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<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAs another 9\/11 anniversary comes and goes, many questions surrounding the events remained unanswered. MintPress brings you a freshly updated article, originally published in May, 2019 that seeks answers to some of those questions.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n NEW YORK \u2014\u00a0<\/b>For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known\u00a0arrests<\/a>\u00a0made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called \u201cHigh Fivers,\u201d or the \u201cDancing Israelis.\u201d However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the \u201cDancing Israelis,\u201d at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.<\/span><\/p>\n Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men \u2014 later revealed to be Israeli nationals \u2014 had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and \u201chigh fiving\u201d each other. At least\u00a0one eyewitness<\/a>\u00a0interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis\u2019 van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story\u00a0received<\/a>\u00a0coverage<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0U.S. mainstream media<\/a>\u00a0at the time but has since been largely forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n The men \u2014 Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari \u2014 were\u00a0subsequently apprehended<\/a>\u00a0by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a \u201cworking holiday\u201d in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, \u201cWe are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in \u201cimmature\u201d behavior by celebrating and being \u201cvisibly happy\u201d in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However,\u00a0newly released FBI copies of the photos<\/a>\u00a0taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by\u00a0a private citizen<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the\u00a0Jewish Daily\u00a0<\/i>Forward<\/i><\/a>\u00a0in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested \u201cwere conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.\u201d At least two of the men arrested\u00a0were determined<\/a>\u00a0to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner,\u00a0subsequently stated<\/a>\u00a0on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time \u201cto document the event,\u201d meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.<\/span><\/p>\n The FOIA release of\u00a0the photos<\/a>\u00a0is notable because responses to prior FOIA requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible to see the Israelis\u2019 facial expressions. However, previously\u00a0declassified yet heavily redacted FBI reports<\/a>state that the Israelis are \u201cvisibly happy\u201d in nearly every photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by authorities from the camera in the Israelis\u2019 possession, only 14 were released.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/6-e1558100019912.jpg\")
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