28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
Issue No.514
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001 Issue No.514 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Grief overshadows holiday season
On 20 December, the Israeli army, using artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades, bombarded the city of Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip during the quiet hours just before dawn, killing a boy, and seriously injuring scores of innocent civilians.
The heavy bombardment targeted a small refugee camp, known as Yibna, and two schools as well as residential areas near Jewish settlements.
Among the injured were three sisters and a one-year-old baby and her mother, who were hit by shrapnel while in the bedroom of their home. As many as 60 other civilians were also injured by stray bullets or by shrapnel from exploding shells.
Around the same time, an Israeli tank stationed outside the Jewish settlement of Navi Dakalim, fired an artillery shell at a Palestinian Red Crescent vehicle, killing two paramedics and injuring two others seriously.
The attack seemed to be yet another cold-blooded and totally unprovoked murder. The Israeli army's only comment on the incident was that it was investigating -- a routine response to questions about such crimes, and one which Palestinians have come to understand means that the army will not be concerning itself with the matter any longer.
Earlier that same day, trigger-happy Israeli soldiers stationed at the Erez checkpoint at the northern edge of the strip opened fire on a group of Palestinian labourers who verbally protested against Israel's humiliating checkpoint procedures in which the workers are forced to undress and dogs are used to search them. And as the workers struggled to maintain a semblance of dignity -- something the Israeli army clearly considers intolerable -- two of them were injured by gunshots.
On 22 December, two more Palestinians were killed in the Hebron area, one of them a passerby named Najib Ibedo, 22, whom eyewitnesses testify was killed by Jewish settlers from the small settlement of Haggay on the southern outskirts of Hebron.
As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, the Israeli army was still refusing to hand over the youth's body, demanding that his family first waive their right to petition the court to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances of the young man's death. Earlier, the Israeli army sought to whitewash the murder by claiming that Ibedo attempted to stab one of the settlers who then shot him in self-defence.
Needless to say, such stories are routinely concocted by the Israeli army and then parroted by the Israeli media, which makes little or no effort to ascertain the truth, a telling situation indicating the extent to which the Israeli media has become a tool in the hands of occupation army.
Also on 22 December, three Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded when a Palestinian suicide-bomber, who had strapped explosives to his body, detonated himself at a café frequented by Israeli soldiers north of Jericho. The man, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, is believed to have been affiliated with the Islamic Jihad, the organisation which vowed it would carry out attacks on Israeli targets before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the occupation authorities continued to isolate Palestinian towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, preventing the movement of individuals and barring the flow of goods between towns.
The result of this often hermetic blockade is predictable; Palestinians are forced to adopt a "survival economy" whereby life becomes organised around securing immediate needs such as food and fuel. In economic terms, this means that the manufacturing sector has come to a standstill, incurring staggering losses estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
One of the most devastating affects of this virtual economic paralysis is the laying off of workers, thus further increasing the already huge number of unemployed.
With more than 330 youths and minors killed and more than 12,000 others injured or maimed by the Israeli army in the past three months, and with their economy in ruins, it is no wonder that Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, had very little to celebrate this holiday season.
As the uprising is expected to continue until at least the Israeli election -- scheduled for 6 February -- people in the occupied territories are bracing themselves for even harder times.
Nonetheless, the economic hardships, however hard to cope with, are not the main preoccupation of most Palestinians. Uppermost is their intense desire to rid themselves, once and for all, of the shackles of the Zionist occupation.
This desire is manifested again and again, at every funeral procession and at every protest, when Palestinian youths chant, almost instinctively, "give us arms, we'll give you our souls."
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