Thursday, October 03 2002 @ 02:24 AM GMT
RAMALLAH (PC) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was freed from his Ramallah headquarters, with Israeli snipers stationed in nearby buildings. Palestinians rushed to greet Arafat as he emerged from the last standing building of his compound. Mahfouz Abu Turk, Palestine Chronicle Photographer was also present, along with his camera.
To the Living Dead
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 07:59 PM GMT
"Let us pretend that today, for one day, humanity breaks its silence in its shame and anguish. For one day, humanity can speak, and can be heard .."
By Fadi Kiblawi
WASHINGTON (PC) - Let us pretend that today, for one day, humanity breaks its silence in its shame and anguish. For one day, humanity can speak, and can be heard.
Imagine that the prison doors fly open, liberated from their unwelcome locks, and the children of Nablus fill the streets again, realizing their lost adolescence. The checkpoints begin rotting in their unforgotten misery and the elders make the long-awaited journey to Jerusalem. The homeless of Jenin abandon the war zone which, inscribed deep below its ruins, was once labeled their camp of refuge, but stood in reality as the holding station in their anxious, almost meaningless, journey to the sanctuary of another life.
Imagine that a generation of youth can be rescued from the crimes of the state, free to live in peace and coexistence, rather than violence and subjugation. Saved, they return to their families, spared from the guilty conscience of killing another child, destroying another home, and fueling the fire burning with decades of the violence inherent in the historically-redundant routine of colonialism and imperialism. Their families, complete and no longer trapped under the strong current of guilt, as they reaped and stole the land from the indigenous, sentenced to exile. Their apologists, no longer spewing the lies that disguise the racism of yesterday’s ethnocracy, under the thick mantle internationally perverted as democracy.
Imagine, that two conflicting peoples can live as neighbors, and plant the seeds for tomorrow’s generations. Funerals will fill the streets, but the dead will be Sabra, Shatilla, Ain-El-Hilwa, and Yarmouk. Celebrations will fill the streets, and the reborn will be Deir Yassin, Qaqun, Lubya, and Salama.
Let us pretend that today, for one day, humanity breaks its silence in its shame and anguish. For one day, humanity can speak, and can be heard. Tomorrow, will it still be heard? Will the violence, racism, and stupidity of exclusion be silenced?
Or tomorrow, will there be no reason to live? Tomorrow, will the repression of colonialism return the children of Nablus, the worshippers of Jerusalem, and the homeless of Jenin to their cells? Will the wardens of the state pull the trigger, and feed that blazing gun of apartheid and occupation?
Or will yesterday’s anguish and today’s awakening fuel our indigenous voice and break the silence of humanity? Tomorrow, will we choose to live, or shall we continue rotting in humanity’s shame and anguish?
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 2:43 pm Post subject: Reinvaded Bethlehem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021126204515559
Reinvaded Bethlehem
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 08:45 PM GMT
"They are hit and screamed at. Some are made to 'confess' to 'crimes.' Many allude to sexual assault. No one will tell me exactly what has happened .."
By Kristen Ess
BETHLEHEM (PC) - The occupying Israeli army forces Palestinians to sit in their homes, trapped for days on end. Here in Bethlehem it has only been five days. In Nablus it has been months. Schools, shops, everything, is closed.
A woman went to Ramallah for school one day. She is still there, but her school is closed. She cannot return home. She lives in Bethlehem's Aida Refugee Camp. Another woman is having a baby alone. Her husband went to Ramallah for work and has not been able to return. It is impossible to leave. It is impossible to get out.
Israeli soldiers pound on the doors of homes and families jump up. If they do not open the door quickly enough, the soldiers will break them down or start shooting. The Israeli soldiers tramp through the homes in boots and helmets, wearing army gear and carrying M-16s. They shove the guns into old men's stomachs and demand identification. The families scramble to prove that the Israeli government has legitimized their existence. The children cry and the entire family is ordered out of their homes. Israeli soldiers hold guns to their heads and make them stand against walls in their own streets. Some are made to lie on the ground.
Hours pass. It's raining. Israeli soldiers eat candy bars and chit-chat with one another. The families are not allowed to speak. It becomes dark. The Israeli soldiers blindfold some of the Palestinians and bind their hands. They throw them into the back of jeeps. The Palestinians are on their way to Israeli administrative detention. They are held without charge for three months, for questioning. This means interrogation and torture. The torture, I am told by friends who have survived it, involves being bound to small chairs while beaten or made to stand on tip-toes with their hands cuffed high up on walls for days on end. They are hit and screamed at. Some are made to "confess" to "crimes." Many allude to sexual assault. No one will tell me exactly what has happened to them. They look down and say they want to forget. Some smile, their eyes turn bright and wet, and say, "this is the life."
The Israeli military has reinvaded Bethlehem and has put all West Bank Area A under curfew. Area A, under Oslo, is what Palestine was "given" sovereignty over. During the night the soldiers drive through the camp shouting from a loud-speaker, "All families in Aida Camp, you are under curfew. You are not allowed to leave your homes." Who is this arrogant occupying army and why are they allowed to exist. The Israeli soldiers call out, "Al-Akbar," which is part of the call to prayer for the Muslims in the camp, at all hours. They laugh and shout and gun the engines of the tanks. During the day families sit inside their homes. They cannot cross the street to see friends, or if the Israeli soldiers have entered the camp while they have dared outside, they are stuck for days in a friend's house. A man this morning opened his front door to check on the new house he is building across the alley. He was grabbed by Israeli soldiers who demanded his I.D. They told him if he is "caught" outside again he will go to the prison. This is a Palestinian refugee camp whose resident's original homes were already taken by the government and residents of Israel. They are not allowed into the narrow alley-ways that pass for streets here.
A woman whose husband has been exiled to Gaza is pulled from her home with her three small children. They are made to stand outside all day and are made to feel grateful when they are allowed to go back inside their house, which has become a jail cell.
The Israeli "Defense" Minister is calling this "Operation Step By Step." He tells the press, "we are just getting started." He says the Israeli military will stay inside of Bethlehem until the Israeli elections in January. The Israeli military came into Bethlehem the night before the suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Al-Quds. Now they use it as their excuse for being here.
A Palestinian journalist was arrested yesterday, and the Israeli soldiers stole his video tapes. This is part of the continued assault on the truth. International media has reported that the Israeli's are using "restraint." This is an illegal occupying army and government. The Israeli military is shooting children with rubber bullets and tear-gas, beating and sometimes killing them.
The Palestinians are using restraint. In resisting the continual Israeli occupation and this reinvasion, some people in this area throw stones. In this act of collective resistance, the spirit of the first Intifada is alive. Small children run after black smoke spitting tanks throwing stones which are really just bits of concrete they have taken from the rubble of their demolished homes. They build small road blocks with whatever they can find, garbage and an old tires. Many of these children will be put in prison, as has most everyone I know at one point or another. Throwing stones is the crime many were charged with that brought them five years in Israeli prisons during the first Intifada.
The Palestinian Authority police that came out of Oslo have largely been arrested now in Bethlehem. The Israeli government in its continual assault on Palestinian infrastructure does not believe in the right of the oppressed to have its own police force.
Abed Al-Ahmar, Amnesty International's "prisoner of conscience" from May 2001 through May 2002, was taken in the middle of the night. His family was held at gunpoint for two hours. His wife is the legal advisor to the U.N. Our friends who were there at the time tell me that the Israeli soldiers said he is not "wanted." They just took him anyway.
Tanks are rumbling outside and a young man is peering out the window. Israeli soldiers have kidnapped over 50 Palestinians, adding them to the over 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners being illegally held in Israeli prisons. Israeli bulldozers have demolished many homes of family members of the "wanted." Fear and resignation are palpable in this town. Old men are made to fear arrogant and heavily armed young boys who have the United States, Israel, and all who fear the US, behind them.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 2:45 pm Post subject: UN Delegation Mistreat Local Palestinians in Jenin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021126210646575
UN Delegation Mistreat Local Palestinians in Jenin: Special Report
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 09:06 PM GMT
"Several foreign guards reportedly sealed the UN compound and refused entry to Palestinian officials, and all Palestinian UN workers .."
By Ali Samoudi
JENIN, West Bank (pc) - Palestine Chronicle reporters in the town of Jenin said that UN investigators who arrived to the town yesterday to look into the circumstances surrounding the murder of a UN official engulfed their investigation in secrecy.
The investigators were dispatched to the town to look into the Israeli army’s shooting death of Iain Hook, a UN project manager whose responsibility was to oversee the rebuilding of the destroyed refugee camp. The camp was destroyed by Israeli forces in the historic invasion of April 2002.
Several foreign guards reportedly sealed the UN compound and refused entry to Palestinian officials, and all Palestinian UN workers. Foreign UN workers however, were allowed entry.
Immediately after the murder of Hook, the UN administration in Jenin closed down the building and forbade anyone from entering or approaching the scene. A large Palestinian crowd consisting of local leaders, representatives of Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Authority and students awaited the UN delegation with flowers and cardboard signs expressing their sorrow and condolences. The delegation included the two brothers of Iain Hook. However, the UN foreign workers have reportedly disregarded the Palestinian presence, asking them to leave the scene. Palestinian reporters, including reporters from the Palestine Chronicle were prevented from talking to the brothers of Hook, or to take photographs.
Hook’s brothers stood and listened to a foreign UN official, who presumably explained the details of the shooting, although he was not an eyewitness. When Palestinian eyewitnesses arrived to the scene, UN guards denied them entry, and prevented them from meeting with Hook’s family. Jamal Shati, a Palestinian Parliamentarian and the Head of Refugee Affairs at the Legislative Council, told the Palestine Chronicle that the behavior of the UN was “suspicious.” He expressed his worry that the UN might be trying to hide the read details of the incident. He said, “It would have been rational for the investigators and Hook’s family to listen to the accounts of those who were present at the time of the shooting, those who tried their best to save Hook’s life.”
A Palestinian UN official who asked to remain anonymous stood in front of the UN’s sealed entrance. “Just being here reminds me of one of the worst moments in my life, but I was hurt even more to be treated this way, and not to be allowed to meet with Iain’s brothers. I was hoping that I could send a message with Iain’s brothers, a message to the whole world of how the Israeli occupation has no regard for human life, to international law. Iain was not armed, he was not wanted, he was not a danger to the occupation, but they killed him anyway. However, the way the UN acted today makes me think that there is an attempt to prevent the truth from coming out.”
The delegation also visited the house of Abu Abed Farhat, a Palestinian witness who saw Israeli snipers opening fire at Hook. Farhat’s house was occupied by Israeli snipers for over eight hours. The media, foreign as well as local, was also prevented from reporting on the eyewitness accounts. The same behavior of the UN delegation continued in the Khalil Suliman Hospital in Jenin, where Iain Hook was pronounced dead, according to hospital personnel. The delegation refused to abide by legal procedures mandated by the hospital or to address the hospital's administration directly. However, the hospital administration refused to allow the delivery of Iain’s body without the implementation of the hospital procedures. Several hospital personnel expressed their outrage at the way they were treated by the UN delegation.
Nevertheless, Palestinian residents managed to reach the brothers of Iain Hook, to embrace and console them, despite the guards insistence to keep them away.
UN guards were then ordered to evacuate the area of Palestinians while transporting the body of Hook into a UN vehicle. Several journalists were verbally assaulted, and reprimanded to attempting to take photographs. “We were chased from one corner to the other, as if we were committing a crime,” a local Palestinian reporter told the Palestine Chronicle. “What we were doing is not something illegal, or something that we should be ashamed of. I assure you, if Hook was killed by Palestinians, no secrecy would have taken place. World media would have been allowed to take as many pictures as they pleased. I condemn the UN for attempting to pacify the murder of Hook. This is shameful.
Jamal Shati delivered a message of consolation to Hook’s family on behalf of Palestinian refugees. Afterwards, he spoke to the Palestine Chronicle; “Hook’s murder was not the first time that a foreigner or a UN official was killed at the hands of the Israelis. Israel is willing to murder anyone who might expose its crimes in the Occupied Territories. They often begin by trying to blame Palestinians for their murder, but the straightforward evidence quickly unveils the details of their crime.”
The residents of Jenin, who bitterly remember Kofi Annan’s decision to abandon a UN investigation of the Israeli invasion of Jenin in April 2002, are left convinced that the UN has fallen under similar pressure to disregard similar Israeli crimes in the Occupied Territories. “Annan is a co-conspirator in hiding Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people and those who sympathize with their cause.” Shati explained before leaving the scene.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 2:47 pm Post subject: Israeli Army Invades Gaza, West Bank, Carries out Mass Arres
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021126210022960
Israeli Army Invades Gaza, West Bank, Carries out Mass Arrests, Blows up More Homes
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 09:00 PM GMT
"While the US administration is pressing the Israelis to use 'restraint', invasions, arrests and the killing continues .."
GAZA CITY (PC) - After a remark from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week, who said, “The IDF has a free hand in the Occupied Territories,” Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships invaded Gaza again Tuesday, arresting 25 “suspects”. During the raid and arrests, Israeli tanks and helicopters battled with Palestinian fighters.
Israeli forces also invaded the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank Tuesday, conducting house to house searches, looting homes and carrying out mass arrests of more “suspects”.
While the US administration is pressing the Israelis to use “restraint”, invasions, arrests and the killing of Palestinian civilians, even children continues. The campaign launched by Ariel Sharon that is dubbed, “Operation Step by Step” is just beginning the hard-line leader says, who is trying to prove to Israelis that he can extinguish the two-year old Palestinian Uprising.
In other parts of the West Bank, 8 year old Jihad Tahsin al-Faqeh was shot and killed by Israeli forces in Nablus Monday, while on his way home from school. Jihad, along with other school children began throwing stones at Israeli tanks in the area. Israeli forces responded with gunfire, shooting Jihad in the head. The young boy died instantly.
On Friday, an 11 year old boy was killed by Israeli forces, who was also shot in the head. Mohammed Misleh Bilalo, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp was shot in the head when Israeli forces invaded the camp in their quest for “militants“. A bullet penetrated his left eye and left no time for doctors to try and save him. Six other children were wounded on that same day.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Israeli troops invaded the refugee camp of Dier al-Balah in Gaza Monday night, where they detonated a four-story home of a man suspected of being a member of the Islamic Movement, Hamas. Four Palestinian civilians, including a medic were injured in the attack.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 2:50 pm Post subject: Palestinian Organizations Launch the Apartheid Wall Campaign
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021126205515302
Palestinian Organizations Launch the Apartheid Wall Campaign
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 08:55 PM GMT
"According to organizers of the campaign the wall will envelop Palestinians in a 'open air prison', while leaving .."
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PC) - Several Palestinian NGOs and grassroots organizations are joining together to protest the construction of Israel's security wall which will surround the West Bank., and is expected to be complete by the end of 2003.
According to organizers of the campaign, while Israel claims that the wall will mark the 1967 border, or the Green Line, the wall will envelop Palestinians in a “open air prison”, while leaving many of their most fertile lands on the Israeli side. The groups claimed, “this latest unilateral offensive will be a further exercise in Israel's annexation of lands, destruction of agriculture and property and violation of human rights.”
The Apartheid Wall Campaign is in the process of constructing an exhaustive report complete with maps, data, background, photos and links. According to their findings, the first phase of the Wall, in the northern West Bank is to be some 115 km long and 8 meters high and is to include electric fences, trenches, cameras, sensors and security poles. The wall in its entirety is to cover at lest 350 km, roughly encircling the West Bank.
In this first phase, at least 15 villages will be trapped between the wall and the Green Line. Another minimum of 15 villages will have most of their lands confiscated, whereas the residential areas will be on the east of the wall, and the agricultural land to the west. To date, over 100,000 dunums have been confiscated for the entire wall. If the wall is completed, close to 10% of the West Bank will have been confiscated for its construction. Israeli government officials have stated repeatedly that the wall will be completed in less than one year from now, and therefore are “working” daily in meeting their deadlines and goals.
The group stated that the Israeli governments explanation of the massive wall as a “fence” being placed to separate the “two sides” is deceiving and represents vast intensification of the already existing pressure and burdens imposed on the Palestinian people by the Israeli army.
In a statement, the group claimed, “The separation rhetoric, which should remind everyone of the Afrikaans word for separation--“Apartheid”--is not a reflection of real geographic or a historic physical divide between two peoples, but rather is reference to Israel’s continued campaign of forcible, unilateral separation and expulsion plans that disregard national or economic sovereignty for Palestinians.
“The Wall just furthers the “bantustanization” of the West Bank into hundreds of small, dependent entities that cannot sustain themselves and that are more akin to small, disconnected open-air prisons surrounded by Israeli military checkpoints and settlements, than anything else.”
Currently a group of Palestinian activist groups, the Apartheid Wall Campaign is seeking other international organizations that will join in their efforts to prevent the building of the Israeli “security fence”.
For more information contact visit outreach@pengon.org
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 2:54 pm Post subject: An Evening Lecture on Israel/Palestine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021126195629684
An Evening Lecture on Israel/Palestine
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 07:56 PM GMT
"Finally, I got the attention of the moderator, arose and addressed the Zionists' comments as follows: .."
By Chris Meyer
I went to an evening lecture the other night. It was one of those lectures given at Universities to help inform US citizens about what is happening in Israel/Palestine. The room was packed.
The speaker, a person with much experience in the Middle East presented an engaging and lucid overview of the history of Israel/Palestine. She based her talk on the research of leading Jewish and Israeli scholarship, like "The Birth of Israel" by Simha Flapan, "The Fateful Triangle" by Noam Chomsky and "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky and "Israel's Sacred Terrorism", Livia Rokach's fascinating study of Moshe Sharett's diaries from the 1950s. She also drew upon her many years of experience in the region and her ongoing contacts with Israeli and Palestinian friends currently living in Israel/Palestine.
Our speaker wrapped up her talk with two very interesting points: The history of suicide bombings within Israel proper began only after Sharon closed the Israeli border to Palestinians. The reason for this is twofold.
First, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) destroyed the orchards, vineyards and vegetable gardens that were the income for a large portion of the Palestinian population, forcing them to rely on income from day labor in Israel. Then, after the borders were closed to laborers, the last major support for the economy was taken away, and life became truly desperate for Palestinians. Thus, instead of providing security Sharon only increased the pain and suffering on both Palestinians and Israelis by closing the borders.
We also learned about Barak's so called 'generous offer' at the end of the Clinton administration. By chopping the Palestinian communities up into isolated cells with Israeli-only highways and numerous checkpoints, the Israeli Government has turned Palestinian land into a vast prison system. By signing onto Barak's offer, Arafat would have officially condemned the Palestinian people to an eternity of hopeless desperation.
When the talk was finished, time was allotted for questions and comments from the audience. Several members of the audience rose with comments.
The first explained that at any such meeting, there should always be plans for a second speaker to be present to provide the Israeli point of view so that the presentation is balanced. He added that most Jews do not agree with the views that had been presented and proceeded to give the standard Zionist interpretation of Israel's history.
Another rose and explained that Saudi Arabia is loaded with billions of discretionary dollars. Over the years, the Saudis should have been building factories for their less fortunate Palestinian brothers and made something out of Palestine. Instead, The Saudis held to their own greedy Arab ways. Several other speakers held forth in a similar vein.
Finally, I got the attention of the moderator, arose and addressed the Zionists' comments as follows: "If I want to get the Zionist views on Israel, all I have to do is read the New York Times, or turn the radio or TV on - doesn't matter what channel. I thought it was great tonight to get a refreshing alternative perspective - just for one night...
I also think it is interesting that as fresh material becomes available, like Moshe Sharett's Memoirs and Flapan's painstaking study of the Israel's beginnings based on contemporary sources, we find that supposedly respectable people like Ariel Sharon were and have always been - terrorists.
Sharon was a terrorist in the 50s, he was a terrorist in Lebanon, and - he's a terrorist today. As for the Saudis somehow saving Palestinian society: The Palestinians already had a society. They had cities; they had orchards and vineyards; they had an economy and homes and schools; they had Universities and Hospitals - they've had all these things. The problem is - somebody is systematically taking it all away from them!"
The best response to the Zionist's comments came after the question and answer session. Our host for the evening played the documentary, "Beyond the Mirage: The Face of Occupation", which is distributed by Americans for a Just Peace in the Middle East. In this film, leading Israeli intellectuals like Jeff Halper, supported by activists from B'Tselem and Israeli civil rights attorneys, thoroughly and convincingly deconstruct the myths of modern, Zionist Israel.
It was heartening to see that along with all the courageous Palestinian patriots in Palestine and across the globe, there are also moral and courageous Jewish Israelis, who are prepared to take a stand and DO something.
This is what truly holds out the best promise and hope for genuine peace in the Middle East.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:10 pm Post subject: UN Protests Armed Israeli Raid on International Staff Member
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2002112619400627
UN Protests Armed Israeli Raid on International Staff Member's Home
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 07:40 PM GMT
"In the early hours of 22 November, an IDF combat unit of 20 to 30 heavily armed troops surrounded the Bethlehem home of Allegra Pacheco .."
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has protested to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) the treatment of one of the Agency's international staff members and her family, who were subject to degrading searches and unjustified detention.
In the early hours of 22 November, an IDF combat unit of 20 to 30 heavily armed troops surrounded the Bethlehem home of Allegra Pacheco, UNRWA’s Field Legal Officer. She was held at gunpoint in the open air for two hours while her house was searched, her mobile phone was taken from her and her car was used as a prop for IDF weapons. Ms. Pacheco repeatedly pointed out her UN status to the troops, who ignored her.
In addition Ms Pacheco’s husband, Abed Al-Ahmar, who is recognized by the UN as a dependent of a staff member, was forced to partially strip before being taken into IDF custody. UNRWA has since learned that an 11-day detention order has been issued for him.
“An armed raid on a staff member's home and degrading treatment of her and her spouse is disruptive of her ability to carry out her official functions,” UNRWA said in a statement. “This is completely contrary to the undertakings made by the Government of Israel to facilitate the work of the Agency.”
UNRWA, which understands that Mr. Al-Ahmar is being held without just cause, has requested his release.
Currently 23 of UNRWA's Palestinian staff in the West Bank are being detained by the Israeli authorities. All but three are being held without charge. UNRWA has requested explanations for each arrest but has received no reply and is refused access to its staff after their arrests.
-United Nations News Center. Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:15 pm Post subject: Stripping Palestinians has Become Common Practice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2002112621222725
Stripping Palestinians has Become Common Practice: Eyewitness Accounts
Tuesday, November 26 2002 @ 09:22 PM GMT
"They forced Yasser to take off all his clothes including his underwear…they ordered him to walk like a dog and then he burst into tears .."
By Suzanne Russ
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PC) - On Monday, November 25, Israeli soldiers ordered a young resident of the town of Nablus to strip completely naked in the street, according to Palestinian witnesses.
Yasser Sharar, 25, was caught violating the curfew in Nablus and was stopped by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, who immediately ordered him to remove his clothes.
In an interview with Reuters, a witness explained, “They forced Yasser to take off all his clothes including his underwear…they ordered him to walk like a dog and then he burst into tears,”
The eyewitness who watched the scene from a few meters away continued, “He kept crying and was in a very stressful situation…many residents, including women watched him and he was very embarrassed.”
Israeli soldiers refuted the claim, saying that they merely asked him to lift his shirt, but he voluntarily removed all his clothing to get media attention. The Reuters report also claimed that this is the first time Israeli soldiers have ordered Palestinians to completely strip naked publicly in a security operation.
However, recent interviews conducted by the Palestine Chronicle with scores of residents of the Jenin refugee camp contradicted the Reuters claim. Dozens of residents of the refugee camp claimed that during the Israeli invasion of April, 2002, it was a common practice to force residents to strip naked as a form of humiliation, or as the Israelis say, a “security operation.”
The Reuters image showing
Yasser after soldiers ordered
him to take all of his cloths off
Na’el Ammar, 43, is a resident of the Jenin refugee camp and explains how Israeli soldiers arrested and detained scores of men from the refugee camp, and forced many to strip naked, “ We were mostly older people, sick and wounded. We had nine handicapped people with us, three were from the same family, sons of Abu Ibrahim. Some of us were too old, they were senile. When they told them “go left” they would go right, but they stripped them naked anyway. I tried to help them as much as I could. I was the only one who spoke Hebrew…Close to us was a group of young men. They were handcuffed, naked and lying on their stomachs. The Israeli tanks would pass by them so fast, only forty centimeters away from their heads.”
Nawal Hawashin, a mother of eight, told Palestine Chronicle reporters that they threatened her 18 year old son with death if he did not follow their orders to strip naked, “They ordered my son and other young men to take off all their clothes and throw them on the ground. The soldiers warned that if the boys made any move, they would be shot. Near the Sahah, there was a body of a man with a white beard. He was lying dead on the ground, and tanks were rolling right over him. I couldn’t recognize him. My son Mohammed said, “Mother, I am too ashamed to take my clothes off in front of women.” I told him, ‘Son, this is our fate.”
Jamal Hussein has a family of thirteen. A man who worked as a cheap laborer in Israel before the invasion of Jenin described in detail how terrified Jenin residents were gathered in the center of the camp and forced to undress, “Soldiers stationed on the top of a nearby house started throwing dirt on us.. We remained 15 men and boys. Half an hour later a tank came and stood near us. They pointed the canon at us. And they spent over an hour terrifying us that way. The commander of that unit spoke in Arabic to us, “Go to Saha”. While we were on our way, we kept reading Koran. We felt that they were going to execute us. Once we arrived there, we found a large number of men, forced to strip completely naked. There was a big pile of clothes. Soldiers started shooting right above our heads, they would call on us, one by one. Once they pointed at you, you would have to pull your pants down and your shirt up, when it was my turn, as I stood up, I noticed the body of a man, Jamal Sabbagh. It was some sort of a test. If you pass, you are arrested and if you don’t, they’ll shoot and kill you.”
According to Jenin residents, Israeli forces were not discriminatory in their aggression, young men, old and disabled were targeted. 45-year old Um Siri lamented how her son was not only forced to strip naked, but how he was later used as a human shield, “Then they took my son, they had him strip naked, and they also started firing between his legs to terrorize him.”
Israeli soldiers arrested and detained Um Siri’s son for days, during this time, she did not know if he was dead or alive. Finally she found him in a rescue shelter where he recounted how he was treated, “When I also found my son, he told me that the soldiers took him to a field near the camp with many other young men, he told me that the soldiers had them walk in front of the tanks, as they were looking for fighters.”
The vulnerable and elderly, according to residents, were treated just as mercilessly. Um Siri recounted how the women of Jenin tried to come to the aid of some men, forced to stand naked publicly, in the pouring rain, “We passed by the sons of Sheikh Abdel Salam. They were standing there in the rain, after the Israelis had them strip completely naked. There was a woman who came with us. She took her headscarf and tore it to several pieces and gave it to the young men to cover themselves. A very thin old man approached while screaming, ‘My sons, my money, for God’s sake, they took everything!’ The Israelis had him strip naked like the day he was born. Once the women saw that, they started pulling their hair, hitting their heads, and wailing. He has all of his life’s savings with him, because he was worried that he might lose it in the invasion, but when the Israelis stripped him naked, they found the money and took it.”
Other residents described how young men were stripped naked and then shot. Yusuf Shalabi, a young man from the camp explained how the Israeli soldiers denied medical treatment to the wounded, “…I remember this nightmare very well. It is very difficult to talk about it. I remember them stripping the people naked, they would handcuff them and blindfold them. I remember seeing two wounded men, one was wounded in the shoulder and the other in the leg. They were screaming in pain and the soldiers would not allow them to be treated.
The Israeli army, who according to Amnesty International committed war crimes in Jenin in April of 2002, targeted medical workers as well. They also forced the women to remove their head scarves. Seham Shalabi, a young woman who works in a textile factory in Jenin recounted her memories of those days last April, “An army jeep came and started circling the house, then it opened fire at us. Why would they open fire at us? Then they came and they searched us, and had us walk two by two, out of the camp. Just as we began moving, we saw another group of tanks and bulldozers. We found some doctors and medical workers, forced strip naked, handcuffed. Then they put them in trucks and took them to the Salem detention center. The Israelis started shouting and ordering us to take off our head scarves.
Humiliation of medial workers was not only reported by the residents of Jenin, but these events were also narrated by the medical workers themselves. Mohammed Rafi’ the director of the Red Crescent Society’s youth development programs in Jenin recounted how the Israelis held medical workers hostage in the Jenin hospital for days, and then forced them to strip naked as well. “They did not allow anyone in or out. If one of us wanted to leave to the hospital across the street, it would take two hours of telephone calls and deliberation. Ambulance drivers would be forced to wait for two hours with people bleeding inside before they were allowed entry to the hospital, they would take our volunteers or drivers, have them stripped naked, and interrogated and insulted.
Of the scores upon scores of interviews conducted by Palestine Chronicle reporters in the Jenin refugee camp, that act of forcing civilians to strip naked was reported time and again. The Israeli army has defended the action, saying that such tactics are necessary to assure that Palestinians are not carrying explosives.
Many of the quotes within this article will be included the book titled Searching Jenin, edited by Ramzy Baroud, Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle. Searching Jenin will be available in bookstores in December 2002.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
Back to top
dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2002 2:12 am Post subject: Israelis Commit Another Extra-Judicial Assassination
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021127203527703
Israelis Commit Another Extra-Judicial Assassination
Wednesday, November 27 2002 @ 08:35 PM GMT
"The two men were identified as Alah Sabbagh, local leader of Al-Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh, and Imad Nasrti, leader of the Islamic Movement .."
JENIN (PC) - On Tuesday, Israeli aircraft fired missiles into the war-torn Jenin refugee camp. Missiles struck a house in a residential area, killing two men. Although the men were wanted by the Israeli government, neither was arrested or tried, in this most recent extra-judicial assassination, which has become a common tactic for the Israeli army. The army has not commented on the incident.
(Image: Musa al-Shaer (PC))
The two men were identified as Alah Sabbagh, local leader of Al-Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh, and Imad Nasrti, leader of the Islamic Movement, Hamas.
According to witnesses, as the refugee camp was bombarded with shelling, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, Palestinian resistance fighters responded, creating clashes between the two groups. The Israeli army then imposed a strict curfew on the camp, forbidding residents from stepping foot outside their homes.
Such extra-judicial assassinations have been strongly denounced by human rights who state that such actions are in violation of international law.
At least 176 Palestinians have so far been killed in extra-judicial executions committed by Israel, including 64 Palestinian bystanders.
The Palestinian human rights group, LAW emphasized that, “...extra-judicial executions constitute willful killings, which are a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such constitute war crimes subject to universal jurisdiction.”
Also in the Jenin refugee camp, an 11 year old Palestinian child, Mohammed Misleh Bilalo was shot in the head and was killed by Israeli soldiers Friday. A bullet penetrated his left eye and left no time for doctors to try and save him. Six other children were wounded on that same day.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
