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| The living and the dead share the same space in Jenin
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JENIN,
April 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – A few weeks ago, it was
a camp where 15,000 Palestinians lived. Today, the streets of Jenin
have witnessed crimes against humanity so severe that it will forever
remain in the pages of Israel’s dark history.
No
one can really know the extent of the atrocities that were committed
in that camp, as the Israeli occupation army made sure that no media
organization would be allowed access before they cleaned up their act.
But
those who miraculously managed to make it out had horrific stories to
tell the world, stories that, like so many told before, they fear are
going to fall on the international community’s deaf ears.
Some
of these stories were published on the pages of UK daily newspaper, The
Independent.
Some
described how camp residents leaped from window to window to escape
the advancing bulldozers; how some, equipped with mobile phones, had
survived beneath the rubble; how some people had been cut in half by
tanks, the paper reported.
In
one story, the paper describes the trauma of a woman who arrived to
find that her house had been destroyed. “We had arrived in time to
see 65-year-old Rashida Raji Ahmed's trauma as she examined what was
left of her house after an 11-day invasion by the Israeli army into
Jenin, which has left hundreds dead and injured.
“She
was crying uncontrollably when we arrived at her door. The upper floor
of her home had been destroyed by a rocket, and chewed up by
machine-gun bullets, like many other homes in the area. The house had
then been taken over by the armed forces as a sniper's nest.”
In
another story Mai Ziyad, 21, speaks about military-style mass
executions. “One week ago, nine Palestinian policemen had been bound
hand and foot, stripped to their underpants, and executed against a
wall, said Mai Ziyad, a 21-year-old student. The relatives, who had
been forced to watch, had come to her house deeply distraught. She
could remember several names, the Abu Jamda and Abu Hjab families had
both lost men.
"The
wives and children of those who were killed were here. They told us
all about it," she said.
Adanan
Al-Sabah, a spokesman from Jenin municipality spoke about a woman who
cradled her dead son in her arms all night. “Their children kept on
coming up to their father and trying to wake him up, asking for food
and milk."
In
Al-Razi Hospital, Dr. Mahmoud Abu Eslieh said the staff had taken
about 15 calls from worried mothers saying that they had been feeding
their babies powdered milk mixed with sewage water.
Inside
his hospital, Ali Abu Sariah, 42, who said he was a teacher, was lying
in bed with a bullet in his left leg, reported The Independent.
He
said the Israeli forces used him as a human shield to go
house-to-house through the camp, ahead of an Israeli patrol. They ran
into another patrol, which shot him in the leg, he said. "They
left me on the ground, bleeding."
Munir
Washashi bled to death over several hours after a helicopter round
came through the wall of his home. When an ambulance came for him,
Israeli soldiers shot at it.
Munir's
mother, Maryam, ran into the street screaming for help for her son and
was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. Abdullah, her other son,
told The Independent on Sunday he saw it all happen.
Fikri
Abu Al-Heija, a survivor of the camp, also told his story to The
Independent:
"At the beginning the soldiers came and surrounded the camp with
tanks," he says. "There were two Apache helicopters. A
rocket hit our house – they were concentrating the rockets on the
houses. All the windows were broken by the explosions. All you could
hear was explosions. When the rocket hit the house, everybody gathered
together on the lower floors. A woman was with us from the second
floor who had had her leg almost cut off by the rocket. It was just
hanging on by a little piece of skin. We saw the ambulance coming for
her but the soldiers stopped it."
The
Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported that the Israeli tanks
demolish thehomes without evening asking the residents to leave. Many
end up dead in the rubble.
Speaking
to WAFA from inside Jenin, Jamal Al Zubaidi said that he and people
with him found the bodies of five martyrs. The bodies had started to
decompose, producing a potent smell and birds were pecking them. He
said that the features of the martyrs had started to change and that
it is difficult to recognize who they were.
Umm
Musaab said that the Israeli soldiers forcefully entered the house of
her brother in law in which she was staying with her children and
forced them to stay in a small room over broken glass and they were
not allowed to leave. “We stayed without food or drink. The soldiers
did not even care for the screams of my 9-month daughter who was
crying from thirst and hunger,” she said.
On
Friday, April 12, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the army not to
bury the dead from the Jenin refugee camp amid Palestinian charges
that a massacre had been perpetrated amid heavy fighting there.
That
court decision was made after Arab Israeli MPs Ahmed Tibi and Mohammed
Barakeh and the Arab human rights group Adalah filed a petition with
Israel’s highest judicial body.
However,
Israel's Supreme Court gave the army permission Sunday, April 14, to
bury Palestinians killed in vicious fighting in the Jenin refugee
camp, throwing out a suit brought by two Arab Israeli members of
parliament, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
But
Jenin is not the only place in Palestine that suffers. Hakam Kanafani,
the general manager of the Palestinian mobile phone company Jawwal,
wrote in The Independent about a scene in Ramallah in the few
hours in which the curfew was lifted.
“The
freedom bells ring over Ramallah. The army decides to "let us
out". This time we get four full hours. Praise the Lord. It takes
me about 15 seconds to get in my car and drive out of my garage.
“Across
the street from my company's showroom there is a supermarket with at
least 10 cars parked outside. There is a truck unloading milk cartons.
I step outside to get some drinks. As I am about to cross the street I
see an Israeli tank approaching at about 20 miles per hour. To see a
tank going that fast is a chilling sight. To see a tank going that
fast on a busy street is nerve-racking. The tank is headed towards the
supermarket. Silence.
“Everyone
on the street is watching helplessly. There is no way the tank can fit
between the cars parked outside. There are children in some of these
cars waiting for their parents. Thank God for the huge milk truck. It
took the first impact. The tank crushed half of the truck. The street
turns white with wasted milk. The tank shifts gear, hits two trees and
speeds away.
“A
man runs to his car that is two yards in front of the truck. His two
girls are inside. He holds them. The girls are crying. The father is
almost in control. "It's OK girls, it's OK," he says softly.
Israel
tells the world that its incursions are aimed at rooting out
“terrorists”. However, according to a report produced by Beir Zeit
University in Palestine “mostly women and children and older people,
as those constitute roughly 67% of the population living there.”
(Click
here for full report - http://electronicintifada.net/forreference/briefings/jenincamp.html)
As
Peter Beaumont from the UK daily newspaper, The Observer put
it, “what we could see was a long-range assault, unequal in every
part.”
