[Nettime-bold] someone asked me to send this to nettime

["geert" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: "Lana Habash" <lhabash@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 00:55:21 -0800
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: The Carnage in Palestine [EYE WITNESS REPORTS]

Dear all,

Since March 1st, over 120 Palestinians were killed, most of them are
refugees living in miserable refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. Not
only killed, but also messed up with their bodies after being left bleeding
to death and preventing ambulances from reaching them!

My relatives and friends back home keep asking me whether Americans know
about what is going on, and do they care!? So, I felt compelled to forward
to you these reports from eyewitnesses (including Americans) who witnessed
one of Sharon's continuing massacres.

Thank you for your time.
Lana Habash.

Eyewitness account from an American in Nablus
by Calista Weichel - March 9, 2002

It has been a few days since I have written. Much has happened. Just
yesterday--in the span of less than 24 hours--The Israels killed around 60
people in Tulkerum. The Injured is up over 150. When I hear the figures I
need to remind myself that this is not a dream. That yes, this is happening.
Every day it seems it is another city or village. But yesterday, I was faced
with images I shall not soon forget. Is is not bad enough that so many are
killed by such a brutal occupying force? But to inflict more sadistic and
sickening terror. The Israeli army took some of the dead Palestinians and
strapped the bodies to the tanks and paraded them through Tulkerum like
prized game. This is reprehensible. It is sickening.
What do they think?

DID YOU SEE THE IMAGES? I watched some news from the West yesterday....
I saw nothing that even reflects the blood and the suffering of the past 24
hours.
DID YOU SEE?

DID YOU HEAR? Did you see how the tanks demolished the ambulances? See the
photo attached. However, I doubt that the still photograph can come close to
the meaning of the reality of what it was. I watched on the news the many
many Israeli ambulances available to the wounded Israelis after a bombing.
there were SO MANY ambulances. The two Palestinian ambulances I saw on the
news were being rammed and pushed aside by Israeli tanks. The Israelis
killed two medics and injured three more. One was a UN medic. The others
were from Palestine Red Crescent Society.

I sat in silence, ashamed of my government when I watched Bush and Mr.
Powell regurgitate the same useless words yesterday. OH Hurray! Zinni is
returning? SHARON IS CONTEMPLATING RETURNING TO THE PEACE TABLE!?!?!
SO why is it that with all of his contemplation, he still bombed Nablus
early this morning?

I tried to telephone home last night, and I could not. Why? Because Israel
decided that no Palestinian Company Cell Phones would contact anyone in the
States. When I called I received a message that said "Shalom...You cannot
call this destination now". I learned later that all calls ultimately have
to pass through the Israeli Operator....

I hurried to the University this morning, tired from last night.
Today, the people are struck with sadness and I can see it in their faces.
How much must they shoulder? How much can they? 60 People---murdered in
less than 24 hours---all from the same city. What makes is difficult for me
is
that I know that no one from MY country is receiving the correct
information. BBC said last night that is "appears that both sides are intent
on continuing the violence". The intention is clear....Yesterday F-16's
began early in the morning, Apaches and those damned remote control
mosquito-planes....I cannot stop the images of the young men still throwing
rocks at tanks. I say to myself, "Run! they will shoot you with their tanks!
RUN!" But then I catch myself and i realize that some of my cowardice is
slipping through...and I remember that this is all they have. They must
fight. Their people are being systematically and brutally eliminated. They
must fight back. Even if it sometimes appear to my naive eyes that it is
futile.

There is no University this day. There is no shopping. There is nothing.
There is tension. There is sadness. There is the thickness of feeling that
Palestine is truly an Island in the world. No one is watching. No one cares
about the dead and wounded Palestinians. NO ONE.

At least Gilligan had the Professor to make radios from coconuts. I could
never have imagined how much I did not realize before coming. My thoughts
are whirling at times through my head. I remembered the American Servicemen
in Somalia. I remember the reaction of the American People when they saw
them dragged through the city. I remember the horror and anger of the
American People who viewed this. I wonder now if they would feel the same
horror if they saw Murdered Palestinians paraded in the same fashion. What
makes it worse is that American money and support is inherent in the tanks.
I feel guilty and ashamed.

I remember also the images I used to see on the news in the states.
Palestinians were always shown to be mask-wearing, automatic rifle toting,
scary people. Militants. Terrorists. Activists. With these representations.
These descriptors.....I suppose for many the deaths of so many is "ok". But
the boy I saw, laying on the Emergency room table, gunshot wounds covering
his body. Was he a frightening person? HE WAS A BOY. No bigger than my own.
I wish, I say I WISH for the accurate portrayal... I wish for the human face
to be shown in the States.

Oh...by the way...if you feel the need to write to me spewing your
brainwashed pro-zionist dribble...do not waste your time. I am uninterested,
unaffected and unimpressed.

Total number of Palestinian deaths in West Bank & Gaza since Sept 29th, 2000
is 1,115, injuries 18,191 (Figures inclusive to Midnight March 7, 2002)
Day 281 of siege of Palestinian cities & towns. No access to ambulances &
medical teams.

A Massacre that Covers the Whole Nation
by Ghassan Andoni - March 9, 2002

The Israeli attacks of the recent days started at Balata refugee camp and
are still moving. Today it is Bethlehem. The message is clear: if you do not
accept our occupation and domination you will be destroyed.  Our answer: we
cannot accept your occupation and domination because it had already
destroyed us.

It is almost the same scenario everywhere. F16, bombarding the PA buildings
and adjacent neighborhoods; tanks invade cities and towns but mainly refugee
camps; dozens of innocent civilians killed and hundreds injured; ambulances
are not allowed to evacuate casualties. 50 Palestinians killed in one day
and hundreds injured most of them were kept bleeding in the narrow streets
of refugee camps.  The army commander of the Tulkarim area identified
Palestinian ambulances and medical teams as legitimate targets for the
Israeli army, and obligingly, Israeli tanks shelled two ambulances in the
narrow streets of Tulkarim refugee camp.

The Israeli army generals are so proud of their ability to move inside the
Palestinian refugee camps through cracking down the thin walls between the
heavily crowded and adjacent Palestinian homes. Right now in Tulkarim
refugee camp no family can close the door and shelter inside home.

The best that the Israeli foreign Minster and Nobel Prize winner Shimon
Perez could do was to refuse to comment. While he publicly reminded Israelis
that there is no need to reoccupy Palestinian areas because already those
areas are occupied, he failed to raise a voice against the war crimes
conducted by his Prime Minster and the elected leader of his Party, Defense
Minster Ben Eliazer.

The calls from inside the Israeli society for more Palestinian blood and the
silence of the international community will stay for long deep inside
Palestinians. Palestinians will trust no one. Each mourning mother, each
confused little kid,and each homeless family will always ask: where were you
when all of this happened?

Can any of you look directly to their eyes and provide an answer?

Tell the World...
By Huwaida Arraf  - March 9, 2002

Four-year-old Ahmed Khader's heart raced with fear; the children of the
neighborhood told him that we were the Israelis back in his home. The eight
of us were not occupation soldiers. Rather we were foreign civilians (5
Americans, 2 Belgian and one Irish) who had come to the Balata Refugee Camp
to express our solidarity with the people who had been invaded, terrorized
and pillaged on a 4-day raid of their home - a refugee camp - by the Israeli
military.

The Israeli Armed Forces had just pulled out of the camp that very morning
of Monday March 4, 2002 when we arrived, and Ahmed, who had been locked in
one room (8' X 10') with other members of his family for the 4 days of the
Israeli raid, feared that they had returned. Ahmed's aunt explained that we
were friends, and the boy cautiously warmed up to us. Ahmed wouldn't talk
about what had happened to them. He did however admit that he was scared,
that he "wasn't brave." Four days earlier, armed Israeli soldiers had broken
into the Khader home and ordered the 3 women (including one pregnant and one
elderly) and the three children aged 4-9 years, that were in the home, into
one room. They then proceeded to take over the rest of the home. For the
next 24 hours the women and children sat in the room, without food, without
relief. And since the Israeli army had cut the electricity in the entire
camp, little Ahmed and his family sat in the dark. The soldiers did once
give the family the option to leave, but promised them that they would never
be able to come back.

Already refugees and with nowhere else to go, the family stayed. The next
day the soldiers gave permission to the women and children to go to the
bathroom and for one of the women to quickly make sandwiches for the kids..

We walked into a small, meager home, where an elderly woman was sitting on
the floor - a static-filled television set the only piece of furniture in
the small room. The woman turned to us crying as news of Bushra Abu Kweik
and her children's killing was being reported on the television screen.
"They're killing all of our beautiful children. They already took our homes
and now they come after us in our refugee camps." I asked her if the Israeli
soldiers had come into her home and she pointed to the gaping hole in the
wall behind me.

Everyone in the streets wanted us to see the damage that had been done to
their homes and shops. It was not possible to see it all. Balata is home to
approximately 22,000 Palestinian refugees who had been forced out of their
homes in 1948, from towns and villages in what is now called Israel. All had
been abused and traumatized again by the Israeli Armed Forces. Everyone had
a story. All of the homes we saw were severely damaged - windows blown out,
walls dynamited as soldiers moved from home to home, and some homes
completely destroyed..
In the narrow streets and alleyways of the camp, people could be seen
clearing away rubble. An elderly dark-skinned man began talking to me. "I
lost my son, my mother and my home, but I still thank God. I have my
humanity." Although I was running late for an appointment I stepped into
what remained of this man's home where I was introduced to his 12 daughters.
A week earlier, Abdallah's son was killed by Israeli forces surrounding
Nablus. Abdallah's mother died two days later. The next day, the Israeli
Army entered his home. "I tried to speak to the soldiers in Hebrew as I've
worked in Israel for over 30 years and know Israelis and Hebrew well. One
soldier saw a poster of my slain son on the wall and put out his cigarette
butt in between my son's eyes in the photo. He called him a terrorist and
said he deserved to die as we all [Palestinians] do." Abdallah's daughters
quickly forgot their reserve and began hurling questions, statements and
accusations at me: "The American president says we're the terrorists, but
who's doing the terrorizing?" What kind of people would steal the gold off a
woman who has so little? On top of taking our homes, killing our sons and
coming after us in our refugee camps, they take women's gold! You tell them.
You tell the world that we're not the terrorists. We want our freedom and we
will not give up our land. Never!" "I'm glad my mother died when she did,"
said Abdallah. I want to tell the world what I see. I want to scream out
against this injustice and madness, but who's listening? The refugees who I
met in Balata asked me to be their voice, but is the world willing to
listen?

If you are a journalist and would like more information or help with
arranging an interview with anyone in Balata or any of the foreign civilians
that visited Balata, please contact me at +972-52-642-709 or by e-mail at
huwaidaa@yahoo.com .

If you would like to help the residents of Balata in their efforts to
rebuild their homes, and with the costs of the programs that are being
established to work with the traumatized children, you can send donations
to:

Bank: Arab Bank
Acct name: Popular Committee of the Nablus Governate
Acct No: 445000
or contact pwwsd@zaytona.com
Thank you for listening.



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