Voices from the siege

The same message echoes over and over: please, help us. There have been many massacres, and it has sometimes been possible to say we did not know what atrocities were being committed until it was too late. This time, voices are ringing out, with increasing desperation: please, do something. The massacre is underway. On the Internet and in the print press, the testimonies circulate. The story is one of devastation; and worse is yet to come. At Al-Ahram Weekly, we feel it is our responsibility to provide these voices with a platform -- so it will not be possible to say we did not know
RAMALLAH
4 April
Dear friends in Egypt -- Your moving letters of solidarity brought tears to my eyes, prompting me to go on sharing my experience in Ramallah. The summary executions of Palestinian security forces that I reported the last time I wrote have continued. The group of 30 found near a small hospital at Ramallah were fired at and five of them were left to bleed to death; their corpses were found the next day. Others, including the injured, were taken in by Israeli forces. We constantly hear of hundreds of people taken in buses to nearby settlements. The "classic reception" for detainees (the number of those arrested, indeed, has been increasing exponentially) is to strip them and keep them completely naked and blindfolded outdoors for days, exposed to rain and cold (the temperature in Ramallah ranges from seven to 10 degrees C.), with neither food nor water, while periodically terrorising them by fierce dogs and sound bombs; the latter affect hearing ability and can cause long-term injury, not to mention the psychological trauma of the noise. The aforementioned group were in this state for four days.
The hunt for such detainees has not stopped. The "visits" the Israeli forces periodically pay us recall armed robberies more than anything else. My own close neighbours recently had one such visit and told me about it. They start by lining up everyone in the house against the wall in only one room, then they plunder the rest of the house, consuming food while there and divesting kitchens of precious food reserves as well as taking jewelry, electric appliances and computer hardware. And they break the glass, destroying furniture and utensils. Two of my neighbours suffer from heart troubles, and the first thing their visitors did when they found out about their sickness was to locate their medicine, bring it out and destroy it before their eyes. With the siege continuing, nobody has access to food or medication; this was the last of their supplies. Happily I have not been visited yet.
Today they lifted the curfew for two hours, though nobody was told. Most people did not know about it, but when I noticed movement in the street I thought I would go with the flow. After five days' imprisonment, it was a relief to use my feet.
My two daughters and I decided to go and donate blood at the Ramallah Hospital. On the way we came across so many tanks blocking streets we could hardly recognise the city centre, which was completely devastated, the ruins of a place. Buildings, sidewalks, even monuments were all destroyed. I started to cry, I couldn't help it. My daughter yelled at me, threatening to take me home if I did not stop. On reaching the hospital we noticed the snipers on top of the highest buildings around the Qadora Refugee Camp. They started to shoot and we scuttled in terror. We had been told that they shot people at random; a 14-year-old boy on his way to buy some bread had been wounded. We decided to keep going anyway. When we reached the blood bank, however, nobody was there; they had gone to bury the corpses of 25 Palestinians -- in the parking lot adjoining the hospital, the parking lot!
It was raining heavily when we joined some young people digging a hole in the ground. They laid out wooden planks for the bodies and covered them with blankets. The digging had barely been finished when they realised they had to dig another hole for the bodies of three dead women. They picked up the shovels again, and while waiting we heard many stories about the dead. One of the women had arrived at the hospital in the morning to have the cast on her leg removed: on her way back she was shot dead by one of the snipers near the hospital. It was beyond her to conceive of such young men shooting at an old, limping woman, but she had no time to realise she was mistaken. We heard many stories about the second son to fall in the same family since the start of the uprising.
We heard stories about photographers and medical staff on their way to provide medical care to those caught up in the Preventative Security Building (the building was in flames, 400 people including 60 women staff with their children were inside) and how the Israeli army stopped the medical team, ordered them to take off their clothes, throwing them in the muddy rain water, and made them retrace their steps on foot, confiscating vehicles and cameras. I heard one of the doctors, who was present during the burial, saying, "I never realised how humiliating it is to walk naked, in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold -- and all because you were trying to perform a simple humanitarian act."
The corpses began to arrive, and before being transported to their temporary graves a woman arrived and began to remove the shrouds in an attempt to locate her son. Another woman was looking for her husband when one of her children cried, "Here it is, I can read the name on this bag!" At this moment I collapsed in tears, but almost involuntarily I began to shout slogans at the same time: Berroh, beddam nefdeeki ya Filistin. And all the women around me were shouting, too, and screaming, their faces covered in tears. One woman became hysterical while shouting, Barra ya Sharon barra (Out, Sharon, Get Out), collapsing within minutes.
On our way out a woman arrived in a car with her son, looking for her other son, whose corpse was about to be lowered into a collective grave. They wanted to take the body but others objected that he should stay with his fellows. Puzzled, the brother did not know what to do or say. But the mother pulled the corpse to herself, intoning, "Let me hug him first," went in the car, placed the body on her lap and told the brother, "Let's take him home for a while." It was hair-raising, I was blinded by my tears.
On my way back home in the car of a friend she began to tell me how our mutual friend Salwa, a gynaecologist, had helped women who were in labour give birth by phone, giving them instructions through the receiver. One woman became hysterical when Salwa instructed her to cut the umbilical chord, but Salwa comforted her.
I arrived home very exhausted. I had not managed to buy anything, of course: most shopkeepers are from the surrounding villages and they are not allowed to enter Ramallah. Since most of the shops were closed, I wanted to know why they let people out if they knew they wouldn't be able to acquire any provisions. My friend explained that they let us out so that we could bury our dead. Otherwise, she said, they might turn into a health hazard; they had started to smell.
I felt tired, frustrated, humiliated, helpless and enraged. Noticing my state, a child staying with us at home tried to comfort me by saying that if he could guarantee killing at least 20 Israeli soldiers, he would blow himself up in a public place. Horrified, tears streaming down my cheeks again, I told him that we want to live, we love life and we have to defeat death. When he asked, "But do we really have the option?" however, I could not think of a satisfactory answer to the question.
I switched on the television. Sharon's face appeared before me. He was saying, "Yes, but we have our conditions. He can go out but he will never come back; it is a one way ticket." Journalists were laughing and Israeli commentators made the point that all this show of power was intended to eliminate an entire phase of Palestinian national history, to wipe out a national elite. All the leaders of the last decade: the Israelis want them out; and the only question is where to -- Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon? They have yet to decide.
The images from the Arab world were equally heart- breaking. Why do people have to be beaten up for their solidarity with the Palestinians? Again Israeli television was triumphantly declaring, "Didn't we tell you their opinion doesn't count? Look at their citizens, they do not even have freedom of speech. Look how they are treated. Palestinians living in Israel should pray day and night in thanks for Israel's tolerance and democracy." I decided not to watch television, I decided to write to you instead.
You can do your bit, you can't begin to imagine how much your solidarity boosts the morale, soothing anger and appeasing frustration. Protesting with a clearly defined set of demands is very important. A growing number of organised protests on the part of engineers, lawyers, doctors and students, for example, might give rise to the expulsion of Israeli ambassadors from Arab capitals. Making contact with sympathetic groups in America and Europe, urging to impose sanctions on Israel, is equally important.
In a recent statement the former Israeli member of parliament Sholamit Alloni said that in order for them to be equal to the Nazis regarding their treatment of Jews, all the Israelis have to do is place the Palestinians in gas chambers.
For your part, friends, you should urge writers, artists and others to voice their opinion. You should make appeals, respond to pro-Israeli articles on the Internet, criticise CNN, criticise the International Red Cross; for it is impossible for such an organisation to accept the occupation, giving in to it like that. You should try to exercise pressure on such international organisations to adopt an unequivocal position and to be vocal about the treatment they receive from Israelis. I have contacted the Red Cross a number of times on matters of terrible urgency: to protect those besieged in hiding to avoid summary executions, to provide one of my neighbours with life-saving oxygen, to provide me with cooking gas -- I need to feed my family -- and to help a woman bury her mother 15 hours after the latter's death. Every time they gave me the same answer: "We are not allowed to move through the places you indicate, which have been declared military zones." Yet if they are unable to move or provide help, why are they there in the first place? Why can't they speak out against curfews and such policies?
It is also very important to create links between school students and their counterparts here, it is very important to heighten their political awareness...
The shooting seems to be intensifying -- I hope they haven't sited another group of Palestinian security -- and since there is a very real danger in staying before my computer, I must leave you now.
Islah Jad
Egyptian academic
Birzeit University
Hello all -- Evidence is mounting that the Israeli Army is stealing people's belongings as they search homes. Even the very precious stores of foods that remain in Ramallah are being plundered. We have been hearing about this since the beginning of this occupation on Friday 29 March, 2002. It took some time for the picture to develop clearly. Here is what they do: they enter to search a home, place all family members in one room, search and leave. When they leave, family members come out of their room and realise that their belongings are missing. Examples:
1. Stealing money, equipment and other items, and eating people's food. Saturday 30 March, 10am right behind the Muqata'a in Al-Bireh: "They broke everything when they came in, and stole as well... we are merchants and have money at home always. They stole all the money we have, lots of money, at least US$25,000, and also batteries, three mobile phones and expensive watches. It is crazy, but they also stole our prayer rugs and Qur'an!" At around 11am the same day: "They came in, placed us all in one room, searched the house, and when we went out we realized that the following was missing: US$3,000, NIS1,800, pens, a watch, a video camera battery, brand new in its box... they left the box, and took also my 050 (Israeli) mobile phone." At around 12 of the same day: "When they left I went to see if they took anything, as we have been hearing about this... they stole my two diamond rings, my gold, my money, US$1,000 and 1,000 Jordanian dinars, three watches, a video camera and two ordinary cameras, they even stole the precious US$800 that the Sri Lankan maid has been saving to get back home." At around 1pm in the same area: "They searched and stole my money, NIS 23,000 that I kept for emergencies... I realised this quickly and came out running after them and told the commander. He told me he would get back to me. Instead, they ran over my BMW car, parked right outside the house, and then burned it. It seems that this was done because I complained." And in an apartment near the Ramallah Municipality, on 1 April around 4pm: "After the search, I discovered that NIS 800 and 60 Jordanian dinars I had kept in a drawer were missing. They had broken the drawer which was locked, to get to the money. At the neighbours, they stole a camera, and ate their cake." And I have more documentation like this, with exact times, dates and places, and what was stolen, but names of people have been withheld for obvious reasons.
2. Plundering Ramallah's remaining and by now precious food supplies. Report of stolen food items from the biggest food supermarket in Ramallah, situated close to Masioun, between Masioun and Imm Al-Sharayet on Monday, 1 April, midday: "I live close to Max Supermarket. I saw all that happened. The tank came and broke the front door, then they closed the other door, went in, and broke another door. Then they exploded the safe, obviously to steal the money inside. This is the proof that they were after money: computers and offices all went in the process. Also the special store for special foods was destroyed. The safe did not open though. We heard everything. Our neighbours said that they had two APCs full of soldiers with them, and they began to load in food items. They took them away and came back, filled up with food again and left. Later, we went and saw how it was, the destruction and the loss of food. Two APCs were loaded with food." When we raise this issue, apparently the Israeli army claims that these are exceptional and isolated cases of individual actions and not army policy. The story on the ground however reveals that these actions are quite systematic, and have occurred elsewhere and everywhere, as in Balata Camp for instance around a month ago, and can only be interpreted in one of the following ways:
1. That the army has given the go-ahead to soldiers to steal and pilfer;
2. That the army has not, but is turning a blind eye, perhaps as compensation for soldiers doing a "dirty and dangerous job;"
3. That the army's higher echelons have not given these orders but that they have lost control, a most dangerous realisation and contrary to Israeli army claims of discipline and strict control of the so-called Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
Rita
Ramallah
JENIN
6 April
SOS calls from the Jenin Refugee camp! The camp, one square km, home to approximately 15,000 people, is being attacked by air and land. Contacts in Jenin report heavy black smoke rising from inside the camp. Friends inside the camp are reporting heavy bombardment by tanks and helicopter gunships. Bulldozers have also been brought into the camp and are demolishing homes to make way for tanks to enter the narrow streets of the camp.
"We have no electricity and no water. Our water tanks have been destroyed due to the intensity of the Israeli bombardment. Our wives are crying, our kids are screaming. There is no television to distract them. All they are hearing is the explosions all around them. Where is the conscience of the world when we are being massacred and no one is intervening to stop it?" Jamal Abu Al-Haije, resident of Jenin Camp said.
Dr Ali Jabareen of the Jenin Hospital reports that they need help reaching the injured and dead. People are left bleeding on the streets while others are being buried under the rubble of their homes. No idea how many people are dead. The hospital ambulances are not being allowed to move. UNRWA and the International Committee of the Red Cross are unable to function. Is there anyone to help?
To contact Dr Ali Jabareen,
Call: +972-4-250-2653/4
RAMALLAH
8 April
Dear all -- We are still under curfew. Lois corrects me: we are being held hostage by a few army snipers -- perched on top of most tall buildings in the heart of the city and in its neighborhoods, programmed to shoot at anything that moves -- and by a few tanks and APCs menacingly placed in visible locations in the city, as we could observe yesterday afternoon when they let us out for a few hours.
The nearly 80,000 inhabitants of the twin cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh are hostages. And as is true of all hostages, we are hanging on information, accurate and reliable information. We have become very sensitive to lies, which abound, and to misinformation. We spend a great deal of time sifting the information we are fed; this is our lifeline, and therein lies our vulnerability.
Blackouts on reporting and attacks on foreign journalists and media coverage affect us tremendously. The Israeli army are a very experienced occupation army and they know that by attacking foreign media they are not only covering up the horrors they are committing against our people, but breaking us psychologically. The sources for our local news have been completely eliminated, or forced to stop. Our three local private TV stations were taken over by the invading army the first day of reoccupation. We lost a valuable source of vital community information.
We had three daily newspapers, two were based and produced in Ramallah and one in Jerusalem. The two Ramallah dailies (Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah) cannot be produced, and the Jerusalem daily (Al-Quds) cannot reach us. Being hostages under siege, we are able to access or read none. We were forcefully deprived of our local anchor of information. We are confused about vital local information; we have no way of verifying it except by word of mouth. Yesterday, for example, it was rumored that we changed to daylight saving time, following Israel. However, today there is a debate about the topic: did we or did we not change time?
There is no address where we can check this; not that it matters much. For it seems time has stopped altogether. It could have mattered yesterday, when they lifted the curfew from 1 to 5pm; it could have made a difference in our lives, since we weren't sure when 1pm would be. Some even jumped the gun, as it were, and sped to town at 12 noon!
The news in English is vitally important to me (Lois). I have to depend on Khalil to translate the Arabic news, and he has never been eager to do this. It feels like he gives me little drops only. I watch the photos on the Arabic channels, and then try to match the story to words from CNN and BBC. This time I feel CNN is doing a fuller job of reporting. CNN is one of the media that is experiencing repeated intimidation from the Israeli army.
This morning, Ben Wedeman described Bethlehem during a short break from curfew of people trying to get food. We were luckier than Bethlehem yesterday: there were lots of potatoes and bananas for sale. My friend in Bethlehem wasn't able to get anything. No food in the stores near her home. Reporting from Bethlehem, Ben Wedeman said the journalists feel like tourists in Hell! He said the Israeli army said that this is a war against armed Palestinians. We have yet to see in the six days we have been here, he concluded, one person with a gun. A paltry number of guns was displayed by Israeli army media to demonstrate the success of this mission in Ramallah. Most of the guns were from our police who were allowed to have guns, according to the Oslo Accords.
Try to imagine how I feel when I hear a story on TV this morning about Israeli young people in a nightclub full of people in Tel Aviv. They said we can't stay in our homes all day and night. We want to dance and have a good time -- the problems are far away from here. Contrast to what our young people's lives are like. More poignantly, for 10 days we have been kept hostages in our homes, in our West Bank towns, while the army destroys everything around us.
This morning, on Israeli, television they interviewed an Israeli photojournalist who went to a checkpoint by Jenin last night to check things out. Although he identified himself as an Israeli journalist, he was beaten up by an army officer, whose rank he could not determine because it was all too fast. Israel says it is protecting journalists by preventing them from going into the areas of army activity. All journalists so far have been directly put in danger by the Israeli army. Only last night, CNN's Q&A subject was closed military zones and censorship. Jim Clancey asked the Israeli media spokesman: "What is Israel hiding?" He answered, "I don't understand the question." Q&A responded "It's not so deep. What's Israel hiding?" It is ironic that today is Holocaust Remembrance Day and they sounded the siren here to us also. What are we to think? I think it is a siren to remember the incredible cost Palestinians have paid all these years!
Lois and Khalil
Ramallah
NABLUS
9 April
Two or three days ago we reported that in downtown Nablus three injured people were unable to be moved and were prevented from receiving medical care. Israeli troops today handed three bodies over to the Palestinians -- victims of this barbaric Israeli policy.
The crisis in the reoccupied towns in the West Bank is worsening. "We are witnessing a disaster," Dr Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and director of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP), said after talking to a field doctor in the besieged city of Nablus.
All ambulances are completely paralysed, he explained, and there has been an urgent request for help in the Yasmin neighbourhood, as the area was attacked and shelled all night with people being used as human shields. This morning the Red Cross arranged with the Israeli military authorities to allow the movement of four ambulances -- two Red Crescent, one from Medical Relief and one from the UN. However as the ambulances were moving, Israeli soldiers opened fire on them, destroying the engine of the UN ambulance.
The medical staffs were then removed from the ambulance -- all of them -- then had their identification cards confiscated and were ordered to return to the hospitals and not move again. This brings the total number of times ambulances have been shot at in the latest Israeli violence in Nablus to eight. Thus far 39 people are reported to have died -- but we cannot confirm this number because many of the injured may have died by now due to lack of medical treatment, and also because no one can get out and find the bodies. Additionally hundreds of people are known to have been injured in the attacks, many of them may die due to lack of medical care.
Later Dr Barghouti held a press conference by telephone, in which he gave a detailed description of the Israeli violations of health conventions on prohibiting medical provision. He reiterated that, since 29 March, the beginning of the latest Israeli military campaign in Palestinian territories, the number of Palestinians killed has reached 250.
The total number of those killed since the beginning of the present Intifada has exceeded 1,500, and the number of those injured has reached 33,000. The abuses of the past ten days can be categorised in the framework of five main themes:
-Prevention of medical treatment for the sick and wounded
-Attacks on medical personnel
-Attacks on medical infrastructure
-Attacks on utilities and related environmental problems
-Total destruction of the infrastructure
Prevention of medical treatment:
Israel has systematically prohibited the provision of medical services in order to paralyse the health system and the ability of ambulances to function, aiming to increase the number of dead people by leaving the injured unattended till they bleed to death.
In Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem, and Ramallah dozens of injured people were left unattended as medical teams were prohibited from reaching them; they were left to die.
Conditions in the field hospital set up by UPMRC in the Old City of Nablus in Al-Baik Mosque are dire. There are 68 injured, 10 of whom are in a very critical condition, in addition to 16 corpses of people who died due to the prevention of necessary medical treatment. For three days the Israeli army has not allowed medical aid to reach the field hospital, nor has the transfer of patients to the hospital been permitted. The field hospital currently lacks the basic medical facilities.
Preventing medical treatment also affects pregnant women, dialysis patients and cancer patients who need regular and immediate care. An average of two Palestinians are struck by heart attacks each hour. Many of these patients die since movement between various Palestinian cities and towns is impossible due to Israeli aggression. Halima Al-Atrash, 40 years old, from the village of Al-Walajeh near Bethlehem, was delayed for more than one hour at the checkpoint on her way to hospital to give birth. Due to this delay, her baby died.
Attacks on medical personnel:
The Israeli army has systematically targeted medical teams. The number of Israeli violations against medical teams, ambulances and hospitals has reached 100.
The Israeli army attacked the Arab Care Hospital in Ramallah and searched it using police dogs. They detained the medical staff for six hours, leaving the patients unattended.
The Red Crescent Hospital in Al-Baireh was also attacked and searched. Five members of the medical team were arrested, among them two doctors, two medical aid workers and one technician.
The Israeli army is using members of medical teams as human shields. For instance, Dr Mohamed Iskafi, the director of the emergency department at UPMRC was detained for four hours while carrying out his work. He was threatened with the bombing of the UPMRC office if he refused to act as a human shield while the soldiers searched houses in the area.
Three health workers in Nablus where subjected to the same treatment, used as human shields for three hours.
Attacks on medical infrastructure:
The main office of UPMRC in Ramallah was shelled by heavy machine guns. The Medical Relief center in Qalqiliya was occupied by the Israel army, used as a military post and severely damaged. Two days ago Israeli soldiers and snipers shot the water tanks on the roof of Al-Aatamad Hospital in Yatta. Ambulances have been fired at in all the towns that have been re- occupied, irrespective of their having permission from the Israeli authorities to travel or not.
Attacks on utilities:
In every town the Israeli forces have invaded, the water supply, electricity, sewerage, and telephone networks have been attacked, leaving hospitals and homes without water and electricity.
The collection of rubbish has also been halted. Adding to the damage of the sewage network, this will lead to serious environmental problems.
With the inability of ambulances to move comes the problem of the disposal of the dead. Currently hospitals are unable to bury the dead and hospital morgues are overflowing. Corpses await disposal in the hospitals of Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus. Some of the bodies have been buried in shallow graves on the grounds of the hospitals, but this is highly unsatisfactory and will lead to communicable infectious diseases.
Total destruction of infrastructure:
Buildings and roads have been destroyed.
A total 24-hour curfew has been imposed in all invaded areas; children are unable to attend school, and workers cannot go to work. The immediate result of this is an increase in the already high (50 percent) poverty rate, not to mention related nutritional and health problems . An already beleaguered economy is being further destroyed.
The Palestine Monitor,
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
For more information contact Juliana at the Palestine Monitor +972 (0)2 5834021 or +972 (0)2 5833510 www.palestinemonitor.org
ALL TOWNS
9 April
Is anyone going to force Israel to stop?!
Al-Khadra Mosque, the oldest mosque in Nablus, located at the southern entrance to the Old City, was destroyed last night by Israeli forces in their continued military assault on Palestinian towns and cities. Bombardment of the Old City and the Balata and Askar refugee camps by air and land continued throughout the night. Eye witnesses report at least three helicopter gunships currently hovering over the Balata refugee camp, firing missiles into these heavily populated civilian areas, and smoke rising from refugee homes on the edge of the camp.
11am: One three-storey house on the southern edge of the Balata refugee camp is currently on fire. It is not known exactly how many men, women and children are inside. For more information please call: Abdel-Salam on +972-52-777-663, Jenin
Contacts in the Jenin Camp report aerial bombardment throughout the night. Residents of the refugee camp are still without electricity and water. Food is urgently needed. Bulldozers continue to demolish houses to make way for tanks to enter the camp.
Dr Ali Jabareen of the main hospital in Jenin reports that their ambulances are still unable to move. He estimates that there are approximately 30 people dead in the Jenin refugee camp; this is an estimate based on phone calls they are receiving. They are still denied access to the wounded and the dead. "People are still lying on the streets and under the rubble of their homes. All we're asking is that our medical relief and rescue apparatus be allowed to operate. We can't move."
In Ramallah, 25 foreign civilians remain in the presidential compound. Last night they reported unprovoked Israeli fire on the compound (no Palestinian return fire) and two tanks stationed within five metres of the doors of the compound.
One Palestinian security guard had to be evacuated yesterday due to medical conditions, but was immediately arrested by Israeli soldiers.
The internationals report no running water, very bad hygienic conditions, very little food, and a desperate need for medical supplies that the Israeli forces are not allowing to be delivered. They reiterate their calls for immediate international intervention.
The internationals have phones inside the compounds but it's very difficult to get a connection.
If you are a journalist, you can try the following numbers: +972-55-559-145; +972-59-567-800; +972-59-875-343; or +972-59-385-257
Ramallah and Bethlehem are still under curfew. No one is moving in the streets. You can hear random explosions and sporadic tank and machine gun fire but it is hard to know what is being hit. A couple of ambulances are still trying to respond to emergency calls but they are constantly being stopped and detained by Israeli soldiers. One UPMRC ambulance in Ramallah had its windows shot through by Israeli forces yesterday. There is an urgent need for water everywhere.
For more information contact:
Huwaida: +972-52-642-709
Adam: +972-52-481-261
Or for more numbers and information: www.jerusalem.indymedia.org
RAMAT HASHARON
10 April
Dear All -- Now we can all watch the horrors we were being informed of live on CNN and not only Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi. Even the Israeli TV and Radio confirm the huge number of dead in Jenin and Nablus -- more than a 100 people -- and nobody knows the real figures. Buildings are being razed and demolished and nobody knows the real number of people buried beneath the rubble.
The fighting continues -- wounded people are not being evacuated -- the horrors are superseding our worst nightmares. Following all the updates concerning these and other War Crimes and atrocities committed by the IDF, we cannot be silent. We must raise our voices as individuals, today more than any other day.
Please do write your personal protest letters to addresses provided immediately.
Yehudith Harel
Israel
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Invasion 4 -10 April 2002
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