Massacre in Gaza
Israel demands an end to Palestinian resistance operations before any peace negotiations can resume. But as Taghreed El-Khodary reports from Gaza, Israel's latest massacre leaves the Palestinians with little choice but to resist
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ROUTINE HUMILIATION: An Israeli soldier guards a Palestinian arrested in Hebron, West Bank, Monday
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For days, Palestinian Interior Minister Hani Al-Hassan had been seeking the demilitarisation of the two-year-old Intifada, while back in Gaza, operations were being planned against Israeli targets. On 15 February at 8.30am, Hamas' military wing Ezzeddin Al-Qassam bombed an Israeli tank at the edge of Dugit -- a Jewish settlement in the north of the Gaza Strip. The bomb, which the group said weighed less than 25 kilogrammes, killed four Israeli soldiers. Later that day, senior Hamas political leader Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantisi emphasised that Hamas would continue to fire its Qassam rockets too, despite Palestinian Authority (PA) requests to adopt a unilateral cease-fire.
But neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are anywhere close to a cease-fire. One day after the tank incident, six Ezzeddin Al- Qassam members were assassinated in the Zeitoun neighbourhood east of Gaza City, among them the high-ranking Nidal Farahat. Senior Hamas leaders Rantisi and Mahmoud Al-Zahar made straight for Shifa Hospital accompanied by bodyguards, with Rantisi announcing "every criminal who meets with Sharon is cooperating with him."
Thousands of supporters of various political factions soon made their way to the Shifa Hospital to collect the remains of the six Qassam martyrs and the two others killed by Israeli bullets early that morning, where they were brought to the families of the deceased who paid their final respects.
Mariam Farahat, mother of Nidal, one of the deceased, was sitting in her demolished house in Gaza City's Shajeah neighbourhood. "I feel dignified, honoured," she said of her son, the second martyr in the family. Her third son is serving a life sentence in Israel. "As a patient Palestinian mother, resistance and war are to be expected, and so praise God for what we have achieved. It's not only us being killed, it's also them. We have created a balance in numbers with these four killed inside the tank." At the funeral itself Rantisi addressed the throng, declaring that "we will continue the resistance. Sharon will pay a high price. If he laughs today it is for a short time, but tomorrow he will cry for a long time."
Indeed, military operations were the order of the day.
Israeli military leader Shaul Mofaz had recently announced a so- called "pinpoint operation" which was on its way to taking 30 Palestinian lives.
An hour before the Palestinians' funeral, Israeli Special Forces opened fire on a black car heading from the strip to Gaza City, spraying the front windows with bullets and killing Riyad Abu-Zayid, another high-ranking Ezzedin Al- Qassam (Hamas) official. But his funeral march did not mark an end to the military exercises; it was more of a break in the killing. Early on the morning of 19 February in the largest Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, tanks and Apache helicopters opened fire on and killed 11 Palestinians over a five-hour period.
"Israeli soldiers destroyed a metal workshop next to my house," explained Nahed Al- Helou. "After they left, my two sons and their cousin went to check the house, when suddenly an Israeli Apache fired a missile. We found them under the ruins."
In the hospital, lying in bed and bandaged, Raed Al-Safadi, a medical doctor, said his brother Monzer had been killed when they left the house to treat injured fighters to which a Red Crescent ambulance had been denied access. Meanwhile, Israeli tanks and bulldozers headed towards the five-storey residence of the Ghandour family. One of the members of this family, Ahmed, had been accused by the Israeli military of being the Qassam member responsible for the tank explosion. While being evacuated by force -- along with his handicapped wife, pregnant daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren -- Ahmed's elderly father, Naji, witnessed his house being blown up with a force that affected all surrounding dwellings. He declared that, "I can have dignity and pride in the fact that my house has been demolished for this reason, and not for being an [Israeli] spy."
Two more Palestinians were killed during Friday attempts to enter the northern settlements of Erez and Dugit, then two more at Netzarim and at Khan Younes on 22 and 23 February.
The major event, however, took place on Sunday. Just a day before PA Deputy Minister Abu-Mazen's speech -- in which he echoed Interior Minister Al-Hassan and declared a one-year cease-fire -- 20 Tsahal tanks supported by Apache helicopters rolled into Beit Hanoun, on the Gaza Strip's northern border with Israel, to search for Qassam rocket crews. As in Jenin, the military operation attempted to secure a curfew, destroyed two houses belonging to Ezzeddin Al-Qassam members and entered the house of slain Islamic Jihad fighter Mosa'b Al-Sabea', who was one of the two killed the previous Friday. Mosa'b's father, Abdullah Al- Sabea', ignored Israeli orders to vacate the house and spent four hours firing gunshots and throwing home-made bombs. The Israeli soldiers finally entered the house and demolished it; Abdullah's body was found the following day among the ruins, with two bullet wounds and broken bones. Islamic Jihad issued a statement that "An eye for an eye ... blood for blood ... and victory for the mujahidin ... we tell the leaders of the Zionist enemy that his assassination, demolition, and murderous policies won't defeat the well of our mujahidin."
A total of nine Palestinians were killed during the Beit Hanoun incursion -- two of whom were members of the PA National Security -- and another 25 injured. One Beit Hanoun resident commented that "as long as there continue to be martyrs and demolitions, it will generate an explosion inside the human soul; there will be motives for revenge." And revenge there was. While reversing out of Beit Hanoun, a Mercava-3 tank exploded, and by the end of the day Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP had claimed responsibility for the destruction of five tanks in all. Masked men from all military wings, many of them on Israel's most-wanted list, walked around toting M- 16s and Kalashnikovs. And peace remains no where near.
