Posted on 03/30/2002 5:50:11 PM PST by Pokey78
The ambulancemen were carrying the first body out of the Cairo-Amman bank in the centre of Ramallah when I came across them.
His knees were doubled up in rigor mortis. One of the legs of his green parachute jumpsuit had been burned through to the skin by a round fired at such close quarters that the muzzle flash had ignited the fabric. A gaping wound was visible in his chest - also apparently from a burst of fire from close range. What killed him, however, was the gunshot to his temple.
A few minutes later, the paramedics brought the second body, that of a young man, also in Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit, Force 17.
Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue socks. The wounds that he had obviously been clutching when he died were also to his upper body. But what must have killed him, like his colleague, was a shot fired at close range to his temple that had demolished the back of his head.
The third body was of an older man, in his forties, grey-haired with a moustache. Someone had pulled his parachute suit above his head to hide the wound. When the stretcher-bearers put him down, the covering was pulled back. The wound was to the head.
What happened on the third floor of the Cairo-Amman bank at midnight on Friday during Israel's occupation of the Palestinian city of Ramallah can only be surmised. But in the few minutes after Israeli soldiers stormed the Palestinian position, five men were wounded and five men were put to death by the Israelis, each with a single coup de grace administered to the head or throat.
Maher Shalabi, bureau chief of Abu Dhabi television in Ramallah, was in his office in the same building when he heard several bursts of heavy shooting on the floors below. 'I heard heavy shooting; maybe it was an exchange of fire. But I believe this was an execution.'
Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator, added: 'They were executed in cold blood. This is a clear example of the collective execution policy adopted by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.'
According to local residents, the dead men were part of a large group of Palestinian policemen who had taken shelter in the building, which also houses the offices of the British council, when the Israeli army entered Ramallah.
The men had taken shelter in the foyer area on the third floor next to a dentist's surgery. Yesterday bullet holes spattered the walls and the floor was flecked with blood. On one wall were large splashes of blood. Elsewhere several bloody trails had been marked along the floor where someone had pulled the bodies towards the lift.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers entered the building after Palestinians opened fire from inside and threw a grenade at the force outside.
The coups des graces administered for these five men are a metaphor for what the Israeli incursion is hoping to achieve inside Ramallah. By isolating Arafat within his headquarters, Sharon hopes to decapitate the Palestinian Authority.
Yesterday, inside Arafat's compound, it was clear that, for all the claims of Ariel Sharon, Arafat was neither under threat nor under arrest. Arafat, simply, was surrounded by the Israelis.
As we approached the compound we could see the tanks and armoured personnel carriers ringing his sprawl of offices and barracks. On every side were soldiers taking positions and aiming their weapons.
Approaching closer the Israeli army tried to prevent us following a delegation from the Palestinian solidarity movement into the compound, led by José Bové, the French farmers leader and anti-globalisation protester.
In a surreal touch Bové and his colleagues had marched through the ruins of the town, even as fighting continued. With hands above their heads, and carrying palm fronds as Easter symbols of peace, they approached Arafat's compound with two columns of heavily armed Israeli infantry jogging the last few hundred metres behind.
Seeing Bové, who had marched through the town with a small group of fellow protesters bearing a tray of medicines for those still injured inside Arafat's compound, the soldiers relented and let us enter with him and approach the offices where Arafat was holed up.
Crossing a large car park we could see a three-storey block, its walls splattered with tank fire, two windows blackened by fire with sheets hanging where the occupants had tried to escape the flames.
I followed Bové to the entrance to the offices where Arafat was hiding but was grabbed from behind by an Israeli soldier and pulled away. Arafat may not be a prisoner but it is the Israelis who choose who goes to see the Palestinian chairman.
On every corner yesterday stood Israeli tanks. The devastation that these tanks have wrought inside the Palestinians' most attractive city has to be seen to be believed.
Roads have been dynamited or torn up by tanks. Buildings are burned and shattered. Everywhere there is rubble, spent ammunition and broken glass.
A little later, I met Hossam Sharkawi and Mohamed Awad, two senior officials in the Palestinian Red Crescent who I had met before.
Sharkawi, a co-ordinator for emergency services, told me the Israelis had arrested five of his drivers.
'They have them blindfolded and handcuffed. I cannot understand what the Israelis are thinking. They also used one of our ambulances today as a human shield. They sandwiched it inside a convoy.'
Sharkawi was able to reveal something of life inside Arafat's compound. 'We know there are injured inside,' he said. 'But they have been blocking ambulances entering to give treatment.' How many injured he could not say.
'All that we hear is that there may be between 50 and 100 people trapped with Arafat inside the building, without food, or water or any electricity and no telephone communication.' He shook his head and walked away.
This article is pure propoganda. These were headshots by well trained and disciplined men. I wouldn't put it past the Palestinian disinformation disseminators to have faked the powder burns or just outright lied. Unfortunately, some here fail to consider the source or the culture that generates this swill.
Perhaps, but the fact that you are attempting to find a rationalization for the random nature of the act makes my "simplistic" point even stronger. The essence of my original post to ladyjane is contained in the Golda Meir quote.
If one wishes to kill a snake, one chops off its head.
What Israel, and the U.S., for that matter is the equilvent to trying wipr out a ant hill by steping on it, one may kill a few ants but the next day one cannot tell the difference.
if one wishes to wipe out an ant hill, one kills the queen.
Wiping out nests of terrorists works on the same principle, one makes it close and personal to the leaders. When the leaders realize that it is their hide, they are not near as eager to send their underlings on suicide missions. It has already been demonestrated that the leaders do not believe what they preach or they would lead by example [be the first to go on a suicide mission].
I've been looking for a good Palestinian to English translator. Can't find one. Why not? Because, like Arafat, who is Egyptian, these folks who call themselves "Palestinian" don't have a common language or most other things that make a people a "people". Other than their hatred of Israel.
You forgot the sarcasm notation. Surely you were being sarcastic.
Weasely answer. Game, set, match. G'night.
The fact is, they didn't surrender. There is absolutely no proof here or anywhere else that these guys surrendered; in fact, their presence INSIDE the building is a pretty good indicator that they did not.
Some others came out early and surrendered, and they were taken off and are still very much alive. But these folks didn't come out. These are the hardcore loyalists.
Unless you come walking out of that building with your hands in the air, or otherwise demonstrate thet you are surrendering and are DISARMED, you have not surrendered. If you haven't surrendered, that leaves your opponents no choice but to kill you. No one is obligated to risk themselves to treat a terrorist with kid gloves if he still has a weapon in hand. If you are armed and not surrendering, they can and should blow you away the minute they come around the corner or bust into the room- no matter how close the quarters. In fact, in tight quarters you had better do it with extreme speed. As a terrorist friend of Arafat, your opportunity to surrender ended when the Israelis yelled at you from outside to drop your weapons and come out. The Israelis used their bullhorns to offer the chance. That's a fair sight more thasn the Palestinians ever give the kids they blow up.
It's just common sense. These guys weren't taken away in live in handcuffs and later found on the side of the road somewhere dead. They were inside a building which they had been shooting out of for hours. They were shooting when the Israelis entered, and fighting all the way.
These people send others to blow themselves up among civilians, with nails packed around their bombs to increase the damage, into areas where they know for a fact that no military armed personnel are present. Why on earth should anyone think they will simply surrender instead of trying to take as many Israelis with them as they can before they die?
Do you want to be the one to go into Arafat's building while they are shooting at you to see if you have time to ask them nicely to drop their weapons and come out before you catch a Palestinian bullet? Don't you think it would be a little more intelligent to go in there shooting?
You want to step over a live enemy to get past him and to your objective?
If you do you WILL get shot or knifed in the back.
My uncle tried that with a German. He got a bayonet run up the length of his leg because he should have plunged his own bayonet into the apparently dead man FIRST, or shot him, to make sure the man was as dead as he looked. He shouldn't have stepped over the guy because he had room to go around.
But if your opposition isn't surrendering, you have to kill them until the survivors do surrender. You might have to kill all of them, depending on their loyalty to their cause.
Yep.
And that is smart. Killing Arafat solves nothing, and simply makes him a martyr.
Nope. Israel's current policy of humiliating a rattle snake and leaving the rattle snake in the house can only lead to bad things. It is time that Yassar met the 72 virgins. Israel can't kill two million Palestinians, well I guess they could if they had absolutely had to, but they can make it clear that they will kill the guys giving the orders.
Who would he be replaced with?
Somebody who understands that he is next in line to die if the bombings don't stop.
Boy, it looks like The All Mighty, will be running out of virgins! What a shame!
I have to assume, when you're told at least twice that it is common for posters to post (as JohnHuang2 does with the plethora of articles he posts, some, I'm sure, he agrees with, some he doesn't) articles that they don't necessarily agree with, and you still insist that a "barf alert" (THE SINGLE most juvenile thing that ever got started here at Free Republic) be posted at the end of the title, then you must either not be reading, or not comprehending what you're reading. Or drinking, in which case you're not reading or comprehending.
I frequently post articles that are merely interesting, or sometimes I post articles that are intentionally incendiary.
If you don't like articles, either object, or don't post to them. But don't attack the poster.
Uh...who gives a shit??
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