Massacre in Jenin

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday April 12, 2002 14:03 by Mags

Details of Israeli slaughter in refugee camp

"Witnesses say that dead bodies [are] still in the streets and narrow roads of the camp from 100 to 150. This is the fifth day that ambulances can't reach to save the injured or the corpses... all health workers and representatives are issuing SOS for help through the media... directly... till now no result... on the ground... In the past 36 hours, only two corpses and one injured were received by the hospital... health situation and living is so [bad] that people are now drinking from the sewage and eating leaves off trees... We [heard] now from a witness that hundreds of bodies are under the rubble of the houses... the people who saved themselves are gathered in the university."

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- Wednesday, 10 April 2002 -

ISRAELI MASSACRE IN THE CITY OF JENIN

News & Analysis: Middle East
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/jeni-a10.shtml
By David Cohen in Israel

The Palestine Red Crescent Society confirmed today that Israeli occupation forces have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Jenin's refugee camp Tuesday April 9. Eyewitnesses inside the camp confirm that Israeli bulldozers have leveled the refugee camp's front row homes while families were still inside.

While the confirmed 30 victims were killed in one of the camp's street, the total number of casualties is estimated to be at least 100. Many victims are buried under the rubble, while others have been torn to pieces by the exploding tank shells. Dozens of people have bled to death inside their homes and in front of their traumatised family members.

Six Palestinians were confirmed killed in the camp during the early hours of the morning and identified. The rest of the victims remain unidentified and the numbers of injured have been impossible to confirm, but is feared to be in the hundreds.

Since the early hours of the morning, Israeli Apache helicopters and tanks have been bombarding the densely populated refugee camp, where at least 150,00 people reside in an area that barely reaches one square kilometre.

For the first time in its history of aggression, Israeli F-16 fighter jets have bombarded the Jenin refugee camp, in an offensive clearly meant to exact the maximum number of civilian casualties. Official sources estimate that in the past two days, the camp has been bombarded with more missiles and tank shells than all those Israeli occupation forces have previously used against Palestinian targets in the past year and a half.

Israeli occupation forces continue to refuse to allow any ambulance into the refugee camp, even to collect the bodies. Two days ago, bulldozers destroyed a makeshift mass grave that the camp's residents had made to bury their loved ones during the last Israeli invasion in February. Bodies were removed from their graves and strewn across the street. Eyewitness accounts also confirm that Israeli tanks patrolling the street have crushed a number of bodies that medical crews have been unable to collect.

In a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera television, Umm Jihad, a camp resident, described the desperate situation: "The shelling has not stopped. We are all cornered in our homes, unable to sleep, move, or help those who are pleading for help as they bleed in the camp's streets. The Israeli bulldozers are leveling homes over their residents' heads and without prior warning. When we called health officials to ask for help, we were informed that the occupation soldiers confiscated the ambulances' keys in order to debilitate them. Our situation is one of indescribable suffering and desperation for no one is intervening to save our children, who are dying in front of our own helpless eyes".

In an unprecedented breach of human rights, Israeli occupation soldiers announced Tuesday afternoon that they would cease firing in order to allow the women and elderly to get water--only to arrest them and use them as human shields.

Since the residents have had no water for days, a number of women and elderly men came out of their homes. As they reached the camp's entrance, where Israeli tanks and personnel carriers are stationed, they were all detained. Shortly after that, residents reported hearing the Israeli forces calling out on the microphone to the resistance fighters and security officers to surrender in order to save the lives of the detained civilians. The detainees were seen strapped to the tanks and personnel carriers, which resumed their bombardment campaign shortly after the call for surrender.

The Israeli officer previously heading the Jenin reoccupation offensive was reprimanded and removed from his duty after having failed to take over the camp in the past four days. Currently, Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Chief of Staff, heads the brutal operation personally. Palestinian officials have thus held him directly responsible for the atrocities taking place.

Jenin's three humble hospitals have confirmed that they have run out of fuel, needed to keep the electricity generators running, after Israeli occupation forces plunged the city into total darkness four days ago. The hospitals have also run out of water.

The Palestinian leadership has warned repeatedly, through numerous appeals, of a possible second Sabra and Shatila massacre, only this time it would be in Jenin. "The Palestinian leadership urgently appeals to the international community and the Arab leaders to immediately intervene and help save the residents of the Jenin refugee camp for they have been the victims of a brutal war campaign, lead personally by Israel's Chief of Staff, Shaul Mofaz," read a leadership statement. It added, "We hold the international
community responsible for delaying any intervention that could spare the refugee camp's residents from a certain massacre."

The Independent newspaper reported, "[T]he sound of four explosions came down the phone line. A woman could be heard screaming in the background 'Come and save us'." This was in the middle of an interview their reporter was conducting with a Red Crescent ambulance official: "He said the woman's house had been hit by rockets fired from an Israeli helicopter".

From reports that came to the World Socialist Web Site correspondent, it was clear that the Israeli authorities have been refusing to allow ambulances access to the wounded. International law defines this type of action as a war crime under the Geneva conventions. IMC-Israel reported that the Red Cross said five ambulances were fired on in the area around Jenin and Nablus April 8, when the IDF gave permission to give medical treatment for the wounded people.

Under the headline "Cry for help from Jenin", Palestinian man Issa Samandar gave the following report over the telephone: "Several heavy shielded bulldozers of the army digging a wide road 8-10m wide from west to east... to cut off the camp into two halves... This is done also with air bombings, hundreds of bombs, from 2-7 Cobra and Apache helicopters, each raid... it is still continuing from around 20.00 last night...till now". He added, "The soldiers sometimes withdraw for the helicopters to do the strikes... This came after the helicopters bombarded a house where soldiers were inside on the assumption that they were Palestinians... The shooting and the bombing are severe and directed towards the houses with much brutality. More than one third of the camp houses have been destroyed... total destruction... tens of people died in this way.

"Witnesses say that dead bodies [are] still in the streets and narrow roads of the camp from 100 to 150. This is the fifth day that ambulances can't reach to save the injured or the corpses... all health workers and representatives are issuing SOS for help through the media... directly... till now no result... on the ground... In the past 36 hours, only two corpses and one injured were received by the hospital... health situation and living is so [bad] that people are now drinking from the sewage and eating leaves off trees... We [heard] now from a witness that hundreds of bodies are under the rubble of the houses... the people who saved themselves are gathered in the university."

He continued, "One soldier killed the son of 34 years... then the other soldier exchanged and killed the father of 62 years in front of the sons and grandsons... another two old men--more than 64 years [old]--and one 45 years [old] were also shot in front of their families.... Doctors said that they were shot at intentionally so as to kill as many people on the orders of the criminal Sharon... In these days it is not fair for the victims to make analysis. And if some politicians reading these lines will not understand what mentality is behind these atrocities, then humanity and conscience is lost."

Yehudit Harel, an activist from the "Peace Block" movement, has been sending by e-mail a public call to take away Shimon Peres's Nobel Peace Prize. She told the World Socialist Web Site: "Shimon Peres is one of the most cynical and immoral politicians of our times, a true Machiavelli disciple, who plays such a key role in enabling the current catastrophe to happen. As a Nobel Prize Laureate--with all his international connections and special status in Europe--Shimon Peres secured all along a European umbrella for the Sharon Government. Thus he made it possible for this criminal government to go as far as this. It is high time to try to teach him a lesson".

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JENIN: REMEMBER THIS WORD

By Ramzy Baroud, Editor-in-Chief
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020408192557891

Israel knew too well what Jenin meant for its military aspirations, that particular refugee camp was a deal breaker for Israel's attempt to suppress the Palestinian population, to kill their spirit.

Jenin. Remember this word, for every time your lose faith in humanity, all you need to do is to recall it. Repeat inside of you, slowly, when you are down and frail. It should give you vigor and lift your spirit. It's a symbol of courage, courage beyond these times of despair and degradation, courage that's legendary, almost mythological. How else can we explain that a small refugee camp, less than a kilometer sq. length and width stands for days in the face of hundreds of tanks, Apache helicopters and thousands of trained killers, they call soldiers?

Established in 1953 as a make-shift tent city to host thousands of Palestinian refugees, this small camp breeds tenacity and defiance. Many of those Palestinians who were uprooted from their villages in Palestine to live in the most humiliating conditions were still able to see the land that once was theirs, by simply gazing west.

For nearly five decades they looked west. Now, when their elders die, their children who are raised in the same impoverished yet proud Palestinian camp, also taught to gaze west. West is Palestine, their home, where they were told stories by aging grandmas of how wonderful life once was. It was a reminder of their dire hardship and life under occupation.

13 thousand refugees lived in the Jenin refugee camp, located near the city of Jenin in the West Bank. Their dream was beyond paved roads, functional sewer systems and good schools. Their dream was returning home. Many held the deeds to their land in Palestine, some even held the large old keys of their ravished homes, and most of them knew too well what UN Resolution 194 meant: it was their right to return.

But for decades those refugees remained without homes, without rights, and for decades they were subjected to never ending cruelty. In 1967, Israel added insult to injury when it invaded the West Bank and Gaza, the refugees are now under military occupation.

In recent years, the young population in the camps have grown to reach 44 percent of the total number of refugees. Yet with little means, many managed to attain a proper education at nearby Universities, Bir Zeit, Bethlehem and Najah. A young, educated yet defiant generation was born and raised in the small camp, a population that never forgot to look west, were Palestine is, a population that never feared to carry on the torch of a dying generation. That dying generation taught them one valuable lesson; never forget the land, our rights, our pride and our dignity. And they never did.

When Palestinian streets exploded with anger in a loud cry for freedom, the uprising was just getting started, and the Jenin refugee camp was there, leading the crowd, chanting the loudest, demanding justice, human rights and return.

Israel knew too well what Jenin meant for its military aspirations, that particular refugee camp was a deal breaker for Israel's attempt to suppress the Palestinian population, to kill their spirit.

Last March Israel carried out "Operation Colorful Journey" against the Jenin and Balata refugee camps. Like its name, the "Operation" was colorful, bloody colorful, as nearly 20 Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded in the refugee camp. Many homes were destroyed, but the spirit remained strong. Israeli officials said that their mission in Jenin was like "picking up terrorists with tweezers." But even the tweezers of the fourth strongest army in the world, one of the most powerful nuclear powers, was hardly enough to bend the will of Jenin. Jenin fought hard, and as the soldiers were pulling out, Palestinians emerged from their homes, carrying their dead, and chanting about Palestine and freedom.

But General Sharon never forgets his unfinished battles. Revenge is his game, even if launched against refugees, fighting with old rifles and kitchen knifes. As he recently deployed his forces to invade West Bank towns, he spared nearly 300 tanks, thousands of soldiers and many Apaches to invade the Jenin refugee camp.

Until the writing of this article, 8 days after intensive bombings, horrendous killings and indescribable massacres, the camp is yet to fall. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, mass graves have been opened, scores of dead have been buried in haste, men and women smothered under the rubble of their homes, and the camp is yet to fall.

Frustrated with the small size of the poor camp, Israeli tanks began stepping on everything, homes and mosques to find a way for themselves, to open a new battlefront with the defiant refugees, and the camp is yet to fall.

The head of the Israeli military Shaul Mofaz, embarrassed by the blunder, led the "operation" himself to carry out a massacre, as the whole world stood and waited while the refugees battled the tanks, and fought the Apaches.

Over fifty missiles were fired on the camp within an hour; hundreds of people are said to be buried under the rubble; many bodies were scattered in the streets; Israeli troops began a systematic bombardment of the entire camp, the wounded bled to death, with no medical attention, just broken hearted mothers screaming in vain. With little means, the small camp, not only resisted, but inflicted heavy losses on the army that once claimed to be "invincible".

From inside the camp, using a cell phone with a dying battery, a Palestinian fighter reached Al Jazeera satellite television. "I just wanted to let the proud people of world, not to worry, we are resisting and will fight to the last drop of blood." In the background, a proud population stood listing to the speaker, maybe thinking that the world really listened or cared. They all chanted in one voice for freedom and Palestine, before the battery died, maybe not to be charged again.

By the time this article is published, maybe the Jenin refugee camp will be bulldozed, maybe hundreds more will be killed, maybe the fighting will still continue; but under no circumstances will the remaining refugees of Jenin be coerced to abandon their fight for freedom, their vow to return.

Israel is yet to be convinced that even with the most sophisticated US manufactured weapons, the people of Jenin refugee camp will never abandon their honorable fight, they will never cease to look west, where their land and pride are, where Palestine is calling on its people to come home.