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| 'We had over 50 houses booby-trapped' national | miscellaneous | news report  Thursday April 25, 2002 00:18 by Al-Ahram Weekly - Via The irish Times Who blew up Jenin? Palestinians say it was an Israeli massacre; Israel says it was fighting terrorists.This is an edited version of the story of a Palestinian bomb-maker. It appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Omar is a Palestinian fighter, a bomb maker from the Jenin refugee camp. He and other "engineers" made hundreds of explosive devices and carefully chose their locations. "We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped around the camp. We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them," he said. "We cut off lengths of mains water pipes and packed them with explosives and nails. Then we placed them about four metres apart throughout the houses - in cupboards, under sinks, in sofas." The fighters hoped to disable the Israeli army's tanks with much more powerful bombs placed inside rubbish bins on the street. More explosives were hidden inside the cars of Jenin's most wanted men. Connected by wires, the bombs were set off remotely, triggered by the current from a car battery. According to Omar, everyone in the camp, including the children, knew where the explosives were located so that there was no danger of civilians being injured. It was the one weakness in the plan. "We were betrayed by the spies among us," he says. The wires to more than a third of the bombs were cut by soldiers accompanied by collaborators. "If it hadn't been for the spies, the soldiers would never have been able to enter the camp. Once they penetrated the camp, it was much harder to defend." And what about the explosion and ambush on Tuesday of last week (April 9th) which killed 13 soldiers? "They were lured there," he says. "We all stopped shooting and the women went out to tell the soldiers that we had run out of bullets and were leaving." The women alerted the fighters as the soldiers reached the booby-trapped area. "When the senior officers realised what had happened, they shouted through megaphones that they wanted an immediate ceasefire. We let them approach to retrieve the men and then opened fire. Some of the soldiers were so shocked and frightened that they mistakenly ran towards us." Al-Ahram is a Cairo-based newspaper. Its web address is www.ahram.org.eg. Omar says he escaped Jenin on April 11th; his story appeared in the April 18-24 edition of Al-AhramWeekly |
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Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2This is an important, interesting and very valid story. However it is carried in a major national, commercially-funded newspaper and on their website at www.ireland.com. What is the point of having it here as well? And what does it have to do with Ireland?
Surely Indymedia.ie is not just another bulletin board? If people want to read Irish Times content they can (like 100,000 others every day)buy the Irish Times or visit its website.
But if people want to read independent, non-commecial content they can come here, to indymedia.ie. Different things.
And what's this article got to do with Ireland? Wouldn't it be better to keep Palistinian reporting on http://jerusalem.indymedia.org/ or on http://indymedia.org/?
The strategic advantage (and surely the purpose) of the Irish IMC is that it offers an outlet for independent Irish news and coverage of events that the corporate media tend to ignore. This is vitally important not only for independently-minded Irish people to communicate among themselves, but for the international community who are looking for independent coverage of
Irish issues and events.
Cross postings of events elsewhere in the world just clog up the system. Non-Irish news on Irish Indymedia is, for many people, noise that make the
signal harder to access (something that is true of all spam). After all, Indymedia coverage of specific areas of the world are available simply by clicking on the links on the right of the page and Indymedia.org offers excellent general international coverage.
Similarly, the re-posting of stories from the Irish Times and other mainstream media simply reduce Indymedia to just another notice board. If
people want to read the Irish Times then they can. However surely the point of Indymedia is to get away from the commercial and mainstream media, not to simply re-post it.
1. See new evidence of IRA involvement in Jenin - teaching Palestinians how to make bombs
2. See Demonstrations, protests, public meetings, poster campaigns, people in trees, Irish 'peacenicks' broadcasting Paletinian propaganda from within Arafat's compound to the Irish population
3. See full page advertisements by Amnesty International Ireland in international newspapers and others by Irish Red Cross raising funds for the 'Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression'
4. The Irish people deserve to hear the truth. If an factual article presenting evidence of the truth needs to be republished here for the truth to be told - then let it happen. Let the truth be told!