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Ruined Jenin Refugees Refuse U.S. Aid
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Homeless
Palestinians continue excavating work through the rubble of
some 800 houses destroyed by the Israeli army in Jenin.
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By
Maha Abdel Hady, IOL Palestine correspondent
JENEIN,
West Bank, April 26 (IslamOnline) – The Palestinian refugees in
Jenin, where the Israeli occupation army has launched the bloodiest
incursion in its latest sweep into autonomous Palestinian territories,
have refused all humanitarian aid coming in from the United States,
accusing the U.S. of blindly supporting Israel.
“We
do not want their [Americans’] food aid even if that means we starve
to death,” Mahmood Rasheed Fayed, 70, told IslamOnline Friday, April
26. “They have killed my invalid son and hundreds of other martyrs
by their flagrant support of Israel. Apaches and F16s are the gifts
the U.S. grants Israel to kill us with.”
Fayed
spoke to IslamOnline in a telephone conversation in which he
elaborated on the reasons why thousands of refugees in Jenin rejected
the U.S. aid convoy of food, tents and toys which arrived in the
refugee camp Thursday, April 25.
He
said the Palestinians in shattered Jenin will never accept a gift from
the U.S. who kills with one hand and feeds with the other only for the
sake of keeping up faces before world media.
Fayed
is still searching amidst the rubble that was once his house for the
body of his murdered son Jamal, who was killed amongst hundreds others
in the massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army following its
invasion of the camp April 3.
“The
Israeli army destroyed our camp with U.S.-made weapons,” said Fayed.
“The U.S. then threatened to use the veto to hamper U.N. efforts to
dispatch a fact-finding mission and still backs all Israeli terms in
this respect.”
The
Jenin refugees unified stand comes at a time in which they are in dire
need of the least help. The Israeli incursions have left the
overwhelming majority homeless and poverty-stricken.
“The
Jenin people refused to empty the U.S. cargo which contained some 800
tents and other humanitarian aid coming from the USAID in U.N.
trucks,” said Ahmed abul-Heiga, a Jenin activist.
Palestinian
Legislative Council member Jamal el-Shaty said the U.S. flagrant
support of Israel and its simultaneous call on President Yasser Arafat
to halt so-called acts of terrorism has angered Palestinians in
general, and the battered Jenin refugees in particular.
“The
two U.N. convoys hoisted U.S. flags,” said El-Shaty. “The
refugees, from different political orientations, flung the aid objects
back into the trucks after the cargo was emptied at the entrance of
the camp. They then forced the convoys to leave.”
“The
refugees accepted aid from other western countries, though,” he
added, “but not from the U.S.”
Activists
working with humanitarian aid groups in Jenin later hung banners on
destroyed houses reading, “We’d rather die than be fed by our
murderers.”
The
Israeli army destroyed some 800 houses in Jenin, leaving up to 5,000
Palestinians homeless.
U.S.
President George W. Bush, who held a five-hour-meeting with Saudi
Crown Prince Abdullah bin abdel Aziz in Crawford, Texas, Thursday,
April 25, renewed his demand that Israel complete its withdrawal of
troops from Palestinian territories, adding that Israel must find
"non-violent" ways of ending armed standoffs in Ramallah and
Bethlehem.
"Israel
must finish its withdrawal, including resolution of standoffs in
Ramallah, in Bethlehem, in a nonviolent way," Bush said, after
hearing from his guest that backing for Israel was harming U.S.
interests in the Arab world.
Bush
said he and the prince agreed that the world must step up humanitarian
aid "to the many innocent Palestinians who are suffering,"
and renewed his demand that Arab states must starve what he described
as anti-Israeli violence.
"Our
two nations share a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living
side-by-side in peace and security," said the president, who
applauded the prince's land-for-peace proposal for ending the Middle
East conflict.
But
only eight hours following the American president’s call, the
Israeli occupation army stormed into the West Bank town of Qalqilya
and abducted up to 20 Palestinians in a fresh incursion aimed at
reoccupying the autonomous Palestinian town.
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