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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Producing the body (count)
By Khaled AmayrehFor the fourth consecutive week, Israeli soldiers, using state-of-the-art death weaponry, continued to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy against Palestinian demonstrators, apparently obeying clear instructions from the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
This trigger-happy approach resulted in the death of at least another 20 Palestinians between Friday and Tuesday 20-23 October, including four children below the age of 14.
And while Arab leaders were holding their summit meeting in Cairo, the toll of those injured continued to mount. As many as 700 protesters and demonstrators, along with innocent bystanders, were injured -- mostly by gunfire -- as the use of rubber-coated steel bullets gave way to the use of steel bullets fired from M-16 rifles and a variety of heavier sub-machine-guns used in war. Of those injured, approximately 50 sustained serious to critical wounds. Subsequently, five of these people, two of whom were children, were pronounced clinically-dead.
These latest figures brought the number of Palestinians killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers and by marauding Jewish settlers since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada to 146, while the number of those wounded exceeded 5,000.
The fiercest confrontations between the Israeli army and stone-throwing Palestinians this week took place on Friday, 20 October. On that day, the Israeli army made extensive use of helicopter gunships to strafe several Palestinian population centres including Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. Concomitantly, Israeli soldiers and specially-trained sharpshooters, who took positions at strategic vantage points or on the rooftops of multi-storey buildings, continued to hunt down Palestinian protesters gathering along the so-called "friction lines" just outside PA-controlled towns.
By nightfall, there were nine Palestinians dead, and 370 injured. Three of the injured subsequently died.
That same night, in Beit Jala, a small predominantly Christian town near Bethlehem, several buildings including a theatre, a carpentry workshop and a youth centre sustained direct hits when Israeli tanks positioned outside the nearby Jewish settlement Gilo shelled the town.
Israel said the bombardment was in retaliation for the firing from Beit Jala of several projectiles toward Gilo, which Israeli sources said caused minor injuries to a settler and slightly damaged three windows. But the village was not to be left in peace, coming under attack twice again on 22 and 23 October, resulting in serious injuries and inflicting heavier damage. Palestinian sources said an artillery shell fired from the direction of Gilo hit an ambulance which was racing to take the injured to hospital. The three paramedics inside the ambulance, in addition to the driver, were injured, one seriously. It seemed that only by a miracle, their lives were saved.
Palestinian martyr Wael Emad, 14, receiving a farewell kiss from his younger brother before his burial in Gaza on Sunday. Wael was shot dead by Israeli soldiers while stoning a military base protecting a settlement
(photo: Reuters)
But Beit Jala was not the only site of activity for the Israeli army on 22 October. Five Palestinians were killed and over 150 injured at locations throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Two of the injured, including a 13-year-old child, later died of their wounds. Another four Palestinians were killed on the next day. One of these fatalities was a 52-year old woman from a village near Tulkarm, in the northern part of the West Bank. Reportedly suffering from leukemia, the woman, while being chased by an Israeli soldier, fell and sustained a critical head wound.
In Hebron, Israeli soldiers and settlers continued to fire volleys of heavy machine-gun rounds on Palestinian neighbourhoods adjacent to or overlooking the old part of the city, which is still under the full control of the Israeli military. And very often, artillery shells would also be fired, mostly randomly, on Palestinian neighbourhoods. In the words of an Israeli officer, the purpose of these acts was to "demonstrate to them [the Palestinians] that we are strong and have the upper hand."
On 23 October, the Israeli army demonstrated its "upper hand" once again when it shelled an area now known as the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood using heavy machine-guns. In the midst of this show of strength, a 50-millimetre bullet pierced the forehead of 63-year old Abdel-Aziz Abu Sneineh, then exited from the back of his head. He died immediately. But Abu Sneineh was not the only one hit in this incident; his three children were also injured while their father was trying to evacuate his family to a safer place.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government and army continued to give the frenziedly racist and trigger-happy Jewish settlers free rein to attack, murder and terrorise unprotected and unarmed Palestinian villagers throughout the West Bank.
This week, settlers killed another Palestinian farmer, who was picking olives near Tulkarm. This latest act brought to 10 the number of often gruesome murders of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli civilians.
On 17 October, two Jewish settlers from the settlement of Itamar near Nablus, shot dead 28-year-old Farid Nasasrah, as he picked olives in his orchard at the nearby village of Beit Fureik.
The two settlers, Yaron Degani, 40, and Gad Tena, 48, initially confessed to having killed Nasasrah, claiming they did so in "self-defence" since they saw him "walking in the direction of the settlement."
Nonetheless, Israeli police set the two killers free on 21 October, citing "insufficient evidence proving that a murder had taken place." "Shots were fired," said the Israeli Police commander of the Nablus area Rafi Peled, claiming that "there is no objective proof of a body. As it stands, all we have are rumours, we only know of the victim's death from the television."
The Palestinian police chief in Nablus, Colonel Feras Yousef, described Peled's remarks as "nefarious lies coming from racist blood-suckers who think that non-Jews are animals whose lives are worthless."
Yousef stressed that he personally handed the Israeli police all the details surrounding the murder of Nasasrah, including the forensic reports and testimonies by witnesses.
"They know quite well what happened, they only want to find some excuses to free their murderers."
Related stories:
Intifada in focus
States of emergency
Producing the body (count)
Tempered anger at the summit
Composing the consensus
The electronic Intifada
Horror in your sitting room
Variations on a theme
The big freeze
Solidarity days
'A valid fear'
Meet the press
The earth speaks Arabic
Also see Focus on Intifada 19 - 25 October 2000© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
