Israel kept up its fight against "Palestinian terror" with killings of schoolchildren and the elderly, while illegally seizing more land in Tulkarm. Khaled Amayreh reports from Jerusalem Click to view caption Despite signals from various Palestinian resistance groups indicating willingness to reach a cease-fire in return for Israeli withdrawal from previously autonomous enclaves, the Israeli occupation army is stepping up what seems like a collective persecution of the Palestinian population. This week alone, as many as 20 Palestinians, the vast majority of them innocent civilians, were shot dead by Israeli troops. Such killings pass without soldiers receiving the slightest rebuke from superiors. Some of the killings took the form of extra-judicial executions, either in broad daylight or at night, and often in full view of family members. On 7 August, Israeli occupation soldiers executed two men, Ziad Da'as, 28, and Hamad Said, 18, in the centre of Tulkarm. A medical worker from the UK, named Rebecca Murray, reported that no medical teams were allowed to provide aid. She said that only after the Israeli Apache helicopters stopped strafing residents with machine-gun fire, were medics allowed to retrieve the two bodies. Murray visited the hospital and was able to confirm that the men had been tied up and dragged along the streets, to the extent that their skin was completely worn away in some places. The men also appeared to have been shot in the head at point blank range. It was unclear, though, if they were killed before or after their bodies were tortured. Another illegal execution took place on 12 August, when Israeli soldiers surrounded the home of Ghazal Mohamed Freihat at the village of Yamon near Jenin shortly before dawn. According to family members, the soldiers stormed the home and arrested, handcuffed and blindfolded the 23-year- old student on suspicion of involvement in attacks on Israeli occupation troops. He was also accused of being affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military arm of Fatah, the PLO mainstream organisation. His father, Mohamed Freihat, narrates what happened next: "Like mad dogs, they attacked us while we were all asleep. They gave us one minute to leave the house, saying they would blow it up if we didn't. When we all left, I took my son by the hand and handed him over to the commanding officer who handcuffed and blindfolded him. This gave us some comfort in a way, because we thought they might only arrest him, rather than kill him. However, in a matter of minutes, five soldiers took Ghazal to our backyard. There, they riddled his body with bullets." The Israeli army, for its part, claimed that Ghazal was carrying a firearm and that he tried to escape, despite being restrained. As usual, the Israeli army's routine version of events in such circumstances was reproduced in most of the Israeli media. Israel claims that this sort of revenge killing by its soldiers is reserved only for suspected resistance fighters or those involved in suicide bombings against Israelis. Events suggest, however, that when it comes to Palestinians, the Israeli army makes little distinction, if any, between ordinary civilians and suspected guerrillas. This reality manifested itself once again on 10 August in Nablus, a city that of late has borne the brunt of Israel's state-sponsored terror. There, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a municipal worker, 54-year-old Ahmed Jihad Al-Qereini, seemingly in cold blood. Al-Qereini, a fire-fighter, had an official permit to move within the city even during curfew hours. However, when he and a fellow fire-fighter responded to a call in downtown Nablus, where Israeli tanks have reduced much of the ancient neighbourhoods to rubble, they were stopped about 100 metres from an Israeli army roadblock. Next, after one of the soldiers manning the roadblock beckoned them to drive forward, the same soldier opened fire, seriously wounding Al-Qereini. He eventually bled to death, as Israeli soldiers refused to allow medical workers to reach him. Again, the Israeli army evaded responsibility for the killing, saying in a statement that "an unfortunate incident has happened and the army is looking into it". On the same day, another such "unfortunate incident" took the life of 11-year-old Ayman Atiyyeh Abu Emghesib of Gaza. According to his family, the sixth-grader was standing on the rooftop of his home when an Israeli sniper manning an army tower 200 metres away shot the unsuspecting child. The family said Ayman was planning to buy clothes for the new school year, due to start on 1 September. Three days earlier, another Israeli sniper in Tulkarm shot dead Maher Mohamed Jezmawi, 18, who was on his way to school to find out the results of his secondary school graduation exam. "May God avenge his death. Those Nazis killed my son, they killed his dream to go to college," cried his embittered mother. It appears that the Israeli occupation army makes virtually no effort to avoid killing Palestinian civilians, thus pushing more and more young people towards extremism, and encouraging military attacks against Israel. Indeed, most of the 20 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army this week are victims of Israel's war on what it calls Palestinian terror. In addition to school boys preparing to return to their class-rooms, fire-fighters on their way to put out a blaze, and high-school graduates aspiring to go to college, Israeli army terror has also killed elderly Palestinians unlucky enough to fall ill and need hospital treatment. Such was the case of 58-year-old Yousef Kanabeta, who succumbed to his illness at an Israeli roadblock outside Nablus, having been denied access to hospital because of soldiers "[having] orders not to allow any Palestinian to pass through". These wanton killings, along with the systematic demolition of the homes of Palestinians suspected of taking part in the resistance, are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This, as all of the recent meetings between Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials have been proven futile. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seems insistent on thwarting any glimmer of hope for a genuine reconciliation between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. This week, Sharon ordered the confiscation of large tracts of Palestinian land in the vicinity of Tulkarm. The Israeli government said the seized land was needed for the building of a fence, preventing Palestinians from infiltration into Israel. Palestinian officials and Israeli peace activists are convinced that the fresh land seizure has one and only one purpose: the construction of more illegal Jewish settlements in the area.
