YPG, a militia with a historically pro-Palestinian leaning.
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