7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
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Unending carnage
In the aftermath of the deadly blows inflicted on the Israeli army by the Palestinians, Sharon sent his troops into the refugee camps. Khaled Amayreh reports from occupied Jerusalem
Despite the death of over 60 Palestinians and 30 Israelis this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not toned down his bellicose rhetoric. His seeming intent to perpetuate the killing comes in spite of the worsening bloodshed.
Following the latest killing and another emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday, Sharon briefed Israeli reporters that pressure on the Palestinians would have to be upped "in order to force them to return to the negotiating table."
"Anyone wishing to negotiate with the Palestinians must first hit them hard, we must inflict heavy losses on their side," he said.
Sharon's provocative sabre-rattling translated into yet more terror being inflicted on the Palestinians, whether combatants or innocent civilians. In return, Palestinian militants carried out increasingly daring reprisals against Israeli soldiers and settlers.
In the aftermath of last week's ruthless rampage at the Balata and Jenin refugee camps, in which more than 28 Palestinians -- civilians in their majority -- were killed and 260 others wounded,
Palestinian resistance fighters retaliated.
On Sunday the 3rd of March, a lone Palestinian resistance fighter, armed with an old WWII carbine rifle, carried out a surprise early morning attack on an Israeli army roadblock north of Ramallah, killing eight soldiers and two settlers, and injuring five others before escaping unscathed.
According to Israeli press reports, the Palestinian guerrilla fired off 25 bullets in 20 minutes at the crack Israeli troops until his ancient gun jammed, at which time he dropped it and fled away.
Twelve hours earlier, another Palestinian -- the 19-year- old son of a refugee from the Dheishe camp -- reportedly disguised himself as a rabbi and blew himself up in an ultra-orthodox Haredi neighbourhood in West Jerusalem, killing himself and seven Israelis, including a woman and three children.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing, declared responsibility for both operations, stating that "Jewish blood will continue to be spilled as long as Palestinian blood flows."
The two incidents, which occurred within 10 hours of each other, shook an Israeli society that, unlike the Palestinians, is unaccustomed to absorbing such a high number of fatalities on a single day.
Responding to allegations that the Palestinian operations were related to Israeli army incursions into the refugee camps, Sharon had the audacity to claim that "IDF activity" was "unrelated."
But, in a reaction that betrays the shifting public mood in Israel, several commentators remarked that the prime minister was surely fooling himself and his people or was becoming progressively more detached from reality in making such a claim.
In a bid to conceal the failure of his "military option" in suppressing the Palestinian Intifada, the Israeli army reoccupied Jenin.
This time, over 40 tanks, 2,000 troops and several helicopter gunships effectively turned the densely-populated camp into a war zone.
A local refugee told Al-Ahram Weekly that the attacking army was shooting at everybody and everything. "They are targeting men, women, children, shops, mosques, animals, homes and schools," said Khalil Abu Bakr.
"They are intent on killing and maiming as many civilians as possible," sighed the middle-aged man, adding "Don't believe them when they tell you that they don't target civilians." By 5.00 o'clock in the afternoon, eight Palestinians were dead, and more than eighty injured, many seriously. Several of the wounded lay in the camp's narrow streets, dying or awaiting to be transferred to hospital. However, the Israeli army was barring ambulances from entering the besieged camp. Their wilful obstruction resulted in several unnecessary deaths as the injured often bled to death.
As usual, the Israeli army claimed that the casualties were exclusively "gunmen" and "terrorists."
However, upon examining the names of the victims, it became clear that virtually all, save one man, were civilians. The dead included two vegetable vendors -- Rana Abu Jouhar and Naim Sabbath; a house-wife --Samira Zubeidi, 53; and a high-school student -- 18-year-old Ayman Ghanem.
Before pulling out of the camp, the Israeli army completed the carnage by firing a tank shell at a Red Crescent ambulance that was evacuating the wounded to hospital.
The direct hit killed 53-year-old Dr Khalil Suleiman, head of the first-aid department at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jenin and seriously injured three of his paramedics.
The Israeli army claimed that the soldiers fired the tank shell "in self-defence," a claim described by eyewitnesses as "rubbish and a cheap lie."
Shortly before Monday afternoon, an Israeli tank deployed at the illegal Jewish settlement of Psigot, overlooking Ramallah, fired two shells at the car of Hussein Kweik, a political activist affiliated to Hamas. The car was being driven by his wife, Bushra, at the time who was returning home after having collected their three children from a nearby school.
The resulting inferno reduced the car to charred steel and twisted metals. Bushra and her three children, Mohamed, Aziza and Bara'a (seven, 10, 14 respectively) were instantly killed and their bodies incinerated beyond recognition.
"I'm talking about decapitated heads, limbs strewn on the road and bodies cut in half," said Dr Musa Abu Hmeid, a Palestinian health official, in describing the gruesome scene of the crime.
Two more children, riding in another car, Shayma Masri, four, and her brother, Arafat Masri, 15, were also killed.
The Israeli army, fearing a public relations backlash, issued a belated statement, 12 hours after the event, saying, "There is no Israeli policy of targeting civilians."
The Palestinian press called this "a crocodile apology," arguing that Israeli actions spoke louder than their words.
The bodies of Bushra Kweik, her three children, and those of Shayma Masri, her brother Arafat and another two civilians killed in Rafah as well as that of Dr Khalil Suleiman and the other victims of the events in Jenin were all laid to rest on Tuesday.
As the innocent victims were being buried, Israeli Apache helicopter gunships pounded government buildings in Khan Younis, narrowly missing a crowded school.
This coincided with the explosion of a bomb at the school yard of a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem that injured 12 schoolchildren and their teacher.
A Jewish terrorist organisation claimed responsibility, vowing to murder Arabs until the "Land of Israel is purified of gentiles."
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