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Palestinians: Burning Our Homes Will Not Weaken Us
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A destroyed kitchen
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Report By Awad Al Rajoub, IslamOnline’s Palestine Correspondent
AL KHALIL (HEBRON), May 11 (IslamOnline) – Israeli occupation forces have been using all methods, to force the Palestinian people to bow down to its will. These methods include burning homes with all contents, and forcing its residents to leave into the open with nothing but the clothes they are wearing.
This policy was not limited to a particular city or village, but included most villages and cities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Each time, the occupation forces uses the pretext that “wanted Palestinians” are inside these homes and this was disproved by reality.
These homes are usually targeted to create an aura of fear and insecurity among the Palestinians who insist on maintaining their rights and to their weapon of resistance.
A visitor to the Dandis building in Ramallah will see the great damage that was caused by air missiles and occupation strikes on Friday, May 9th and which engineers’ estimate needs millions of dollars to restore.
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The new homes |
The building was surrounded by Israeli forces since the early hours of Friday, May 10. The occupation forces claimed there were ‘armed Palestinians’ hiding inside the building and claimed that it ‘arrested’ a member of the Hamas Palestinian Resistance Group in Khalil (Hebron) as he was leaving the building. The abducted man was Nidal Al Qwasma, 30.
IslamOnline conducted a tour inside the building, which has 16 residential apartments housing over 150 individuals, and noted destruction and the miseries of the families who spent Friday night , May 10, in the open air. A few tents reached them later on.
The destruction included all the contents of the five-story building. After being a beautiful white Palestinian stone building, it was reduced to a lump of blackness, with smoke coming out of the windows from the furniture burning inside.
The occupation fire burnt furniture, clothes and glass. A cloth store was included, all turned to ashes. Even cars parked outside the building were not spared the Israeli war machine.
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Dandis building charcoaled |
The International Red Cross provided several camps for homeless families and other humanitarian organizations provided foodstuff for them.
Nevertheless, the homeless families complained from the delay in receiving these aids and the poor job carried out by the humanitarian organizations as well as the Khalil municipality in finding alternative homes till their homes are restored, a process which could take months.
Mohamad Rabhi Sedr, one of the building’s tenants, who supports 8 members of his family, said that they were rudely awakened at 2 am on Friday May 10, by eight Israeli tanks surrounding the building.
“The soldiers asked us through loud speakers to leave the building and they closely searched us. Then they forced us to stand in the sun, nearly 100 meters away from the building for around eight hours,” he said.
Sedr added that he was ordered to go up the building with them to open the apartments so that they could search them. “I was forced to do that under gun point and they entered all the apartments, fired away haphazardly on the furniture and broke all of its contents,” he said adding that after they finished their ‘job’ they let him go and started to fire at the building for three continuous hours using missiles and rockets which led to a fire in most apartments and the complete destruction of others.
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Even the cars were not spared |
Sedr added that the cloth store, which caught fire, had goods that were worth nearly two million Shekel (more than $ 400, 000) and fire engines were barred from reaching the building to help extinguish the fire.
Speaking about why the occupation forces were targeting the building, Sedr said that “there was no one hiding in the building as the Israeli forces claimed, but that the destruction was to send a message to the Palestinians that they have to get used to the reality and accept it and that if anyone thought of accepting visitors, this would be the result. They want to terrorize us and to makes us live in constant fear. God-Willing this will never happen.”
Hesham Helmi Al Jeba estimated his loss nearly $ 200,000. “I support eight people and now they are in a tent with nothing. This is the terrorist infrastructure: kitchens, bedrooms and cabs!!”
Khaled Sedr, married and father to two daughters, said “the occupation forces ruined all my belongings as well as my future by burning my cab which I use to support my family.”
Mohamad Al Tamimi’s apartment was also hit by Israeli missiles an there was a big hole in the kitchen. “When the occupation forces entered the apartment before hitting it with missiles, they fired at the door, the furniture, the bedroom and they ruined everything inside the apartment.”
Shaza al Qawasma, whose belongings were destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces described the attack as being “part of the Zionist contempt on the honorable Palestinian people.”
“All our losses would not move a hair from the Palestinian body. What it did was deepen our hatred for our enemy and increased our faith in the justice of our cause. They want us to bow down by all methods and they want to make us reach a stage of surrendering. This, they will never achieve and our motto will always be to stand strong and to survive,” she said.
“The nature of being an occupation force and their failure to protect their people has made them commit all these crimes and whenever they feel that they are wrong, they increase in their crimes against the Palestinian people.”
From his side, Mustafa Al Natcha, head of the Al Khalil municipality told IslamOnline that the occupation forces ruined everything, and promised that he would provide the necessities for the residents.
Engineer Ghassan Idrees, from the committee of rebuilding Al Khalil said that the situation is very hard adding that the losses are large and that they are now trying to estimate them.
Dandis, is not the only building to be subjected to the firing squads of the Israeli forces. Previously, other homes in Jenin, Gaza, TulKarem and Bethlehem were also attacked.
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