17 - 23 January 2002
Issue No.569
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 17 - 23 January 2002 Issue No.569 |
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They came in the night
Some 700 Palestinian refugees were rendered homeless during a night raid this week. Khaled Amayreh visits the damage
It is 1.30am on 10 January and the streets are quiet and cold at Rafah refugee camp, at the southernmost edge of the Gaza Strip. The roar of tanks is growing louder as they approach and residents are rising in their beds, sensing that something terrible is coming. But they do not know what.
Soon enough, they arrive. A dozen bulldozers, escorted by several tanks, armoured vehicles and a host of edgy soldiers. Within minutes, the commanding officer's voice booms from the loudspeaker: "We have come to destroy your homes. You have 10 minutes to get out. Anybody who doesn't will be crushed."
Distraught and terror-stricken, the estimated 73 families race into action, grabbing their children from their beds and tearing out of their houses. As many as 700 stunned residents, including 300 children, were soon assembled outside, half-asleep, rubbing their eyes in disbelief. The bulldozers heaved into action, crushing everything: furniture, utensils, appliances, family albums. In three hours, everything was gone.
One resident told Al-Ahram Weekly that only a few minutes had passed between the moment he was awakened and the crash of a bulldozer into the walls in his house. "At first, I thought it was a nightmare, but when I realised what was going on, I grabbed my three little children [aged two and four], and asked my wife to get the other two [aged seven and nine], all still in their pajamas, and we ran into the street," said Abu Ahmed. "It wasn't like waking up children when it's time to go to school. We grabbed them and pulled them out immediately. They were half-asleep."
The next morning, frightened families returned to view the rubble into which their homes had been reduced. Twisted metal, iron doors, broken concrete, smashed televisions were covered in shredded asbestos from destroyed rooftops. "We are innocent civilians, we didn't do anything wrong," said Mohamed Al-Najjar, one of the victims. "But apparently the Israelis think that anyone who is not Jewish is guilty and deserves to be persecuted." He added angrily: "They are worse than the Nazis."
The Palestinian Authority, Israeli peace activists and human rights groups denounced the demolitions as war crimes. PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo described the attack on Palestinian civilians as a war crime. "It is a crime against humanity, and the perpetrators and their superiors should be tried as war criminals," said Abed Rabbo. The PA was equally angered by the relatively lukewarm reaction from the United States to the demolitions in Rafah, calling the American response "utterly inadequate in light of the gravity of this crime."
A homeless Palestinian refugee child warms her hands by an outdoor fire in the rubble-strewn area while another plays in the debris where their homes once stood in Rafah (photos: Reuters) Other PA officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, were more frank, labelling the American reaction "hypocritical and brazenly immoral." Unexpectedly strong reactions also came from the Israeli press and former officials. The independent daily, Ha'aretz, described the demolitions as "destruction on a systematic, collective, and indiscriminate level against innocent civilians, whose only sin was the place where they lived."
Former Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni did not hesitate to call the demolitions war crimes, warning Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defence Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer and Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz that they could one day be tried by an international tribunal as war criminals.
But the outcry was dismissed by the Israeli army and government. In a 11 January statement, the army claimed that the homes were razed in response to an earlier attack by Palestinian guerrillas on an army outpost in which four soldiers and two Palestinian fighters were killed. But an Israeli army spokesman admitted soon afterwards that there was no connection between the attack and the demolitions, admitting that plans for massive demolitions had been drawn weeks before.
General Yom Tov Samia, former commander of army's southern command, was straightforward about his aims: "The army must raze all the houses in the Rafah refugee camp abutting the Egyptian border. Arafat must be punished and after each incident, another two or three rows of homes must be razed. We must employ this very draconian method because it works and I'm happy it is being used."
The government of Ariel Sharon waited to see how the world would react before "clarifying our positions." Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who many maintain is little more that a public relations officer for Sharon, said rather tersely that he was worried about "the damage to our image" the demolitions were causing. Seeking to limit the public relations damage incurred, Peres announced on 13 January that Israel would not destroy any new Palestinian homes in Rafah. His statement, however, was immediately overruled by Sharon, who declared that "only the prime minister can make a decision on this matter."
Peres, who has never apologised for the 1996 Qana massacre in Southern Lebanon, never denounced the demolitions themselves, however. More than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed at Qana when Israeli forces bombarded the camp. Swallowing the slight by Sharon, Peres only reiterated his point that "these things are bad for public relations."
On 14 January, the bulldozers were back in action, although on a smaller scale, in East Jerusalem. In Isawiya neighbourhood, 15 Israeli bulldozers laid waste to 10 Arab homes on the grounds that the structures were built illegally. But Palestinians and human rights groups, including the Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem, dismissed the claim of illegality as a pretext to justify the leadership's policy of restricting Arab demographic growth in the city.
"It is amply clear that Israel is behaving toward Arabs in this country as Nazi Germans behaved toward Jews in Europe," said Mohamed Razem, whose house was destroyed. "I know that many Americans and Europeans are not accustomed to hearing these kind of charges, and some of them may even consider such remarks 'anti-Semitic.' But this is the reality here. It is a sad reality."
A representative of an Israeli group fighting the demolition of homes was present at the site. "Our government has an established policy here whereby non-Jews are deliberately denied building licences," the activist said. "This leaves the people of East Jerusalem no choice but to build without obtaining a licence beforehand. They know they won't get one even if they wait 50 years."
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