Injured in Jenin

by ~ Fri Nov 22, 2002 12:41

~~~
irish passport holder irish citizen neutral in war zone.
hello neutral Ireland?

by Joe Fri Nov 22, 2002 13:19

From Reuters.com

by Joe H Fri Nov 22, 2002 13:51

This is very sad. My thought go out to her family.

The Palestinians and Isrealis involved in this gun-battle will have some explaining to do.

by patc Fri Nov 22, 2002 14:04

surely its the israeli forces who are invading the camp who have the explaining to do.

by MG Fri Nov 22, 2002 14:20

Speaking from her hospital bed shortly before 1pm (Irish time), Caoimhe Butterly, the injured Irish woman, explained what happened:

"I've been living in Jenin camp for the last few months and there was a re-invasion of the camp this morning from about five o'clock onwards. The Israeli occupation forces are saying that they were looking for one wanted man in particular, but they closed off the bottom area of the camp - it's a closed military zone. There were house-to-house searches going on and around 20 men were rounded up in those searches and were beaten very severely, handcuffed and blindfolded. I received a call from the family of one of them in that zone where nobody was allowed out on to the streets, saying that a young girl needed medical attention, that she was very sick and they were asking if we could try and bring an ambulance in, because the Israelis had refused to co-ordinate with them. So I made my way down from where I live at the top of the camp to the bottom and when I arrived there I was arrested immediately with a cameraman from Reuters for entering a closed military zone and handcuffed and held with the group of 20 men for about two hours. I was then released and I was told that if I didn't leave the area that I would be shot . We managed eventually to get an ambulance in to evacuate the girl and then I went up to another part of the camp where there were clashes going on, between stone-throwing kids and Israeli soldiers. When I got there, the kids told me that a nine-year-old had just been killed and three had been shot - one was brain-damaged. I tried to negotiate with the soldiers because they were still shooting at kids, they were basically shooting live ammunition at them and I started engaging in some negotiation soldier and then another tank drove up, the guy looked out of his hatch and he opened fire on a crowd of kids. Most of them managed to run away, but there were around three small ones left on the road, so I was trying to basically carry them into an alleyway and then I got shot myself."

Re death of Ian Hawk: "I don't work for the UN so I wasn't in the UN compound when it happened. We had been there earlier on and I had seen Ian Hawk there. He had managed to get out the women and the children in the morning, however Ian was still trying to co-ordinate officially with the Israelis to get safe passage out for himself and a number of Palestinians who were stuck inside the compound. At that stage, I left with a group of women and children, before I was shot in another part of the camp. When I got shot I was brought to the hospital here and within about five minutes of getting here Ian was wheeled in. He was still alive. He died within a few minutes of getting here. I'm only getting stories in bits and pieces because I'm in a bed myself, but [I heard] that he was shot hours before he was actually brought to the hospital because people were prohibited from getting to him. Basically, they had to go over the back wall of the UN compound to evacuate him a stretcher to the other side of the camp where the hospital is. He's British as far as I know and as far as I know he's the head of the UN operation in Jenin, possibly for Nablus as well. He was here I think with a foreign delegation, with a group of foreign UN workers, just on a rotine tour of the UN compound, and had been engaging in some sort of negotiation with the Israelis. I know that he had been on to the DCO basically saying that they wanted to leave the compound, but there were snipers positioned all around that particular compound, although they were focusing on houses down the road from it. Again, I think this another example of the kind of collective punishment - it's generally not the people they are looking for who are the casualties in these situations. There's still a very huge military presence in the camp at the moment and they're going house-to-house and thrashing houses and beating people."

by MG Fri Nov 22, 2002 14:43

"The Jenin Hospital director, Mohammed Abu Ghali, said the bullets retrieved from the victim's abdomen were of the kind generally used by Israeli troops."

by Joe H Fri Nov 22, 2002 15:24

Yes, but if the Paelestians haddened been putting bombs on buses and murdering innocent civilains, the IDF wouldn't be attacking Jenin. They're both should be taking some blame, although the IDF should are probably more at fault.

by MG Fri Nov 22, 2002 16:25

...but if the Israels hadn't stolen the land of Palestine in 1948 none of this would have happend in the first place. If the Israelis hadn't stolen the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967, none of this would have happened. If the Israelis had honoured the hundreds of UN resolutions telling them to get the fuck out of the occupied territories, none of this would have happened. If the Israelis weren't oppressing the entire Palestinian population every day of the week, none of this would have happened.

Resistance is legitimate. Occupation is illegal.

by Fionnan Caoimhin O Cuinn - Me Fein Sun Nov 24, 2002 05:05 Finnocuinn at hotmail dot com Moin Ruadh.

I just want to say that as a poor humble Irish lad from solid peasant stock way beyond the Pale I'd marry Caoimhe in the morning( if only she'd have the likes of me).

by HarryB Sun Nov 24, 2002 13:35

Caoimhe Butterly's account of what happened in Jenin 22 November

Caoimhe Butterly talks to Annie Higgins in Jenin Refugee Camp,Palestine

22 November 2002

In today's reinvasion of Jenin Refugee Camp, the Israeli Occupation Forces made the bottom section of the camp into a closed military zone in the morning, using about twelve tanks, ten jeeps, and at least two Apache helicopter gunships. I had been trying to get
between the unarmed children and the tanks, when I received a call from a friend who wanted me to evacuate her sick daughter as the Army
would not let any ambulances through.

I went with a friend who is a Palestinian journalist, and we were immediately arrested, along with another international volunteer, and taken to a place where about twenty Palestinian men were being held. They were blindfolded, handcuffed, stripped to their trousers or underwear, and beaten severely. After I was detained for two hours and interrogated briefly, the Israeli soldiers said that I was free to go.

I asked permission to remain with the men, hoping to minimise the violence, but the soldiers refused, saying it was not allowed. When I refused to leave, I was forcibly dragged away, pulled down the road, and told that if I returned to the area I would be shot.

I went back the way I had come, past the United Nations compound. There I spoke briefly with Iain Hook, Project Manager of UNRWA [United Nations Relief Works Agency] in Jenin, who said he was trying
to negotiate with the soldiers for women and children to go home. He came out of the UN compound waving a blue UN flag, and the soldiers' only response was to broadcast with their microphone in English, "We
don't care if you are the United Nations or who you are. F*** off and go home!" They were trying to go home.

Iain said that things were not going well. He insisted that he wanted to provide safe passage for
his forty Palestinian workers and himself using legal means, i.e., official coordination with the Army. Some worried parents had begun to knock a hole in the wall at the back of the compound to evacuate children who were there for a vaccination programme. We accompanied some of the children home.

After this, I headed again to the sick girl's house. On the way I met a group of children who told me that a ten-year-old friend of mine, Muhammad Bilalo, had been killed and three children had been wounded
by tank fire, one of whom sustained brain damage. So I went to where the children were gathered, and the tanks were firing on them erratically.

I walked down the road between the children and the tanks until I was fifty meters from the tank, where I tried to dialogue with the soldiers. I implored them not to shoot live ammunition at unarmed children. At that point, they stopped their shooting. A few moments later, an APC drove up to the tank [an armed
personnel carrier, like a tank with all the armour except a cannon].

I could see their faces very clearly and I imagine they could see mine also. I had seen both of these tanks earlier in the day. A soldier raised his upper body and his gun out of the hatch of the second vehicle and began shooting. At first he shot into the air, and
most of the children dispersed, running into an alley on the left side of the street. About three small children remained, however, and I tried physically to get them to the alley, dragging and pushing
them. I looked back over my shoulder and could see the soldier in the APC pointing his gun at me from about one hundred meters.

Near the entrance to the alley, I was shot in the thigh. When I fell they continued shooting in my direction. I crawled part of the way up the alley, and then some of the youngsters dragged me up the rest of the way. No ambulances were allowed into the camp, so I was carried on a makeshift stretcher to where a Red Crescent ambulance could reach me near the entrance of the camp. While I was in the Emergency Room of Jenin Hospital, Iain Hook of UNRWA was brought in. He died a few minutes later.

We have been told that when he was shot, the Israeli Army prohibited a clearly marked UN ambulance from evacuating him and transporting him for nearly an hour, during which time he lost much blood. Finally
the ambulance crew evacuated him by taking him out by the back wall that employees had broken down earlier.

Having been present in the Camp all morning, I can testify that any Palestinian fighters had stopped shooting a good two hours before either of us was wounded. When I passed the UN compound in the
morning, it was surrounded by Israeli Army snipers and soldiers who were shooting erratically into the Camp. Two people were killed and six wounded. All but one were shot by tank fire outside what the Army
deemed a closed military zone. I was not caught up in any kind of crossfire as the Israeli Occupation Forces are falsely stating, and I don't believe that Iain was either.

The massacre has not stopped. Human rights violations and war crimes seen so blatantly across the world in April of this year continue on a daily basis in Jenin. Yesterday, with the casual killings that
marked it, was not an unusual day in Jenin. It has become a potentially suicidal act to engage in the most basic acts of survival.

The Israeli Occupation Forces engage again and again in a shoot-to-kill policy without regard as to whether its targets are civilians or armed fighters. Israelis have been shown in April that they can get away with a massacre, and that all the international condemnation in the world cannot get one ambulance in to evacuate a wounded person.

Thus the lack of accountability on Israel's part has become bolder as the events witnessed yesterday become almost standard. These are not military campaigns. They are acts of terror designed to humiliate, brutalise, and bully Palestinians into subjugation. They are being denied not only the right to resist, but to exist.

by Shane OCurry Mon Nov 25, 2002 12:42 s.ocurry at ulster dot ac dot uk

She was interviewed by phone by BBC Radio Foyle here in Derry after the siege in Arafat's compound. They are looking to talk to her again by phone, if she's well enough. Can anyone send me a contact number/ email for her?

by Cian O Curraoin Fri Nov 29, 2002 16:02 cianoc at eircom dot net

She has some courage and principles.
Maith an bhean!

by Claire McCarthy Wed Dec 04, 2002 14:57 m_c_claire at hotmail dot com 30 Hazelwood, Taylor's Hill, Galway 091 529034

There will be a benefit gig for Caoimhe Butterly and the Palestininan people in Sir Henry's in Cork on Friday December 6th. Doors open 9:30. Tickets 8 Euros, available at synthetic records or on the door.
a mish mash of ska, ounk, regga and drum n' bass, featuring, atari flynn, voice (dratpak) and t-woc (the alphabet set), tophi, wiggle and friends and bastardo electrico, with uv performances by freeebase.

by Claire McCarthy Wed Dec 04, 2002 14:58 m_c_claire at hotmail dot com 30 Hazelwood, Taylor's Hill, Galway 091 529034

There will be a benefit gig for Caoimhe Butterly and the Palestininan people in Sir Henry's in Cork on Friday December 6th. Doors open 9:30. Tickets 8 Euros, available at synthetic records or on the door.
a mish mash of ska, ounk, regga and drum n' bass, featuring atari flynn, voice (dratpak) and t-woc (the alphabet set), tophi, wiggle and friends and bastardo electrico, with uv performances by freebase.
SOLIDARITY AND PROCEEDS GO DIRECTLY TO CAOIMHE AND THE PALISTINIAN PEOPLE

by Avi Harari Thu Jan 23, 2003 12:45 avi15 at hotmail dot com

Don't you think it would be fair to spare a thought for the people - not all of whom are Israelis - who have been maimed or murdered or orphaned by Palestinian terrorists down the years, especially as Amnesty itself has described the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians in such attrocities as crimes against humanity?