No room at the morgue

Israel's army destroyed Ramallah and murdered scores of Palestinians in cold blood. Khaled Dawoud reports from the occupied city
In an operation clearly aimed at taking revenge on the whole Palestinian population, and not just the besieged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Israel's army occupied Ramallah and transformed it into a war zone.
Hundreds of tanks rolled into a tranquil Ramallah at 3am on Friday. The army destroyed roads, traffic lights, water pipes, electricity and telephone cables. Tanks indifferently crushed cars parked on the streets and turned them over to block the roads. The Israelis then imposed a curfew on the entire population of 25,000 people. Palestinians were confined to their homes, and prevented from buying their most basic needs. The curfew was lifted for only two hours on Tuesday.
For several days, more than 25 bodies were piled up in Ramallah's main hospital morgue because the occupation forces had prevented their burial. The majority of the corpses were of civilians including one woman, who was the first victim of the Israeli operation, and a number of Palestinian policemen who were shot dead while defending Arafat's headquarters. Because of the lack of space, two bodies were crammed into each drawer in the morgue's refrigerator. In a larger refrigerator, where martyrs fill all the drawers, a few bodies lay on the ground. Doctors said that they had no more space. Israel allowed their burial in a common grave on Tuesday.
On Monday, an ambulance arrived with the body of a Palestinian, stripped of his clothes and shot in the back of his head and in several parts of his body. "The (Israeli) soldiers came to us and threw the martyr's body at the entrance of our building," said the ambulance worker at the Palestinian Relief Committee. "I asked one of them for his ID, but he told me to shut up or he would do the same to me."
At Arafat's headquarters, Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers destroyed eight buildings out of ten in the presidential compound. On Monday, the army then declared the surrounding area a closed military zone, dug trenches and prevented reporters from reaching the scene. A day earlier, nearly 30 peace activists -- Europeans, Americans and an Israeli -- marched towards Arafat's office. Ignoring Israeli gun shots, they entered the two rooms of Arafat's headquarters that remain unoccupied by Israeli forces, and where Arafat, along with a handful of guards, is confined.
Jose Bove, a well-known French activist, headed the group. He told reporters that he would try to bring more people to stay with Arafat. But the Israeli army arrested the activists who came out of the compound, forcibly took them to Jerusalem and ordered their deportation. "President Arafat is very defiant," Bove told Al-Ahram Weekly. "He told us he will never surrender or negotiate under these conditions, and that if he were to die, he would die with his men."
Emad Atshan, who lives a short stretch away from Arafat's headquarters, said Israel's shelling of the compound during the first two days of the invasion was horrific. "It was as if a gardener was watering his plants with tank shells and bullets," he said. Atshan, like the rest of Ramallah residents, has been confined to his house for days, but he took the opportunity provided by the presence of journalists, to walk out of the building. Rima, his seven year old daughter, said they had run out of milk and that she could not get medicine to treat her cough. "I am afraid they will take over our house and arrest my father. I hate Israel," she told the Weekly.
But the greatest atrocities were committed around Manara square in downtown Ramallah. Israeli soldiers conducted a house-to-house search looking for armed men and members of the Palestinian Authority's police. Even hospitals were not spared the onslaught. The Arab Care Hospital was raided on Sunday. For five hours, all the doctors and nurses were locked in one room, while the soldiers searched the rooms and interrogated a few wounded men, whom they suspected were members of Palestinian police.
The uniformed bodies of five Palestinian policemen were found lying next to each other in one building, on the first day of the invasion. Doctors at the hospital were certain the men had been executed. The Israeli army denied the report, saying the men must have been killed in an exchange of fire. But reporters who went into the building shortly after it was evacuated by Israeli troops found no weapons next to the bodies or any signs of resistance. One corpse had a gaping hole in his forehead.
A similar incident took place next to the Islamic Club in Ramallah's old town on Sunday. First reports suggested that 30 men were shot dead. But Israeli soldiers handed over only two bodies to the Palestinian ambulance service whilst refusing to let them pick up any of the wounded. "They told us they took the wounded to hospitals themselves," said Diana Hussein, a Palestinian nurse who risks her life daily by moving around in an ambulance car. "We are humiliated every minute we travel the streets. The soldiers stop us constantly, search the vehicle regardless of the condition of the patients and force us to take long routes," she said.
Monday and Tuesday, however, were the worst days for the shelling of civilian Palestinian buildings and security headquarters. While driving with a group of foreign reporters in downtown Ramallah, this reporter was caught in a crossfire and forced to seek shelter at the entrance of a building. As the firing quieted down, we tried to return to our hotel, but were ordered by Israeli soldiers to stop and get out of the car.
As we watched, soldiers forced at least 20 Palestinian men, some in military fatigue, to kneel on the ground facing the wall. Each man was forced to strip to ensure that he carried no bombs. He was then blindfolded, handcuffed and led off to an unknown destination.
Seven hundred Ramallah residents have been arrested since the beginning of the invasion, according to Palestinian sources. European peace activists nearby accused the soldiers of violating basic human rights and international agreements. "They are shooting at us, Madam," one soldier told an Italian peace activist in an American accent. "And you are not coming here to hand them sweets and biscuits," she replied. The soldiers ignored the activists, continued to evacuate the few remaining women and children, and then, for no apparent reason, started shelling the building with tank fire. We were again trapped in the crossfire, and had to lie on the ground for more than two hours until the Israeli soldiers were satisfied with their handiwork.
Loud speakers ordered all men aged between 16 and 45 to assemble at the main mosque in Beereh on Monday. The men were stripped and forced to wait for hours whilst soldiers checked their identities. "We are making sure they are not terrorists," said the Israeli officer in charge. "We are going to give them biscuits and water. I know that many of these people are innocent, but we have to do it so our people can board the buses safely," he explained.
Journalists have also been casualties of this war. On the first day of the invasion, Karlos Hanza, working for Egypt's Nile News Channel, was shot in his lower jaw while driving his clearly marked press car. Anthony Shedid, an American journalist, was inexplicably shot from behind in his shoulder as he returned from Arafat's compound on Sunday. "My jacket was marked TV on the back," Shedid said. He was transferred to Jerusalem on Monday before flying back home.
On Tuesday, reporters woke up in Ramallah to heavy tank shelling and helicopters. The Preventive Security headquarters, headed by Jabril Rajoub, in the nearby town of Beitunia was being obliterated by the Israelis. More than 400 people, including many civilians, were reportedly trapped inside. Israeli troops prevented ambulances from reaching the building. Rajoub is known for his close cooperation with CIA, and his security body has reportedly prevented scores of martyrdom attacks against Israeli targets. But Israel insisted there were wanted men inside the compound.
Later, armoured personnel carriers stopped by the hotel and trained their guns at any reporter who tried to look out of the window. Reporters were told they had to stay inside. Those who tried to leave were immediately arrested, forced on to the ground and strip-searched before being return safely to the hotel.
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