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| ISRAEL'S LATEST ATTACKS As preparations for this book were beginning, Palestine was experiencing the first months of the al-Aqsa Intifida. From the very first day of this new Intifada, the Israeli administration responded forcefully to Palestinian street demonstrations. In the meantime, however, the clashes in the region have become even more intense. In response to the suicide bombings carried out by some radical Palestinian groups, Israel has stepped up the pressure on the Occupied Territories. Israeli operations carried out on land, sea, and air have been aimed primarily at Palestinian civilians. The al-Aqsa Intifada's most violent days may have been erupting just as the year 2002 began. In this latest operation, which the authorities describe as the largest in the Occupied Territories in the last 20 years, the Israeli army sent approximately 20,000 troops. With this deployment, considered the harbinger of a great massacre, the Israeli army began to capture Palestinian-occupied areas one at a time. This operation was actually foreshadowed months earlier. As we discussed in the earlier section "Ariel Sharon Prepares for War," foreign media sources had been expecting such an occupation. Stories leaked from the Israeli government also indicated that Israel was preparing for a great war.
Once the occupation began, scenes reminiscent of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon began to appear. The same things happened in every captured refugee camp and neighborhood. First, the distant sounds of tanks and weapons-fire were heard, and then the generators supplying electricity were hit, plunging the area into darkness and cutting it off from the outside world. Before long, F-16s arrived to support the tanks. All of this was just the first step of a much broader seige.
The scenes were those of an outright war zone. Israeli tanks entered such Palestinian-administered cities as Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, and Tulkarem, destroying everything in their path; F-16s rained down bombs upon the people living in the refugee camps. PLO leader Yasser Arafat could not leave his official residence - in other words, he was placed under house arrest. During just one day of such attacks, 40 people were killed. The Israeli army shot at hospitals, ambulances, and schools, including a school for the blind established by the UN. Foreign journalists at the scene reported that those wounded during these raids could not be taken to the hospital because Israeli tanks surrounded the hospitals and prevented any ambulances from coming in or out. In addition to this, thousands of people were taken into custody without a valid reason, and dozens of them were sent to prison. In quite a few refugee camps, all males between the ages of 14 and 60 were taken away for questioning. Some of them, after being held for 2 days with their hands tied and eyes blindfolded, were later arrested. In the Dheisheh camp, for example, 600 men were forced into custody; 70 of them were arrested without any formal charges. Images of these blindfolded civilians awaiting interrogation that made it into the press showed just one of the arbitrary practices implemented by the Israeli army.
The press reported quite a few other ruthless practices during Israel's occupation: Israeli soldiers' posing for a photograph while stepping on the body of a Palestinian they had just killed, beating and killing a Palestinian man in the middle of the street despite his surrender, Israeli tanks smashing and destroying ambulances parked by the side of the road, and Palestinians being blown up with rockets. Moreover, the accompanying terror often was directed at children, a usual target. Israel's policy of violence toward children was rightly attacked not only by Palestinians, but by the whole world, including Israeli citizens. The famous Israeli author Gideon Levy, a staunch critic of Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories, criticized it sharply and asked the Israeli public:
Did anyone order the soldiers to shoot at these children's heads, or did the soldiers act on their own initiative? Does it make any difference? Can such incidents still be called anomalous? Or has this become the norm - shooting to kill at stone-throwers, be they children or adults? And this is another thing that we don't consider a war crime? And does anyone in the IDF care that its soldiers are behaving this way?122
Adam Shapiro, an American human rights supporter who lives in Ramallah, describes his thoughts about Israeli soldiers serving in the Occupied Territories: Occupation is based on dehumanization. That is how soldiers are able to do what they do - they are taught and encouraged not to see the Palestinians as humans. I do not believe that Israeli soldiers are inherently evil, but I do believe that when they are serving … they leave their own humanity behind… When Israel finally understands that the occupation is the root cause of the conflict here, and acts accordingly to remove it and allow the Palestinians to live in freedom, the words we need to use to explain and understand our world will once again have meaning. Until then, "human" will remain a word with meaning but without application…123
Israel's policy of violence gave rise to even more violence. Some radical Palestinian groups accelerated their suicide bombings aimed at Israeli civilians. When confronted with this development, Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government decided not to follow a measured and composed policy, but considered it necessary to increase further the level of oppression and violence. In a press statement, Sharon said: "We must cause them losses, casualties, so that they understand they will gain nothing... We must hit them, and hit them again and again, until they understand." What about the holding out the prospect of a political solution, the prime minister was asked. Now, he replied, was not the time for political prospects, only for military prospects.124 Likud Party member Meir Sheetrit, in a statement to Parliament, said that he supported the violence practiced by the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories, insisting that he would support any military action "designed to get the Palestinians to scream for a cease-fire."125 This technique accomplished nothing, though, but pushing events into a vicious cycle of violence. As we discussed before, the events in Palestine prove once again that these problems can never be solved by violence. According to figures released by the UN, during the course of this Israeli operation, 1,620 houses sustained heavy damage, as well as 14 public buildings, including some schools. In Jenin, of the 2,500 buildings that house the 14,000 Palestinians there, 550 were damaged. Six were only slightly damaged, 541 were damaged in varying amounts, and three were completely destroyed. In Balata, of 3,700 buildings that house 20,000 people, 670 sustained damage. Of these, 10 were completely destroyed and 14 heavily damaged. In Nur Al Shams, 100 of the 1,500 homes in which 8,000 people live were damaged, three of them being destroyed. In Tulkarem, 300 of the 2,900 buildings that house the 16,000 people were damaged; nine of these were completely destroyed and 30 heavily damaged. The total financial losses were about 3.5 million dollars.126
This period, which saw Israel sharply criticized by the UN and the European Union, ended with the necessary first step of the United States sending a negotiator to intervene in the crisis. Israel tanks began withdrawing from the Palestinian territories, leaving behind a devastated area, and the two sides entered security negotiations.
During this brief withdrawal, one significant attempt made to ensure peace came in the form of a peace plan published by Saudi Prince Abdullah in The New York Times. According to this plan, in exchange for Israel's retreating to its pre-1967 borders (in accordance with UN resolutions), Arab nations would normalize relations with Israel. This proposal was received positively by most Palestinians. However, radicalism on both sides blocked its implementation. And so withdrawing the tanks only bought the Israeli army more time. Within a couple of days, a new and more comprehensive occupation began. This time, the targets were the West Bank and especially Ramallah, the site of Arafat's headquarters. The resulting operation placed Arafat's headquarters under siege, almost confining him to a single room, while causing great harm to the Palestinian civilian population. The Israeli military did not stop at merely occupying Ramallah, but seized all of the West Bank's cities one by one. Electricity was cut off, and the ensuing blackouts disrupted the water supply. The areas were placed under strict curfew, and the people began to face starvation as their food supplies dwindled. While sick and elderly people and children tried to continue their lives under these brutal conditions, virtually all males between the ages of 14 and 50 were taken captive by Israeli soldiers. As soldiers took over buildings belonging to the Palestinian security forces, even those security officers who surrendered readily were shot in the head and killed. In order to cut off the Palestinians from the rest of the world, Israel quickly declared the occupied areas a "closed zone" so that the world would not hear about the cruelty being inflicted upon the Palestinians.
Despite these efforts, television stations around the world transmitted images of the horror prevailing in Palestine. Among the history-making moments were images of Palestinians shot point-blank in the head, bound and blindfolded captives being dragged off to the unknown, a world leader addressing the world by candlelight, dark and deserted Palestinian streets, hospitals that had incurred the wrath of Israeli soldiers, nuns and monks shot by Israeli tanks, and NGO members trying to form a "human shield" for the innocent Palestinian people. When the morgues at Ramallah's hospitals were full, they started to put two bodies into units intended for one. Then news came of mass graves being created for those who had been murdered. Places such as Tulkarem, Bethlehem, and Qalqilya had become sites of bloodbaths in the full sense of the word. In Bethlehem, believed to be the town where Jesus was born, many Palestinians desperately sought shelter in churches, but to no avail. This was no obstacle for the Israel army, as news reports soon appeared of shots being fired at churches and even members of the Christian clergy being killed.
A further indication of this inhumane occupation's ruthlessness is how journalists and members of NGOs active in the area were treated. While the Israeli government forcibly removed some of the journalists trying to report on these events, others remained virtual hostages inside, and some of those who remained behind even lost their lives. An even stricter policy was followed with the NGO workers: Some were arrested for "violating" Israeli law, while others were attacked with tear gas. Aid organizations were not allowed to do anything. In just one example, UN officials who tried to bring food and medicine inside were not only denied access, but were attacked with tear gas.
At this moment, the massacres and violence continue unabated. In order for the bloodshed to stop, to ensure that no more lives are lost and that both sides have a bright and peaceful future, Israel must end this occupation at once and enter bilateral negotiations. But as we indicated earlier, the only way for peace to be established, for security to prevail, and for animosity to subside is for a substantial change in the collective mindset to occur. This change can occur if the parties involved adopt a moderate, tolerant, and compromising attitude - that is, if they follow the moral values that God decrees in the Qur'an.
A Massacre Occurred in Jenin
As news reports from the region confirm, Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, conducted in the name of defeating terror, resulted in another massacre of Palestinian civilians. The operation was waged not for defensive purposes, as indicated by the name, but for destructive ones. The entire operation was characterized by brutality throughout Ramallah, Nablus, and Bethlehem, for Israeli soldiers targeted civilians rather than armed parties, and killed women and children who were not combatants. An Israeli soldier involved in the operation told the BBC: Take this for an example. There is a village where we have intelligence that someone is planning a terrorist attack. We surround the village and move in, but there is a 17-year-old shepherd in a field on the edge of the village.… Do I arrest him, blindfold him, tie his hands? Do I tell him to get inside quick? ...We are trained to fight armies and soldiers, and yet we have to deal with people in this situation... The most terrible thing is to go into houses and see that they are just regular families. The children with their wide frightened eyes, I find very difficult. We all have kids at home.127 The violent events that began during the final days of March 2002 went down in history as the culmination of a brutal seige and massacre. What the Western media referred to as "The Second Massacre of Sabra and Shatilla" was the raid organized against the Jenin refugee camp. This refugee camp had been set up for Palestinians driven off their land in 1948. During this latest operation, Israeli forces besieged this camp, home to about 15,000 people, just as it had the other Palestinian cities and camps. But what happened next was unique in one important regard: Jenin was not simply surrounded - it suffered one of the most comprehensive massacres of recent years.
Once the camp was surrounded by Israeli tanks, it was bombarded continuously by rockets fired from helicopter gunships. Bulldozers razed houses and tanks fired at anything that moved, while nearly all of the men were rounded up and taken away. Those who had not been struck by rockets were trapped under the wreckage of their homes, and those who were still alive beneath the rubble were killed by Israeli soldiers. Israel's refusal to allow ambulances into the camp, in direct violation of UN decrees, drove the death toll even higher. Subsequent news reports from the area showed that many women and children had bled to death, often screaming in pain, because ambulances and doctors had not been permitted inside. Even after Israel announced that the siege had ended, it still refused to allow journalists, doctors, and officials from human rights organizations into the camp. Israel announced that casualty figures would be collected by the Israeli army and that the bodies would be buried in a mass grave on the Jordanian border. This was clear evidence that Israel wanted to conceal this latest massacre from the world. In fact, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres admitted that the Israeli army had committed a massacre while speaking to the Israeli Knesset: When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage. However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction.128
After a while, the world began to hear about the scale of the massacre from Palestinians who managed to send word from inside the camp and from those few journalists who made it into the camp and managed to escape with some images. Despite Israel's attempts to destroy all the evidence, Palestinians succeeded in reporting on what happened by copying hand-written notes about their experiences. In the early days of the siege, The Times newspaper reported on events in Jenin in an article dated April 9, 2002, entitled "Children Scream for Water": Hamid's last image of Jenin Refugee Camp was a city of the dead. The 14-year old student, who surrendered to Israeli forces on Saturday night after witnessing 30 hours of bombardment, shakes slightly as he describes the apocalyptic scene. Piles of corpses were moved aside by bulldozers. Houses lay in smoldering ruins. Children screamed for water; some were forced to drink sewage. Hamid is wearing new trousers, bought by sympathetic Palestinians, because he was stripped to his underpants by Israeli soldiers after he had surrendered to them… Three people were killed by rockets inside the house where he was taking refuge. "But the most terrible thing was seeing Israeli soldiers take eight men and line them up and kill them," he said, describing in detail the procedure and the injuries the men sustained. After that, Hamid, his twin Ahmed and his older brother Khadir made a white flag and waved it from a window. They had no other way out. The brothers were stripped, handcuffed tightly behind their backs and blindfolded. They were then taken with a group of about 100 Palestinian men to Salem Military Barracks inside Israel, where they say they were beaten and offered money to act as Israeli spies. After 48 hours of interrogation ... the men were taken to a village nearby without shoes and told to walk back to the West Bank... Ahmed was kicked badly in his back and kidneys and lies on a mattress writhing in pain. Khadir has a black eye and some bruises, but the brothers will live. Others, however, were not so lucky. Inside the mosque some of the men who surrendered on Saturday talk of being used as human shields by the soldiers… Khalid Mustafa Mohammed … lies on a bloody mattress face down, and his back is wrapped in bandages. Khalid has two broken ribs and has internal bleeding and lies semi-comatose, muttering in pain. The only health care worker in town, an exhausted dentist, Dr Farouk al Ahmed … "We fear there will be a massacre," Dr Farouk said. One witness noted that "the women and children were being separated from the men, and being taken away to a nearby forest." The real fear is not for the refugees who have escaped, but [for] those left behind. The memories of Sabra and Shatila refugee camps being leveled are still not so distant.129 Jenin Mayor Walid Abu Muweis, for that matter, said that words could not describe what he had seen and experienced: "The things that I witnessed with my own eyes can't even be put into words. How can a human being commit such brutality? I don't understand it." Muweis, who says that what occurred in Jenin was much much more horrifying than what occurred 54 years ago in Deir Yassin, explained what he saw in a piece appearing in the magazine Palestine Monitor: I saw children's bodies protruding from the rubble. I saw decomposing bodies of people in their 60s and 70s lying in the streets. This is only in the small area of the camp we were permitted to enter… This colossal crime will remain a stigma of shame on the civilized world which remained silent as hundreds of defenseless men, women and children were being mercilessly slaughtered by the most barbaric army in the world.130 As Abu Muweis noted, the events in Jenin will constitute a shameful page in human history. The horrible scenes that appeared later in the press testify to this. For example, the first massacre scenes from Jenin were described as follows in The New York Times: Residents of the camp said many civilians were killed. Two bodies were seen here today … both charred beyond recognition. One was male… Part of a sneaker remained on the right foot. The left foot and hand were cinders. A woman dressed in black wailed over the body, as flies buzzed in air rotten with the stench of untended death… The other body, a few doors away, was buried beneath a crushed wall. Only the blackened, featureless face was visible. A child's cleated sneaker … lay nearby. In both cases, no weapons were seen…131
Justin Higgler of The Independent newspaper excoriates the world's turning a blind eye to this overt massacre in his article "The Camp That Became a Slaughterhouse": For nine days, Jenin camp became a slaughterhouse. Fifteen thousand Palestinians lived in a square kilometre in the camp, a packed warren of narrow lanes. Thousands of terrified civilians, women and children, cowered inside their homes while the Israeli helicopters rained down rockets on them and tanks fired shells into the camp. The wounded were left to die. The Israeli army refused to allow ambulances in to treat them, which is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The Red Cross has publicly said people have died because Israel blocked the ambulances… The Israeli authorities may be able to hide the evidence, but they cannot silence the stories that have been pouring out of those who managed to escape the carnage in the camp… Munir Washashi bled to death over several hours after a helicopter round came through the wall of his home. When an ambulance came for him, Israeli soldiers shot at it. Munir's mother, Maryam, ran into the street screaming for help for her son and was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers.132 These reports were obtained despite Israel's attempts to prohibit all communication with Jenin. After the siege is lifted, the world encountered more evidence of atrocities. The only way to make sure that no more tragedies such as Jenin will occur in the future, and to stop the tears and pain on both sides, is to end the violence completely. Indeed, for this to be possible, certain Palestinian groups will have to abandon their practice of targeting innocent Israeli citizens. This is, after all, a violation of Islamic ethics. But Israel also must abandon its goal of destroying the Palestinians and fulfill all of its UN obligations. 122.
Gideon Levi, "Sammi Kosba's 40 days," Haaretz, February 8, 2002,
emphasis added. |
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