Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000 Issue No.510

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No stopping the Intifada

By Khaled Amayreh

Despite intensive diplomatic efforts to contain the bloody showdown between Israel and the Palestinians, the Israeli occupation army continues to employ excessive and lethal force against Palestinian civilians. The outcome of its policy is predictable: Palestinians continue to be wounded and killed by Israeli soldiers' bullets every single day.

This week, over thirty-two young Palestinians, including at least five in their early teens, were shot dead during confrontations with trigger-happy Israeli soldiers intent on crushing Palestinian protests using any means and at any price.

At least five of the victims were killed during bombardments by Israel of civilian neighbourhoods in Rafah and Khan Younis. Then in Jenin, located in the West Bank, two brothers were killed on 25 November when an artillery shell hit their home, killing them both .

With the latest figures, the Palestinian death toll since the outbreak of the uprising on 28 September has exceeded 310.

Several hundred Palestinians lie in hospital in critical condition with some succumbing to their wounds each day. Although the funerals increase bitterness, they also fuel Palestinians' defiance and determination to maintain the uprising -- if only to deny Israel's pugnacious Prime Minister Ehud Barak the chance to claim victory.

Unlike the previous eight weeks, this week the Israeli army virtually abandoned its use of helicopter gunships to pound and strafe Palestinian population centres. Explaining this shift in tactics, an Israeli military official said that helicopter bombings harmed innocent people and undermined Israel's image in the international arena, while utterly failing to take out "hostile and terrorist elements." Such attacks are clearly aimed at collective punishment of each and every locality from which armed men fire on Israeli troops or settlements.

Paradoxically, the occasional blanket bombardment of Palestinian towns, in which artillery shells and rounds of ammunition from heavy machine-guns rain down on areas populated by civilians, inflict even more casualties among innocent civilians than helicopter attacks.

A more likely cause of Israel's shift in tactics, as is widely believed here, is that Egypt's decision to recall its ambassador to Israel pushed occupying forces to stop the helicopter bombardment of Palestinian towns.

Some observers have argued that the fierce helicopter raids on Gaza on 20 November precipitated the Egyptian decision to recall ambassador Mohamed Bassiouni from Tel Aviv.

The ultimate goal of Israel's continued bombing of Palestinian neighbourhoods would seem to be to make life for the local populace so unbearable as to push them to force armed groups, such as the Fatah militia, to leave their neighbourhoods.

This tactic seems to have paid off. Fatah militiamen, who are for the most part poorly-trained, have thus been forced to limit their activities to shooting sporadically at heavily fortified Israeli army outposts. Such acts of resistance put Fatah militiamen in a clearly subordinate position and have, accordingly, proven costly for the Palestinians, as the Israeli army uses its immense fire power to mow down the lightly armed guerrillas.

The collective punishment of people in areas from which militias continue to operate has been swift and Draconian. In the Gaza Strip, for example, numerous houses were razed by army bulldozers and vast portions of citrus orchards were destroyed along the main Salaheddin Highway linking Rafah and Khan Younis.

Apart from this, the Israeli army made it menacingly clear that it intended to assassinate Intifada activists and leaders from across the political spectrum.

On 23 November, an Israeli Shin Beth agent placed a sophisticated explosive device inside the car of Ibrahim Bani Oudeh, a leading figure of Hamas's military wing in the Nablus area. The device was electronically detonated by a helicopter that was hovering over Nablus, instantly killing Bani Oudeh.

Initially, the occupation authorities sought to distance themselves from the murder, claiming that Bani Oudeh was killed while trying to assemble a car-bomb that was to be detonated inside Israel. However, once the Shin Beth agent who had set the bomb had fled the West Bank, the Israeli army took credit for the gruesome murder. Bani Oudeh's assassination took place less than 24 hours after the Kadera bus bombing in which at least two Israelis were killed and thirty injured.

Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedin Al-Qassem, claimed responsibility for the bombing of the bus, and vowed to carry out additional attacks inside Israel in retaliation for the murder of Bani Oudeh as well as continued killings of Palestinians. It is widely believed here that it is only a matter of time before Hamas makes good on its threats.

The spectre of renewed suicide bombing attacks has apparently prompted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to seek international support to calm the situation in the occupied territories. Should this be achieved, Barak would then try to convince Yasser Arafat to resume security coordination with Israel.

For that purpose, Barak sent Shin Beth chief Avi Dakhtar to Cairo on 26 November to meet with Gaza's Preventive Security Chief Mohamed Dahlan, the very man some high-ranking Israeli government officials have recommended as an assassination target.

The meeting between Dakhtar and Dahlan represents a grudging recognition on the part of the Israeli security establishment that without active PA cooperation, Israel cannot stop suicide and other bomb attacks inside Israel -- a realisation that is a political nightmare for Barak.

Another reason for Barak's decision to try to build new bridges with Arafat are the mounting Israeli casualties. So far, as many as 36 Israeli soldiers and settlers have died since 28 September, and over 350 have been injured, some seriously.

These losses, which pale in comparison to the number of Palestinian casualties, prompted Deputy Minister of Defense Ephraim Sneh to say that "achieving a knock-out victory over the Palestinians in the present showdown is not possible given the nature of the conflict."

Meanwhile, it is increasingly evident that Arafat is facing resistance in his efforts to convince the Palestinians in general, and the Fatah movement in particular, to de-escalate the Intifada. But Arafat's predicament is certainly not helped by the Israeli army which continues to kill Palestinians on a daily basis.

Related stories:
No holds barred 23 - 29 November 2000
The cost of weakness 16 - 22 November 2000
Crushing the Intifada -- phase two 16 - 22 November 2000
See Intifada in focus 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000
Intifada special 19 - 25 October 2000

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