Posted on 03/12/2002 8:37:09 AM PST by EddieB
Arafat Urges Resistance to Israel Raids
March 12, 2002 10:46 AM ET
By Wafa Amr
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinian leadership Tuesday urged refugees in a camp in Ramallah to resist Israeli occupation troops who seized the city in the biggest single operation in 17 months of violence.
It was the Palestinian Authority's first call to resistance in two weeks of raids on refugee camps in which hundreds of Palestinian men have been rounded up.
Witnesses said some 150 Israeli tanks entered Ramallah, the West Bank's commercial and political center, late Monday as well as the al-Am'ari camp and the nearby town of el-Bireh.
After tanks stormed into the camp, home to more than 8,000 refugees, the military ordered all males aged between 15 and 45 to gather in al-Am'ari's public square.
Instead, witnesses told Reuters, women and children took to the streets in defiance while the men stayed indoors.
The Palestinian leadership headed by President Yasser Arafat urged the men not to surrender.
"The leadership calls on the residents of the brave al-Am'ari refugee camp not to respond to the calls of the occupation troops to gather in some public places and to remain steadfast and to resist occupation," an official spokesman of the Palestinian Authority told Reuters.
Fierce gunbattles erupted around al-Am'ari and the Ramallah hospital, which was ringed with tanks. After hours of fierce gunbattles at al-Am'ari, Israeli soldiers entered houses in the squalid camp and arrested scores of men.
BLINDFOLDED, BOUND
Witnesses said the men were dragged, blindfolded and bound, toward tanks and sandbagged armored vehicles.
In similar raids earlier this week on camps in the northern West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Qalqilya, the Authority had ordered its policemen to surrender.
Television footage then showed hundreds of men gathered in squares blindfolded, and with their hands tied. Witnesses said Israeli troops wrote identification numbers on detainees' hands.
Arafat told Abu Dhabi television Monday that the Israeli army's conduct during the sweeps amounted to "new Nazi racism."
Tuesday, witnesses said, troops rounded up at least 170 Palestinians from Ramallah and nearby towns. Many of them too were taken, hands tied and blindfolded, to an army base.
Israeli troops killed four Palestinians and wounded at least seven in gunbattles, Palestinian officials and hospital sources said. Hospital sources said soldiers shot at ambulances trying to reach the wounded.
ARAFAT STAYS IN COMPOUND
Palestinian officials said Arafat remained in his Ramallah office receiving reports of the latest wave of Israeli attacks.
The army described the capture of Ramallah as a "methodical sweep" for militants and said it was under orders to keep its distance from Arafat's headquarters. At one point, Palestinian witnesses said, tanks were 20 yards from his compound.
"We are not acting against Chairman Arafat's offices or the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah," a senior Israeli military officer told a Jerusalem briefing Tuesday.
"We have forces all around Ramallah but we are keeping them away from Chairman Arafat's compound," said Colonel Gal Hirsch, chief of operations at the army's central command.
"We do not intend to attack the Palestinian Authority...we are attacking the terrorists," he said.
Israeli troops have concentrated recent raids on refugee camps which they claim are hotbeds of Palestinian militancy.
WATER PIPES DESTROYED
Witnesses at al-Am'ari said Israeli forces had destroyed the house of Wafa' Idrees, the Palestinian who blew herself up in a Jerusalem street in January, killing an elderly Israeli man. They said bulldozers had dug a trench in the main road out of Ramallah toward Jerusalem, destroying the city's water mains and flooding the streets for hours.
Nisreen Barakat said 13 tanks ringed their apartment building and soldiers herded 24 elderly men, women and babies into a small basement room without food, water, or electricity.
U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni is due back in the region this week to seek a truce in the 17-month-long conflict after by far the bloodiest fortnight so far. Palestinians doubt he can persuade Israel to end its offensive operations.
Arabs hiding behind skirts and squirts.
So you think the men should "play nice" and "Come Out, Come Out wherever you are..." ?
But I think it is hilarious - the myth of the valiant brave Palestinian "fighting" for his rights. This shows exactly what they are, cowards and disorganized in fighting as they are in their productive lives.
Is this true or just propaganda?
Cuz if it is:
Well damn it, why not just tatoo their wrists? Hmm?
Or do they use the more humane indelible ink now?
I see. So you are a humanitarian then? Or maybe an intellectual?
Well, that's my point. They are going to do it (no matter what you or I think), so Yes I would like them to commit sucide bombing in their own homes.
Bovine Feces, they broadcast a call to arms from every minnert every time. Why does western media lie to cover Arafats Arse? Makes no sense to me.
Every time the tanks go in, the Palestinian Authority "Police" are there, not arresting terrorists, because they ARE the terrorists.
Some one should tell them that spraying a tank with an AK47 does not hurt the guys inside, it just tends to piss them off. On second thought, forget it. Let them figure it out.
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