Jewish Hate Exposed at jenin
Jim Morris
the USS Liberty as well (and I don't want to see any of my country's brave
US Navy pilots die for the sake of Israel if the continued Israeli
brutalization of the Palestinians creates a wider conflict as Israel has
defied our Commander-in-Chief by not pulling out of the occupied Palestinian
territories as requested by President Bush and internationally requested in
the form of UN Security Council Resolutions 1402 and 1403 which Israel has
arrogantly defied as well):
http://www.petitiononline.com/liberty/
I just heard on CNN that the Israelis are not letting CNN take video of the
Israeli tanks (surrounding Arafat's compound) and Arafat's damaged
compound during Powell's meeting with Arafat.. So the Israelis are engaged
with censorship and manipulation of our American media in Ramallah as well.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/13/amin.otsc/index.html
Rula Amin: Aid agencies can't enter Jenin
April 13, 2002 Posted: 1:47 PM EDT (1747 GMT)
CNN's Rula Amin
JENIN, West Bank (CNN) -- Israeli forces rolled into two more West Bank
villages early Saturday, while international aid agencies continued their
attempts to enter the Jenin refugee camp that was the scene of bloody
fighting earlier this week.
CNN Reporter Rula Amin is near Jenin and talked to CNN anchor Kyra Phillips.
AMIN: We are here in Burqeen village just on the outskirts of the Jenin
refugee camp. We're here because we have been trying for the fourth day in a
row to go into Jenin refugee camp, with no luck. Israeli army won't allow
anybody in, including the journalists.
So this morning, while we were in Burqeen, Israeli tanks and APCs (armored
personnel carriers) rolled into this little village around 6 in the morning.
Then the Israeli soldiers, through loudspeakers, enforced a curfew, asking
all residents to stay inside their homes.
This was about half an hour ago. Through the loudspeakers the soldiers asked
the men who belong to any kind of Palestinian Authority security
organization to come down to the center of town. We have seen many men,
dozens of people, just coming across the fields, going down to the center of
town, and saw some of the mothers or wives crying, concerned about their
fate.
This has been traditional procedure before. Every time that the army goes
in, they round up Palestinian males, and then they question them. Many of
them are released later on, but some are kept and are moved, transferred to
other locations.
So there's a lot of tension in this little village here, especially after
this incursion.
Again, we're here because we can't go into Jenin refugee camp, where the
Palestinians have been charging that the Israeli army had carried out a
massacre, killing more than 500 Palestinians. Israel denies these charges
vehemently. They say that is not true, it's lies. And they say that they
confirm that their casualties number is actually a large number. They're
saying at least 150 people have been killed. But they say it was not a
massacre, it was a fierce fight.
Apart from the journalists, neither United Nations nor aid agencies have
been able to go into the camp. We've spoken to the Red Cross, the United
Nations representatives, who have been trying to get in in order to take the
wounded out and to assess the damage. There's a lot of damage and
destruction in that camp. The United Nations estimates that there's about
3,000 Palestinians from that camp who are homeless now.
And those U.N. agencies and aid agencies have been trying to get in to
assess the damage in order to mobilize supplies and aid. They haven't been
able to do that. Israel won't allow them in. Today even Secretary of State
Colin Powell said that Israel should give access, unimpeded access, to those
agencies in order to get into the camp and see how can they help the
population there.
PHILLIPS: Rula, if Israel says there's not a massacre going on inside the
camp, then why don't they let you in? Are you concerned you're not getting
the entire truth?
AMIN: That is a big concern, not only among the journalists but among also
the agencies, the U.N. agencies and the aid agencies. Even the Red Cross
have not been able to get in. What -- the answer they are getting from the
Israelis officially is that it's not safe, it's not secure, they cannot
guarantee their safety, so they're not letting them in.
The Red Cross has been saying that this is part of their job, this is a risk
that they usually take to carry out their tasks. And they're willing to take
it. But they want to go into the camp. But no use, they have not been able
to get into that camp yet. Palestinians are charging, of course, that ...
the Israeli army is trying to cover up on whatever they have done in that
camp, they're trying to hide as much evidence before they let anybody in.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=276379
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=284436
----- Original Message -----
The camp that became a slaughterhouse
By Justin Huggler
14 April 2002
The bloody evidence of he tragedy that is Jenin
Franciscans refuse to quit besieged birthplace of Christ
Israel's bloody intransigence silences Bush
The soldier and the bomber: the tale of two grieving families
A woman with her leg all but ripped off by a helicopter rocket, the mangled
remains hanging on by a thread of skin as she slowly bleeds to death. A
10-year-old boy lying dead in the street, his arm blown off and a great hole
in his side. A mother shot dead when she ran into the street to scream for
help for her dying son. The wounded left to die slowly, in horrible agony,
because the ambulances were not allowed in to treat them.
A terrible crime has been committed by Israel in Jenin refugee camp, and the
world is turning a blind eye. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State,
visited the scene of a suicide bombing that murdered six Israelis in
Jerusalem, but he did not visit Jenin, where the Israelis admit they killed
at least 100 Palestinians. The Israel army claims all of the dead were armed
men, that it took special care to avoid civilian casualties. But we saw the
helicopter rockets rain down on desperately crowded areas: civilian
casualties could not have been prevented.
The Israeli army sealed off the entire area around Jenin yesterday,
arresting journalists who ventured into it. That is because they have
something to hide in Jenin: the bodies.
The Israeli army has told the Israeli courts that it will not start burying
the bodies until Sunday. But there are abundant eyewitnesses who say they
have already seen the soldiers piling the bodies in mass graves. Hiding the
bodies is what Slobodan Milosevic did in Kosovo.
Either way, the Palestinians are not allowed to bury their own dead, because
Israel does not want the world to see what happened inside Jenin refugee
camp. The grieving have no way of knowing where to find the bodies of those
they have lost.
For nine days, Jenin camp became a slaughterhouse. Fifteen thousand
Palestinians lived in a square kilometre in the camp, a packed warren of
narrow lanes. Thousands of terrified civilians, women and children, cowered
inside their homes while the Israeli helicopters rained down rockets on them
and tanks fired shells into the camp.
The wounded were left to die. The Israeli army refused to allow ambulances
in to treat them, which is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The Red
Cross has publicly said people have died because Israel blocked the
ambulances. Slobodan Milosevic is on trial in the Hague for breaking the
Geneva Conventions, while Ariel Sharon shakes Colin Powell's hand for the
television cameras. The Geneva Conventions are in tatters in Israel.
The Israeli authorities may be able to hide the evidence, but they cannot
silence the stories that have been pouring out of those who managed to
escape the carnage in the camp. These stories cannot be verified yet, but
there are scores of them, and many agree in details. Fikri abu al-Heija was
one of those who came out of the carnage in the camp.
"At the beginning the soldiers came and surrounded the camp with tanks," he
says. "There were two Apache helicopters. A rocket hit our house - they were
concentrating the rockets on the houses. All the windows were broken by the
explosions. All you could hear was explosions. When the rocket hit the
house, everybody gathered together on the lower floors. A woman was with us
from the second floor who had had her leg almost cut off by the rocket. It
was just hanging on by a little piece of skin. We saw the ambulance coming
for her but the soldiers stopped it."
Six days after the attack, Mr abu al-Heija was captured by the soldiers.
"They made us take off our clothes and tied us in groups of five with metal
wire. As we were walking through the camp we saw demolished houses, burning
houses, bodies in the street. Every 10 or 20 metres there was a body. I
recognised some. One was a cousin of mine. His name was Ashraf abu
al-Heija."
The Palestinians have been writing all the accounts like Mr abu al-Heija's
down: they are not going to allow what happened at Jenin to be covered up.
The Independent on Sunday has seen these meticulous handwritten notes, of
which several copies have been made. There are records of everybody who used
to live in the camp, and it will be possible to match the missing with the
accounts of the dead. The Palestinians say there are 200 missing.
The names are coming out now: Mohammed Hamad, Nidal Nubam, Mustafa Shnewa. A
man who asked to remain anonymous says he saw their bodies being put in a
mass grave in the Haret al-Hawashin neighbourhood.
Yusra Ahmad, a mentally disabled woman, was killed by a helicopter rocket in
her home. Her nephew Mufid Ahmad says he saw it happen.
Munir Washashi bled to death over several hours after a helicopter round
came through the wall of his home. When an ambulance came for him, Israeli
soldiers shot at it.
Munir's mother, Maryam, ran into the street screaming for help for her son
and was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. Abdullah, her other son, told
The Independent on Sunday he saw it all happen.
The events of the last two weeks in Jenin will not go away, however hard
Israel tries to keep the refugee camp away from the eyes of the world. For
the Palestinians, this is the place where they finally stood and fought, and
where Palestinian fighters armed only with rifles managed to hold off the
Israeli tanks and helicopters for nine days. It is also the place where at
least 100 Palestinians were slaughtered by the Israeli army.