The masters' deadly message

By Khaled Amayreh
Seeking to cripple the Al-Aqsa Intifada and break the Palestinians' spirit, the Israeli occupation army kept up its bloody repression of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In so doing, it increased the number of casualties among ordinary people, some of whom were making their way through the areas or simply sitting in the privacy of their homes.
On 5 January, Israeli troops stationed at the small settlement of Haggay south of Hebron opened fire with heavy machine-guns on the adjacent Dahiya neighbourhood, killing Arij Al-Jabali, 19, and seriously injuring her brother's wife, who was sitting next to her.
Sources at the Alya hospital in Hebron told Al-Ahram Weekly that a single bullet penetrated Arij's chest, exiting through her upper back before wounding another woman in the stomach.
According to Palestinian sources, shots had been fired at the settlement by a local collaborator who later confessed to having acted on instructions of the secret Israeli security service, Shin Bet.
If true, the incident shows that the Israeli army is fabricating pretexts to kill Palestinians, irrespective of whether they are Intifada activists, the sources added.
Admitting its guilt, the Israeli army three days later said that the shooting was unprovoked and promised to launch an investigation -- a routine statement for which there is seldom any follow-up.
Earlier that same day, the Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian man, identified as Mohamed Abu Hasira, near the Salahuddin border-gate at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army claimed that Abu Hasira, who is physically handicapped, was trying to break through the electric fence encircling the strip. Palestinians stressed that the man's goal was to enter Israel in order to work and thus escape Gaza's abject poverty and virtual economic meltdown.
Two days earlier, on 2 January, Israeli troops and settlers killed a 51-year-old Palestinian farmer named Sabri Khader who was harvesting potatoes at his farm in Beit Lahya, north of Gaza. The victim's brother, who was with him at the time, said, "We were only picking potatoes, and those killers came and started shooting at us. I don't know why, we didn't hurt anybody. We were only working to feed our kids. May God's curse them."
As the killing continued unabated, 7 January witnessed the death of Fatima Jamal Abu Jaish, a nurse at the Rafidiya hospital in Nablus, who was killed instantly when Israeli soldiers opened fire on the taxi she was riding in near her village of Beit Dajan. The taxi was travelling along a rugged and perilous mountain road, hastily opened by desperate villagers to allow them to move between Palestinian towns and villages, since the main roads are firmly sealed either by roadblocks manned by settlers or the army, or simply blocked by huge piles of earth.
The taxi driver, who narrowly escaped what seemed to be an inevitable death, reasoned that the soldiers' violent response was their way of reminding Palestinians that Israel was determined to control their every move. "Their message was 'don't try to outsmart us, we are the masters and you are the slaves,'" he said.
On the same day, Abdel-Hamed El-Kharti, 38, from the El-Mighraka neighbourhood of Gaza City, was killed during an Israeli raid on the area during which Israeli soldiers reportedly beat residents and vandalised their property. El-Kharti, whose body was riddled with bullets, was mentally handicapped.
Another particularly gruesome shooting took place near Hebron also on 7 January when Israeli soldiers manning a roadblock near the village of Halhul, just outside Hebron, shot a Palestinian boy, identified as Khaled Ghanem, reportedly after he was arrested and handcuffed. According to eyewitnesses, the boy sustained a serious injury to one of his legs, which doctors later said might have to be amputated.
The Israeli authorities sought to extenuate the ugliness of the crime, saying the boy was associated with the Fatah movement, which leads the current Palestinian Intifada.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation authorities continued their assault on the Palestinian economy by isolating Palestinian towns from each other and preventing them from importing or exporting even the most innocuous goods. Since the outbreak of the Intifada a hundred days ago, the Israelis have deliberately refused to allow Palestinian merchants and businessmen to collect shipments of imported goods, some of which are stored in Israeli warehouses, apparently to run up storage fees and thus inflict further losses.
Even goods donated as relief by Arab and Muslim countries and international sympathisers have been refused entry since all border crossings to the self-rule areas are sealed by direct order from Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Palestinian sources said both Egyptian and Jordanian authorities tried to persuade Israel to allow humanitarian aid, which includes perishable foodstuffs, entry into Palestinian areas. Their efforts, however, were to no avail. Another potentially disastrous Israeli measure taken against the Palestinian self-rule areas, especially the Gaza Strip, has been the Israeli army's refusal to allow Palestinian municipal authorities to dispose of thousands of tons of garbage at dumps located in areas under the control of the Israeli army.
This, says Palestinian Authority Environment Minister Youssef Abu Safiyyeh, will lead to disaster if the army blockade on Gaza's towns and villages is not lifted soon. "I can tell you that the possibilities of an environmental crisis and the outbreak of an epidemic in Gaza are real. This is not a political statement, it is a statement of fact."
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Grief overshadows holiday season 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
The war of the roads 21 - 27 December 2000
See Intifada in focus
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