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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No holds barred
By Khaled AmayrehThis week, Israeli occupation soldiers, acting on clear instructions from the highest political echelons, continued to adopt a shoot-to-kill approach toward Palestinian protesters, even though the latter posed no threat to the safety of the former.
The death toll for the eighth week of the Intifada was 36 Palestinians, including seven below the age of 15.
This brings the total number of Palestinian victims of Israel's bloody repression of the Palestinian uprising to 267, as many as 60 of them children below the age of 16.
Many of this week's victims were murdered rather than killed, as the Israeli army continues to disregard even the most elementary humanitarian norms.
"They seem to think that every Palestinian man, woman and child is a legitimate target for their bullets, and they don't just think so -- they act on it," commented Fatahi Baradieh, from the village of Surif near Hebron, whose relative Mohamed was killed by Israeli soldiers on 15 October at an Israeli army roadblock near Jerusalem while on his way to work.
"The Israeli soldiers stopped him, hand-cuffed and blindfolded him, and then claimed that a bullet was accidentally fired from a soldier's rifle that killed him," said Bardieh.
That was the version presented in the official statement issued by an Israeli army spokesperson. "God will avenge his death," Bardieh added. "He was his family's sole breadwinner."
Another example of this sadistic rampage is the murder by the occupation soldiers of 18-year-old Mohamed Khudur from the Fawwar refugee camp, 5 miles southwest of Hebron.
According to his family, Khudur was returning from his fiancée's home in the nearby village of Beit Kahel on 16 November when Israeli soldiers disguised as Palestinians opened fire on him.
His brother insists that Khudur took no part in any stone-throwing at the Israelis.
"My brother was to have his wedding on Friday, the day after he was killed. Do you think anybody would go out to hurl stones at those trigger-happy killers only 24 hours before his wedding day?"
Such cases usually pass without being investigated by the Israeli occupation authorities, which have come to regard the current situation in the occupied territories as "a state of war" and, borrowing the words of one Israeli army officer, "there are no limitations in a war. Everything is permissible."
The Israeli army itself doesn't even seek to deny that soldiers are instructed to shoot-to-kill "the rioters."
One Israeli soldier, a sniper who said he didn't know how many Palestinian children he has killed during the past eight weeks, told the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz on 19 November that "we shoot everybody who needs to be shot."
Interviewed by the paper's West Bank correspondent, Amira Hass, the unidentified soldier admitted that Israeli occupation soldiers shoot without discretion.
"If the field officers tell snipers to fire, his intention will be to hit the head. Because if he fires, he does so in order to kill, unless there are specific individuals -- in this war it has not happened much -- whom you're told to shoot in the legs."
The snipers, or professional killers, use a variety of lethal bullets that have devastatingly explosive impacts. Death is guaranteed in 90 per cent of cases.
Palestinian hospital sources have pointed out that the vast bulk of the 267 Palestinian martyrs were killed by snipers using deadly "high-velocity explosive bullets."
The Israeli army has continued to employ other draconian measures to torment the Palestinian population. This week, the Israeli army placed huge concrete slabs and huge piles of earth at the entrances of hundreds of villages throughout the West Bank.
The Israeli army's barbarity doesn't stop there. This week, Israeli soldiers denied some seven villages in the central West Bank to their sole source of drinking water, known as the Samya Springs north West of Ramallah.
A Palestinian from the village of Silwan near Ramalla told Al-Ahram Weekly that the Palestinian villagers were worried that the occupation soldiers might place some harmful chemical agents in the water. "There is no limit to their barbarity, they are evil-incarnates," he added.
The besieged villages are not actually left alone, as Jewish settlers raid them in full view of the Israeli army to provoke them into hurling stones so the army can have an excuse to kill them.
Another purpose of settlers raids is to abduct "stray Arabs" to nearby Jewish settlements, where the Palestinians are tortured to death, as was the case with Isam Judeh from the village of Um Saffa near Ramallah, in the second week of the uprising.
Judeh was abducted and taken to the settlement of Psigot, where his eyes were gauged out and was eventually bludgeoned to death. No investigation has been instigated.
Another expression of the settler rampage is the destruction of Palestinian orchards, especially olive groves. On 17 November, the settlers destroyed hundreds of olive orchards in the Ramallah areas, thus depriving dozens of Palestinian families of the main source of their livelihood.
Palestinian sources estimated the losses to Palestinian farmers from settlers' wanton vandalism at $15 million.
Related stories:
War in Gaza
'There are limits'
The cost of vengeance
See Intifada in focus 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000
Intifada special 19 - 25 October 2000
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