21 - 27 March 2002
Issue No.578
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 March 2002 Issue No.578 |
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'Killing with ease'
The US peace mission to Israel has not stopped Israel's slaughter of Palestinians. Khaled Amayreh reports from Jerusalem
Since US envoy Anthony Zinni arrived in Tel Aviv on 14 March, the Israeli army has killed over 24 Palestinians, many of them innocent men, women and children.
When a land mine exploded under an Israeli tank near the Al-Buraij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on 14 March, killing three soldiers, the Israeli army killed a woman, her three children and her nephew the next day.
Zeina Suleiman Awawdeh, her children, Tahani, Amani, and Tareq, aged 16, 15, and 11, respectively, and her nephew, Salem, aged 16, were riding on their donkey-hauled cart when Israeli soldiers set off a bomb. The family was all but obliterated, leaving only a 10-year-old orphan. Two others were injured.
"They just want to satiate their thirst for our children's blood. How much more of it will quench that thirst?" said Dr Ahmed Rabah, head of the Aqsa Martyr Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
The Israeli army issued a routine denial of responsibility, saying the land mine could have been planted by the Palestinians.
The claim was rejected immediately by Major General Abdel- Razzaq Al-Majayda, the highest-ranking security official in Gaza. "If they are capable of killing children with such ease, they can even more easily lie about it," he said.
In the West Bank, as in Gaza, the indiscriminate killing continued unabated. In Hebron on 15 March, the Israeli army killed two more Palestinian civilians. Majdi Fadel Iwewi, 23, was killed while sitting in his living room, when the Israeli army bombarded the commercial area of the city in which his home is located.
A few hours later, an Israeli patrol shot 27-year-old Mohamed Salameh Da'ana dead for "violating the curfew." His family said he was going to hospital for an emergency when he was killed.
The Israeli statement said only that "two Palestinians were killed in Hebron in clashes with our forces."
The same pattern continued on the next day. At an Israeli roadblock outside of Beit Ummar, 10 kilometres north of Hebron, soldiers, unprovoked, shot up Palestinian homes and shops nearby. Amjad Bahjat Alami, 20, was killed as he sat behind the counter in his family's grocery store.
Ibrahim Awawdeh, the sole survivor of his family, grieves by their coffins (photo:AP)
The same day, in the Birka neighbourhood of Deir Al-Balah, Suleiman Zurei'e, 50, was also killed in his home by Israeli machine-gun fire.
The daily killings of Palestinian civilians and destruction of Palestinian property prompted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to describe the situation as "an all-out conventional war against a civilian population," in which, "hundreds of innocent non-combatant civilians have been killed or injured, and many buildings and homes have been damaged or destroyed."
And Palestinian attitudes are hardening. Latest opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip show that over 80 per cent of Palestinians wish to continue the Intifada and more than 60 per cent support suicide bombings. This is just one indication among many that there is little support among Palestinians for the PA's acceptance of a cease-fire without a promise of an end to Israeli occupation and violence. Fatah secretary-general, Marwan Barghouthi, said this week, "Any understanding or agreement that will not call for an end to the occupation [of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip] with a timetable and international guarantees will not stand." He added that "discussing the [CIA Director George] Tenet recommendations was a waste of time, because the biggest fire is the occupation itself and the resistance will continue as long as the occupation remains." Hamas leaders also warned Arafat not to "abort this Intifada as you aborted the first."
Meanwhile, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians view the "pull-out" of Israeli tanks from some Palestinian towns as a step signalling any breakthrough toward ending the conflict.
Israeli Defence Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer said on Tuesday that Israeli tanks stood ready to return to Palestinian towns any time.
A spokesman for Israeli Peace Now said, "It is very clear that those who keep building settlements don't desire real peace with the Palestinians." The movement's new report revealed that at least 34 new settlements have been built in the West Bank since Sharon came to power.
"Transfer" is an Israeli euphemism for Palestinian mass expulsion. Benny Elon, who resigned from the Israeli government this week in protest against Sharon's "lenient approach" toward the Palestinians, told The Jerusalem Post, "If people start to deal with the issue of transfer and understand that we need to stand firm on our absolute, God-given right to the land of Israel, then we might succeed."
This week Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Israel against expelling the Palestinians from their motherland, saying to Israeli television on Friday, "Any attempt by you to expel Palestinians will create an existential threat to Israel."
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