Sweet tooth for slaughter

By Khaled Amayreh
A renewed torrent of bloodshed erupted in Palestine on 12 January when, after a few days of relative calm, Israeli troops in Hebron brutally murdered a young Palestinian who, they claimed, had been seen carrying a pistol.
Eyewitnesses said a number of Israeli soldiers penetrated several hundred metres into the Palestinian Authority (PA)-administered part of Hebron at Shallala Street, and shot at point-blank range 22-year-old Faisal Shaker Husseini, who was taking part in a demonstration in support of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Palestine.
The soldiers reportedly shot four bullets in Husseini's head and chest, then dragged him more than two hundred metres to a settler outpost in Hebron's old quarter. There, the soldiers refused to let Palestinians take the dying man to hospital or even administer first aid. Witnesses say Husseini bled to death as the apparently gleeful soldiers posed smiling for the camera, while jubilant Jewish settlers brought in sweets to celebrate the killing of the Arab.
The murder of Husseini drew widespread indignation throughout the occupied territories, and at his funeral procession two days later thousands of mourners shouted for revenge.
Even PA President Yasser Arafat who usually keeps himself detached from the Intifada's daily events, demanded an apology for the murder at his three-hour meeting with Shimon Peres in Gaza on 14 January.
Peres, however, who has never apologised for the more heinous massacre at Qana in southern Lebanon in the spring of 1996, when he briefly assumed the premiership following Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, prevaricated and essentially repeated the routine statement issued when Palestinians are murdered in such circumstances, namely that the soldiers opened fire in self-defence.
During the funeral one masked man, carrying a rifle, said: "The enemy will continue to kill us if that costs them nothing, so we have to make them pay the price and feel the pain."
The Palestinian retaliation came swiftly, on 15 January, near the settlement of Navi Dekalim outside Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. There Palestinian guerrillas killed a Jewish settler near the protective electric fence surrounding the settlement.
The killing of the settler, the circumstances of which are still not fully known, was preceded by heavy Israeli bombardment of Palestinian civilian neighbourhoods in Khan Younis and rocket-firing at a Palestinian outpost, which miraculously inflicted few casualties.
Following the settler's death, Jewish settlers, who since the outbreak of the Intifada on 28 September have murdered some 10 Palestinian farmers in the area where the settler's body was found, went on the rampage as never before. Escorted and protected by the Israeli army, about 500 settlers attacked defenceless Palestinian civilians and set fire to their homes, cars and greenhouses. The rioting continued for more than four hours.
When the Israeli army commander in Khan Younis was asked why he had not tried to put a stop to the settlers' violence, he replied: "It is imperative that we allow them to vent their anger and frustration."
Asked again if he would allow Palestinians to vent their frustration on Jews in similar circumstances, the Israeli commander said: "I am here to protect Jewish lives."
In addition to condoning the widespread rampage and vandalism, the Israeli army cut off Gaza from the outside world, reintroduced roadblocks throughout the Strip, and closed down Gaza airport less than three days after it had been partially reopened.
The draconian measures were not confined to the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, the Israeli occupation army besieged and raided several Palestinian villages in the Nablus area, often beating civilians and smashing their property, particularly electric appliances, apparently with the purpose of inflicting psychological pain as well as economic loss.
At the village of Salim, near Nablus, the occupation army sought to "confine the population each in his cage," quoting the words of an Israeli army officer. The curfew was too much for the people of Salim, who are tired of the humiliation and provocation of Israeli soldiers and settlers alike. The villagers decided to ignore the army orders to stay indoors "indefinitely", as a military jeep's loudspeaker continuously barked.
Affronted by the challenge, the soldiers soon pulled at their triggers, killing 21-year old Madhi Shehadeh Eshtayyeh and injuring several other youngsters who had refused to heed the curfew. The occupation soldiers also took over the home of a nearby Palestinian family, claiming several shots had been fired from its direction during the previous night.
Meanwhile, on 15 January, the caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak claimed during a live interview with Qatari satellite television, Al-Jazira, that Israel was no longer an occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"We stopped being an occupying power several years ago when most Palestinians came under PA control," he said.
Barak's manifestly mendacious remarks drew angry responses from Palestinian leaders, who described his remarks as "brash lies from beginning to end."
The speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmed Qurei, asked: "If Palestinians were not being tormented by the Israelis, then what would force them to face the murderous bullets of the Israeli army?"
Islamist leader Hassan Youssef described Barak's claim as "somewhat amusing." "It is like placing people inside a cage, and then claiming they are free to move within it," he said.
In another development, scores of Palestinian informers working for Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, turned themselves in to PA security authorities. This unprecedented act came after PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Maddin gave the "collaborators," as they are known here, a 45-day grace period to surrender to the PA or face the "consequences of their treachery."
Abu Maddin promised that repentant collaborators would be tried before civilian courts and eventually be reintegrated into Palestinian society.
On 13 January, two Shin Bet agents, one in Gaza and the other in Nablus, were executed by a firing squad for their role in the assassination by the Israeli army of five Palestinian activists, including Ibrahim Bani Oudeh, an official of Hamas military wing in the Nablus area.
In addition to infiltrating resistance groups and helping the Israeli security establishment liquidate freedom fighters, collaborators are accused of routinely indulging in pornography, acts of rape, drug trafficking, and recruiting other collaborators. Israeli officials from right to left have denounced the PA campaign against Shin Bet agents as "inhuman and inconsistent with outstanding agreements."
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