JERUSALEM -- Twenty years ago, Israel set out to rearrange the geopolitical balance in the region by invading Lebanon. The result--for Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and the peace process--was a catastrophe whose lessons should not be forgotten by either the warriors or the peacemakers in the current West Bank conflict.
The circumstances of the two military adventures are eerily similar. So is the cast of characters, as well as the high stakes involved for Washington. Israel's reasons for taking the offensive in Lebanon and the West Bank were the same: to root out terrorism. The world's angry reaction was the same. So much is unchanged that one Israeli newspaper has called the current crisis "Sharon versus Arafat, Round II."
Today, as he was in Lebanon, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is trapped by the forces of Ariel Sharon, now Israel's prime minister. Refugee camps look as though they have been struck by an earthquake. The United States is once again oddly uninfluential with Israel and less than accommodating to Palestinians. As one Israeli columnist put it, rephrasing Marx, people should remember that history occurs twice--first as tragedy, then as super-tragedy.
Saturday, April 20, 2002
The Palestinians came back to Jenin to bury their dead yesterday. They came in their hundreds back to the dust and rubble that used to be their homes. Those who found the bodies of their loved ones buried them in white shrouds, some with tributes of purple flowers, some with their names in red. Men stood in the freshly dug graves to lay the bodies to rest, while all around the women wailed.
And the machine-guns echoed. Some said it was Palestinian fighters firing in tribute; others said it was Israeli soldiers firing at those trying to drive here on the roads.
The Palestinians were able to return because the Israeli army withdrew from Jenin, but it only withdrew so far. And in defiance, the Palestinians festooned the ruins of their homes with flags and banners. A huge Palestinian flag was draped across the rubble and the green flag of Hamas flew over the refugee camp for the first time since the Israeli onslaught.
Seven Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces occupying Ramallah yesterday, including two who the army said were trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement. Among the dead were two boys, aged nine and 14.
The bloodshed came as a suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad blew himself up at an Israeli military checkpoint in the Gaza Strip, injuring two soldiers. The return of violence to Gaza raised fears that Israel might try to repeat its massive military operation in the West Bank inside the strip.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, cancelled her fact-finding mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday after Israel refused to provide the necessary help.
THE UN Security Council has adopted a resolution to send a fact-finding mission to Jenin to discover what happened during the Israeli army's attack on the West Bank town.
The decision to send the mission was passed unaminously last night in New York.
The Israelis announced this afternoon that it will co-operate fully with the mission. Gideon Meir, a spokesman for the foreign minister, said the army could provide evidence that would refute Palestinian claims that a "massacre" took place in in Jenin when the town was invaded on April 3.
The resolution came after Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, told the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel would welcome a UN official "to clarify the facts".
He said: "Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in Jenin. Our hands are clean."
Earlier this week, the UN envoy to the region described the devastation in Jenin as "horrific beyond belief" and attacked Israel for preventing aid agencies entering the town.
A US envoy to the Middle East has described the devastation at the Jenin refugee camp as a "tragedy for thousands of innocent Palestinian people".
US Undersecretary of State William Burns on Saturday toured the camp which has been the scene of recent heavy fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.
Late on Saturday, the Israeli army said tanks and armored vehicles had began pulling out of parts of the West Bank city of Ramallah, with the exception of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters.
Israel has said it will co-operate fully with a United Nations fact-finding team which is to look into what happened in Jenin.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of committing a massacre at the camp; Israel has denied the allegation, saying those who died were mainly armed fighters.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that "Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in Jenin."
The Palestinians have welcomed the UN mission as a step forward, but insisted that an international peacekeeping force should be sent too.
The Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian cities and towns has seen a rise in incidents of alleged human rights abuses in the West Bank.
Most of these relate to the curfews imposed in places such as Nablus and Bethlehem. These incidents, normally unreported in the media, are collated by human rights groups such as B'Tselem, the main Israeli group focusing on the West Bank and Gaza, and by peace activists such as Gush Shalom.
Many of the incidents are in the city of Nablus, which, along with Jenin, has suffered most from the present Israeli offensive:
Qossay Abu 'Aisha, 12, was playing in his yard in the Askar neighbourhood of Nablus on Tuesday. The yard is surrounded by a two-metre high tin fence. Israeli soldiers, part of the force that has reoccupied the city, opened fire, punctured the fence and hit him with two bullets, killing him instantly. Source: B'Tselem
The curfew in Nablus was lifted between 2pm and 6pm on Sunday. Mustafa Antar, 40, a married father of four from A-Dahiya neighbourhood, went to visit his father and then bought some food supplies. He shared a taxi home with three others. At 5pm a group of soldiers opened fire and he was hit in the neck. According to doctors at the Rafidia hospital in Nablus, the injury will leave him partially paralysed. Source: B'Tselem
Ibrahim Jabarin, 18, from the al-Arrub refugee camp, was in Bethlehem on April 2 when the army imposed a curfew. He attempted to return home on Monday when it lifted the curfew for the first time for a few hours. At around 1pm, before the curfew was reimposed, soldiers shot Jabarin and other civilians who were out buying food. He is in hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg. Source: B'Tselem
Dr Hameed Massri, a neuro-surgeon at the Nablus special hospital, said yesterday that two patients had been buried the day before after bleeding to death because the curfew meant ambulances could not get through to them. Both had been shot but the wounds would not have been fatal if they had been able to reach hospital, he said. The dead, both from Nablus, were: Amar Ali Salamah, 32, a carpenter, and Sakher Mohammed, 23, a baker. Dr Massri said it was three days before the body of Mr Mohammed, who was at home when he was shot, was taken away by ambulance. And it was a week after Mr Salamah was shot before his body was removed. Guardian interview
Four children, two from Qalqiliya and two from the village of Qusra in Nablus district, suffer from a blood disorder that requires regular transfusions. Because of the curfew, the children have been unable to reach Al-Watani hospital in Nablus for treatment. The children, when last contacted, were still waiting to be taken to hospital. Source: Physicians for Human Rights Israel
Friday, April 19, 2002
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank, April 17 — Thousands of Palestinians poured back into this demolished refugee camp this afternoon when Israeli forces briefly seemed to have withdrawn. Under a blazing sun, they began clawing at mounds of rubble with backhoes, shovels and their bare hands.
Some searched for people they thought might be buried alive beneath buildings flattened by Israeli bulldozers. Others simply hoped to bring dignity to the dead.
Among them was Muhammad Abu Khurj, 75, who had returned to look for the remains of his sister, who had been killed in their house on April 5 in an Israeli missile attack. He himself had been ordered to leave the camp two days later by Israeli troops. Now he walked into his bullet-pocked home and forced his aged legs up four flights of stairs. Entering a room on the top floor, he looked panicked.
"They moved her! They moved her!" he said. "Do you see her blood?" he said, frantically pointing at the blood stain. "This is her blood!"
Then he spotted something in the corner and lifted up a piece of carpet covering it. Underneath was the body of a woman. Her curly gray hair teemed with maggots. Mr. Khurj left the room in silence.
Ramallah (April, 02, 2002) -- I went out of my house today, for the first time in four days. The Israelis allowed us to buy food but we can only be on the streets for two hours. The city is destroyed. Cars on the side of the road crushed flat like pizza. Tanks rolled over them. Trees lay broken and dead, shops destroyed, streets dug out, buildings burning and yet the snipers are still on the rooftops looking for prey.
I wave a victory sign to all Palestinians walking down the streets of Ramallah. They smile back with a victory sign. A foreign refugee-AID volunteer asks me to honk my horn to prove we are alive. Beeb Beeb Beeb. All the cars are now honking the horns. The Israeli soldiers are watching and wondering what is going on here? They thought they killed us all, but we're still alive.
I wave a victory sign to a carefully hidden sniper carrying an M16, then I give him the finger, he aims to shoot at my car, but, for some odd reason, he doesn't. I smile at him and speed away.
Two doctors are walking dressed for an operation, I offer a lift, and they step in my car. They both smile. No words are said, just an exchange of warm smiles. We're alive. We will not die. I know where the doctors want to go, they are looking for a supermarket. I drop them in front of a small store, but only peanuts are available. They buy five kilos. Five kilos of peanuts. They offer me some, I share their feast. The meal is most delicious. I've never tasted anything so satisfying. Peanuts.
It starts to rain. It pours. The snipers are still watching, the sounds of the horns are louder than the echo of the rain. The tanks are still there, waiting like wolves for victims.
The streets are full of life, not death. We did not die. We will not die. Life is good.
OSLO: While little action has been taken against Israel to end its occupation and killings in the West Bank, Norway's largest labor union today called for a boycott of Israel.
There is a growing dismay in Norway and strong rejection of the mass killing committed by Israeli troops in various West Bank areas.
The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions accused Israel of committing gross violations of international law and human rights.
The 800,000-member union, also known as LO, demanded the Norwegian government to help in bringing international sanctions against Israel if it does not withdraw from occupied territories and follow United Nations resolutions.
The government which showed some interest in the idea, said sanctions would have to be part of an international decision.
But LO, a powerful group in Norway, urged members to boycott Israeli products, Israeli state and embassy functions and to avoid travel to Israel until its troops withdraw.
The union asked members to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in parades and demonstrations on May 1, International Labor Day.
Norwegians are taken part in an international solidarity movement aimed at defending the Palestinian people by using themselves as human shields in the face of Israeli army attacks, and Norwegian aid groups sent an expert team to the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin today to secure damaged structures and prepare for other efforts following what is described by the UN as mass killings.
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank: Terje Larsen, the U.N. special envoy touring the ruins of the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin condemned Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian and medical aid to the camp, which is believed was a stage of a new Israeli massacre against the refugees.
He blasted Israel for denying search and rescue teams unrestricted access to the camp, which, according to Larsen, smells of death and looks like an earthquake hit it.
The Israeli rejection and denial of access to the camp is "morally repugnant," saying that conditions there are "horrific beyond belief."
Israel invaded the camp over two weeks ago, killing hundreds and leveling entire neighborhood to the ground.
The Israeli army had refused to allow aid groups or media unrestricted access to the area since fighting stopped last week, making new allegations that surviving structures are booby-trapped with explosives.
Larsen denounced that argument, saying Israel could have allowed international experts to help clear the area of explosives and search for survivors.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israel reinvaded the West Bank city of Qalqiliya amid heavy firing and shelling in and around the city. One Palestinian was killed and six others wounded. Meanwhile, 8 Palestinians were killed elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli forces have also raided the Naseiriah neighborhood near Nablus, killing one Palestinian. Many others were reportedly detained.
In Nablus, seventy Palestinians, including many children and women were buried in a mass grave during a 5-hour lift of the Israeli military curfew imposed on the city for days. The seventy were killed during the Israeli attack on the Old City of Nablus.
15 Israeli tanks attacked the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early Friday and opened fire, killing at least three Palestinians in the Brazil neighborhood.
The Israeli military says it shot and killed another Palestinian late Thursday near the Jewish settlement of Dugit, in northern Gaza. The army says the man had been carrying a bomb.
JENIN, West Bank: After hours of an Israeli announcement of pulling back its forces from the Palestinian town of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, its forces were re-deployed again into the town of Jenin and its refugee camp.
The short-lived withdrawal, if lasted, would have ended a three-week-long military invasion that resulted in the death of hundreds of Palestinians and wide-scale destruction of property, , more than 300 homes according to some estimates.
An Israeli army General Eyal Schlein at Jenin was quoted as saying the military had destroyed the infrastructure of Palestinian militant groups that allegedly staged suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis.
But hundreds of people, mostly civilians, were killed on the hands of Israeli troops during the Israeli attack on Jenin.
Meanwhile, Israeli tanks re-invaded the West Bank town of Qalqiliya early Friday. Israeli forces had withdrawn last week from the town, located near the border with Israel.
As the Israeli military began withdrawing from key towns in the West Bank, the violence spilled over into the Gaza Strip today, where a Palestinian suicide bomber struck at an Israeli military checkpoint and Israeli troops killed five Palestinians in exchanges of fire.
Israeli tanks moved into the Gaza Strip today in a departure from the relative quiet there during the three weeks of the Israeli invasion in the West Bank. Islamic militants threatened to carry out more attacks in Israel.
An Israeli military spokesman said a suicide bomber detonated explosives in his car at a military checkpoint near the Kissufim crossing, killing himself and lightly wounding two Israeli soldiers. Local residents said the Israelis arrested three Palestinians, and announced a curfew on loudspeakers.
Further south, Israeli troops moved briefly into Palestinian-controlled territory in Gaza near the border with Egypt, the scene of frequent clashes and incursions. Palestinians opened fire on Israeli troops, who pounded the area with heavy machine gun fire, witnesses said.
Palestinian doctors said three Palestinian civilians were killed and six wounded by Israeli gunfire. Israeli military sources said that during a routine operation, Palestinians shot at soldiers who returned the fire.
The Israeli army says it is has left the West Bank town of Jenin and its refugee camp, but will continue to surround them to prevent "terrorist attacks".
The withdrawal from Jenin - scene of the fiercest fighting during Israel's military operation in the West Bank - began on Thursday, as a UN envoy visiting the camp described the situation there as "horrific beyond belief".
In other developments, a Palestinian suicide bomber exploded his car near the entrance to the Israeli settlement block of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing himself and injuring a soldier.
Witnesses said Israeli troops staged an incursion into an area round the southern Gaza village of Al Qarara following the attack.
THE Israeli army has completed its withdrawal from the West Bank town of Jenin, following days of fierce fighting.
Palestinian security officials confirmed Israeli claims that the army had pulled completely out of Jenin, the scene of the bloodiest fighting during the Israeli campaign launched three weeks ago, but said troops continue to surround the area.
Troops and tanks remained on the outskirts of the town, inside the autonomous Jenin zone near the town and its refugee camp.
When they found the body it was in pieces and so they gathered it all up out of the rubble, great chunks of blackened, rotting flesh with bits of bone sticking out, and piled them up on a blanket. The smell made us retch and stumble away, gasping for clean air. The Palestinians said the putrefying flesh and bone was Mohammed Massoud Abu Sb'a.
The people of Jenin refugee camp returned to look for their dead yesterday amid the devastation that the Israeli army had made of their homes. The destruction was more complete than an earthquake, yet the Israelis have not allowed in any heavy lifting equipment, so the Palestinians dug out the bodies with their hands, scrabbling in the dust and heaving away the broken blocks.
Aid workers and human rights monitors have started to call this ground zero. The television pictures do not convey the devastation. You have to come here to walk over the dust and rubble that used to be people's homes, picking your way through the little pieces of their lives, the children's schoolbooks and discarded clothing. You have to smell the stench of death that clings to certain corners. The piles of rubble tower high above your head and the work of removing the bodies is nerve-racking and haunting.
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nation's top Middle East envoy, stood on a pile of rubble here Thursday and surveyed a landscape of utter wretchedness and destruction.
Just a few feet away, two middle-aged brothers used plastic buckets to excavate the ruins of their former home, uncovering a partial human torso. It was all that remained of their elderly father.
"We've been trying for 11 days to have access," said Larsen, who finally got permission from the Israeli Army to visit the camp on Thursday and witness the aftereffects of the fierce two-week battle that killed 23 Israeli soldiers and a greater though still unknown number of Palestinians.
"What we are seeing here is horrifying - horrifying scenes of human suffering," said Larsen. "Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."
Larsen, who likened the destruction to an earthquake, accused Israel of compounding human suffering in the camp by refusing to permit access by heavy equipment and search and rescue teams with dogs, suggesting that some people could still be trapped alive beneath the rubble.
Palestinians who had been displaced by the fighting in Jenin, meanwhile, continued to trickle home on Thursday. Some sat numbly on the ruins of their former apartment blocks. Others dug through pulverized concrete with buckets, shovels and even their bare hands, searching for prized possessions and sometimes the remains of relatives left behind.
At a time when many people complain that politicians are obsessed with spin, it's so refreshing to hear Israeli spokesmen, who refuse to make the slightest concession to PR whatsoever. Asked for their attitude towards the shooting of a baby by an Israeli soldier, instead of any waffle about regrets or needing to see the evidence, they'd say "What was the baby doing there? It was crawling in direct contravention of the curfew, it was shouting insults such as 'ber berder gabababab' at innocent civilians. Instead of accusing Israel of over-reacting, why don't you ask the dead baby whether it condemns suicide bombing?"
As they're fans of the Old Testament, they must wonder why the writers of the Bible didn't take a similar approach. So the story of David and Goliath would end with Goliath treading on every settlement in Judah, justified by a spokesman saying "Let me show you the young Philistine mother hit by a stone thrown by Mr David. And if the Lord wants us to withdraw our giants, why doesn't he condemn the use of slings and pebbles?"
Colin Powell could learn from this forthright approach. Attacked for taking so long to get to Israel, he could have said that if he was going all the way to the Middle East, it would be rude not to pop in on friends in nearby Morocco and make a week of it. Again, he was simply following Biblical tradition, as the original version tells of how Moses said to his people, "Follow me unto the Promised Land. But on the way we might as well stop off in Galilee to see Terry and Eileen. And if we're going to part the Red Sea, it would be silly not to stop for a day in the middle to look at the view and buy some souvenirs."
Even at this stage, with the war going on, we are entitled, even obligated, to ask:
l What is Israel's strategy? Does it have a strategic vision, or is it merely following a tactic of acting in a relentless sequence of provocations and responses? This second possibility is unsettling: The leadership has an obligation to present a strategy, and use it as a basis for practical policy steps.
l Can we not learn the lessons of the past? Can we not learn from cases which so often proved that problematic results come from lack of forethought? Are we still unable to grasp how heavy a price was paid in terms of human life, and in terms of the state's diplomatic, economic and social welfare interests, due to these mistakes? This was true with regard to the non-acceptance of the interim agreement with Egypt in 1971-1972, the Lebanon War, the establishment of settlements, and the missed opportunity to advance to interim settlements with the Palestinians since 1995. Must such errors persist?
l Are we unable to grasp that the existence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is needed to ensure Israel's continuation as a democratic state with a decisive Jewish majority? Are there still those who really believe that we can annex 3 million Palestinians to Israel, control them with their consent, and still manage to run a flourishing democratic, Jewish state?
the Homeless in Nablus
I've been sitting with a 15 year old girl, a volunteer for the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, under a grapefruit tree here in Nablus. Earlier today about 25 internationals and 6 Palestinian UPMRC workers, including 3 medics, a doctor, the girl sitting with me, and her 16 year old friend, were attacked by Israeli soldiers.
After a sleepless night due to heavy tank shelling and the unceasing mosquito buzz of Apaches and their missile fire into nearby Askar Refugee camp, we attempted to deliver food aid by foot to the camp on the east side of Nablus that has been held under curfew by the Israeli military for 14 days. Communication with some inside the camp reveals an absence of food, clean water, medical treatment, and electricity.
Although we have been told that press is reporting a quietting in Nablus, and although we have heard Sharon say that Nablus is no longer a closed military zone, we were unable to pass the Israeli tank and APC that confronted us 2 km from the camp. The Israeli soldier atop the tank shouted, "this is a closed military zone." He said if we did not retreat he would be forced to shoot us. A few of the five soldiers shot warning shots and a hidden sniper hit metal pieces next to us. Although our only fear is of the Israeli military, the soldier atop the tank told us it was very dangerous to be here. He kept shouting he would have no choice but to shoot us.
When the US President George Bush, apparently in anguish, bluntly asked Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian areas without any delay and announced in an emergency press conference to dispatch Colin Powell to the region in a bid to find ways and means essential for quelling the ongoing macabre violence, many sensed a positive change in the US attitude towards the Palestinian conflict, believing that Powell's visit would bring a cease-fire and might help scoop up the region from the bloody morass it finds itself in.
But such hopes soon evaporated following the meeting of Powell with Ariel Sharon that ended without an agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian area.
No doubt, Powell's statements regarding the conflict sounded somewhat logical.
He issued a statement calling on Israeli forces in the West Bank to exercise the utmost restraint and discipline and refrain from the excessive use of force, repeating declarations of his support for a Palestinian state and advising Israel that hunting down terrorists would not provide security without seeking a political approach to the conflict.
But faced with yet another defiance by the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and a suicide attack by a Palestinian woman, his somewhat rational posture turned as hawkish as to match the views possessed by the fanatic hawks of the Bush administration.