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DCI/PS is left without words by the stories of horror and brutality that have been emerging from Palestinian communities under violent siege by the Israeli military. Widespread reports of ongoing killing and injury of the Palestinian civilian population, mass arrests, physical and psychological intimidation, looting, and demolition of homes, businesses and infrastructure continue. The Israeli army continues to deny medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers access to the besieged communities. Particularly horrific are the testimonies of the survivors of the Israeli army massacre in Jenin refugee camp. As the siege continues through its fifteenth day, thousands of Palestinian civilians remain prisoners in their homes, faced with the threat of death if they venture outside.
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP
Reports emanating from residents of the Jenin refugee camp indicate hundreds of dead, a significant percentage undoubtedly children, as well as mass destruction of homes, businesses, and vital infrastructure. Exact figures of dead and injured or of the total level of destruction are impossible to gather given the Israeli military's prohibition on movement in and out of the camp. Numerous local and international organizations, including UN agencies, have been repeatedly denied entry to the area.
The Jenin refugee camp, established in 1953, was home to approximately 15,000 Palestinian refugees. Deputy Representative of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported yesterday that some 3,000 women and children living in and around the Jenin refugee camp have lost their homes as a result of the Israeli military's attack on the camp.
Other reports indicate that hundreds of Palestinian families have been expelled. There are currently around 500 Palestinians who haven taken shelter in the village of Rumana, near Jenin. Stories of horror continue to emerge from these survivors. Eyewitness testimony repeatedly reports houses being demolished with families still inside. Survivors interviewed in Ruamana report of corpses being bulldozed into mass graves and others being removed from the area by the Israeli military. Families have become separated. Children haven been taken in by other families, but are unable to locate their parents, and vice versa. One Palestinian male reports of how he and his 14 year old son were taken by the Israeli army and used as human shields. Machine guns placed on their shoulders as Israeli soldiers used them as live cover to move through the camp, opening fire randomly. When the soldiers finished with them, they were expelled from the camp. The man's wife and other children were left in the camp and their whereabouts at present are unknown. Another survivor recounts witnessing the families living in a three story building being ordered to move to the first floor and then seeing Israeli military bulldozers demolish the building with the inhabitants still inside.
During the lifting of the curfew in Jenin city yesterday, the first since the beginning of the siege 10 days ago, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a14 year old child in the eastern part of the city. (Please see below for an account of one Palestinian boy's experience during the siege on Jenin camp.)
As the details regarding the vicious attack on Jenin refugee camp become clearer, many media reports are attempting to frame the Israeli onslaught within the context of a justified military attack on armed militants, obfuscating the thousands of Palestinian civilian casualties of the siege. These attempts come in spite of Israeli media reports quoting Israeli army officers as saying: "
When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage …However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction."*
There can be no doubt that Israeli military action in Jenin refugee camp, action directed by the Israeli government itself, constitutes crimes against humanity. It is up to concerned citizens of the world and their governments to demand an immediate, independent investigation into war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians, and call for the establishment of an international mechanism designed to bring those responsible, both directly and indirectly, to justice.
SIEGE CONTINUES ON OTHER PALESTINIAN CITIES
Other Palestinian cities continue to face Israeli military attacks and a dire humanitarian crisis. In Nablus, residents have discovered the bodies of two families under the rubble of their demolished home. The burnt corpses of Palestinian children have also been discovered. On 9 April, 16 year old Mua'tasem Hamdam, from Nablus, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.
An appeal (see below) issued by several governmental and non-governmental organizations and institutions in Nablus, including area hospitals and the Red Crescent Committee, reports that over 60 corpses remain unburied. Many families are now without homes following the destruction of their houses by the Israeli military. There is a severe shortage of oxygen, medicine, and medical supplies. The hospitals are unable to feed either their patients or their staff. Patients requiring medical care, including those suffering from kidney failure, diabetes, and heart failure, are unable to receive treatment or their medication. Families of residents who have died of medical complications or of natural causes are prohibited from removing the bodies from their homes. The majority of the city has only sporadic electricity and water service. There is a serious shortage of food stuffs. Municipal workers who, after coordination with the Israeli authorities, try to improve the situation, have been repeatedly shot at and have had their vehicles attacked. House to house searches continue as well as mass arrests of Palestinian males. The Old City of Nablus and several low-income neighborhoods are facing severe shortages of food and water.
A resident of Beit Sahour informed DCI/PS that the Israeli attack continues on the village. Yesterday evening, Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers moved into the center of Beit Sahour. Israeli soldiers repeatedly announced over loudspeakers that residents were to stay away from the windows and doors of their houses. Should they fail to follow these orders, they were at their own risk. The army also began using explosives to break down the doors of local buildings. One Palestinian owner learned that they were breaking into his building, so he left his house in his car and proceeded to the area. Israeli soldiers shot him dead in the car before he reached the building.
The Israeli army is also continuing widespread arrests in the Bethlehem area. The media reports that a 15 year old girl, Shereen Abu Raba'a, from Bethlehem, was arrested with her six brothers.
CALL TO ACTION
Speaking at a meeting of the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Olaru Otunnu, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the impact of armed conflict on children, cited concern for the "deteriorating situation in the Palestinian occupied territories and loss of civilian live, including women and children." Special Representative Otunnu urged the Israeli government to "ensure application of humanitarian law, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child."**
DCI/PS welcomes the comments of the Special Representative and urges the international community to take immediate and effective action. Such statements can only be realized through direct intervention and action governed by the political will to end the Israeli occupation. Communication can be directed to the following individuals:
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mrs. Mary Robinson
OHCHR
Tel. ++41 22 917 9000
Fax. ++41 22 917 9012/9006/9005
E-mail: webadmin.hchr@unog.ch
Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon
Office of the Prime Minister
Tel: ++972 2 6705555
Fax: ++972 2 566 4838
Email: pm@gov.il
President, European Commission
Romano Prodi
European Commission
200 rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200
B-1049 Brussels
Belgium
E-mail: romano.prodi@cec.eu.int
US President
George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Phone: ++1-202 456 1414
Fax: ++1-202 456 2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov
*."Peres calls IDF operation in Jenin a 'massacre'," Aluf Benn and Amos Harel, Ha'aretz, 9 April 2002
**United Nations Press Release, 11 April 2002
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An Appeal from Nablus
Since the last Israeli aggression on The Palestinian Territories, Nablus city and its surrounding refugees camps have been re-occupied for almost two weeks. The City and its Camps have been under curfew for the last 10 days continuously. Neither the local people nor the rescue teams were allowed to move even after coordinating their activities with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Israeli side. As a result to this Israeli offensive and their brutal measures the situations deteriorated very rapidly to the degree that the City and its Camps become disaster zone.
The following points shed the light on some of these situations that the City and its Camps suffer:
- Neither the injured people nor those who had been martyred have been allowed to be evacuated from the streets of the City. There are more than (60) martyrs unburied till this moment.
- Hospitals:
1) Suffers from very serious shortage of oxygen and medical gases.
2) Medical supplies and medications are about to finish even the emergency back - up.
3) Food supplies are over. The hospitals are not able to feed neither their patients nor their staff.
4) All types of fuel have been finished.
5) No electrical and water supply.
- Ordinary patients as in kidney failure, diabetes, heart failure…etc. are not able to be treated or even have their regular medications.
- People who had died from normal reasons are kept in their houses for the last period without being allowed to be buried. An old man died of diabetes since he was not able to get his insulin injection, further he is still at his home for the last week.
- Most of the city suffered from uncontinuous supply of both electricity and water while there is a great shortage of food supplies.
- Municipal service vehicles were shot at, their drivers were treated brutally and got prisoned. One Israeli tank stepped over one of the vehicles while the driver was in it who obviously have been killed. It is worthwhile to mention here that the Municipality vehicles do not move unless a special coordination is made with the Israelis but still they attack them.
- Many families have become homeless due to the destruction of their houses. They are left without food and shelter.
- The Old City of Nablus and poor neighborhood suffer from severe shortage of food and water supply.
- The commercial center of the City has been severely destroyed and the Israeli soldiers have robbed many shops.
- There is a severe shortage of baby food, milk and medications.
- The Israeli soldiers are going on with their search from house to house terrifying and arresting innocent people.
- The Israeli offensive is still carried on by shooting people, destroying houses and arresting others in very severe and bad conditions in spite the false declaration of the Israeli army.
- We call upon all those who still have a living conscious and believe in humanity to help Nablus City and its Refugees Camps by making food supply and medication available to the City and by interfering with the Israeli to allow the Municipality to bury the martyrs and by raising the curfew off the city.
Governorate of Nablus
Nablus Province Hospitals
Nablus City Municipality
Nablus Women's union
Nablus Chamber of Commerce
Working Women Society - Nablus
Palestine Red Crescent Committee- Nablus Region
Nablus establishments and Figures
Union of Charitable Societies - Nablus
--
April 09, 2002
Children scream for water in the 'City of Bombers'
The Times
By Janine di Giovanni in Rummana, near Jenin
HAMID'S last image of Jenin Refugee Camp was a city of the dead. The 14-year old student, who surrendered to Israeli forces on Saturday night after witnessing 30 hours of bombardment, shakes slightly as he describes the apocolyptic scene. Piles of corpses were moved aside by bulldozers. Houses lay in smouldering ruins. Children screamed for water, some were forced to drink sewage.
Hamid is wearing new trainers, bought by sympathetic Palestinians, because he was stripped to his underpants by Israeli soldiers after he had surrendered to them. He gave himself up because he could take no more of the bombardment. Three people were killed by rockets inside the house where he was taking refuge.
"But the most terrible thing was seeing Israeli soldiers take eight men and line them up and kill them," he said, describing in detail the procedure and the injuries the men sustained. After that, Hamid, his twin Ahmed and his older brother Khadir made a white flag and waved it from a window. They had no other way out.
The brothers were stripped, handcuffed tightly behind their backs and blindfolded. They were then taken with a group of about 100 Palestinian men to Salem Military Barracks inside Israel, where they say they were beaten and offered money to act as Israeli spies.
After 48 hours of interrogation by Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service, the men were taken to a village near by without shoes and told to walk back to the West Bank. They stumbled through an olive grove that separates Israel from the Occupied Territories and arrived in Rummana, where they are living with families who have taken them in. But they cannot go home again. They can only watch the bombardment from Cobrafrom this village, a few kilometres from their destroyed houses. Ahmed was kicked badly in his back and kidneys and lies on a mattress writhing in pain. Khadir has a black eye and some bruises, but the brothers will live.
Others, however, were not so lucky. Inside the mosque some of the men who surrendered on Saturday talk of being used as human shields by the soldiers, of being forced to strip and stand in front of the tanks for several hours as a humiliation exercise before they were taken to the Salem Military Base.
Others who did not "respond" well to Israeli questioning, were badly beaten, including Khalid Mustafa Mohammed, who lies on a bloody mattress face down, his back wrapped in bandages.
Khalid has two broken ribs and has internal bleeding and lies semi-comatose, muttering in pain. The only health care worker in town, an exhausted dentist, Dr Farouk al Ahmed, has tried to tend to him using sedatives, but he fears that the boy's internal injuries, the result of being beaten with the butt of a rifle, are so extensive that he will die within three days if he is not treated.
"I gave him something to calm him down and I bound his ribs but there is not much more I can do. I am a dentist," he said wearily. The Red Cross said last night that they were not allowed inside Jenin refugee camp, and after hours of negotiating only managed to get three Palestinian ambulances to take out three patients.
All day yesterday, the destruction of Jenin, which is known by the Israelis as "City of Bombers", continued. Shortly after lunch, the Cobra helicopters positioned themselves neatly in the azure blue sky. They circled, dropped their noses and then one dropped the deadly missile.
A terrible crackle in the sky, the crash, the aftershock and then plumes of smoke rose over Jenin, whose residents fear that it will be punished severely as so many suicide bombers come from the city. "We fear there will be a massacre," Dr Farouk said. One witness noted that "the women and children were being separated from the men, and being taken away to a near by forest".
Most of the Palestinian men who are not safe for the moment in Rummana are in anguish about the state of their families who they left behind, where there is no information.
Telephone lines have been cut and electricity is down. Israelis are citing 70 Palestinians and nine of their own soldiers dead; but the witnesses say there are many more. "The streets are full of the dead," said Mohammed, who worked as a shopkeeper in Jenin camp. "From night until morning, all I heard were rockets. " He says his exile from Jenin - the second time he has effectively become a refugee - is painful and humiliating. "It is the end of life," he says simply As night fell, the fighting continued.
Palestinian villagers from Salem , which lies inside the Israeli Green Line near by, began preparing cartloads of food and blankets for the refugees.
The real fear is not for the refugees who have escaped, but those left behind. The memories of Sabra and Shatila refugee camps being levelled are still not so distant. One Salem villager trying to gather blankets, fruit and shoes for refugees, said: "By morning, so many more will be dead."
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-261573,00.html
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