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.
And how did the world come to believe that people who will slaughter children for the lousy Golan Heights will be perfectly honorable and decent once you just give them what they want?
It will reduce the number of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians, but it won't prevent many. Besides, walls can't stop incoming Katyusha's or mortars that Pallies will be firing into Israel. The conflict will continue until one of the sides is completely defeated.
I don't know but we know they are poor because they have Palestinian suicide bombers and as the liberals claim, poverty is the cause of terrorism. Maybe they are poor because they don't work and they spend all their money on explosives.
Oh, that is novel indeed: they used to compare him to Menahem Begin, in order to establish moral equivalencies there.
So now they moved to George Washington! What's next? "Prophet Mohammed and Thomas Jefferson: The Common Roots" --- a terrific title for a thread.
And this is on a conservative forum! The further the hatred of Jews some are willing to throw dirt on their own country.
The Israelis have bent over backwords to avoid this and thier enemies just go homicidal.
The Lion Of Judah has roared and I for one am FULLY on the Israeli side. I wish for piece but the international media is NUTS!
I have been to most every country in the Middle-east and Israel is BY FAR the only normal country in the region. Of course, thats just empiracal evidence and not some broadcast from NPR. :D
I'm glad to hear that!
And one of these points was the difference that exists between leadership and hectoring. To see the meaning of the latter, retain the first words of every sentence --- this explicates the structure of your post --- and to obtain:
Israel should… And it should…It should…And it should… It is the only… It must… It must… the only thing…better step up in a hurry.As for the former, that is, leadership, it is constrained by the reality of things, the very reality that you choose not to see because it will deprive you of the armchair-general position that you appear to occupy so comfortably.
Well, I guess I just took a risk similar in magnitude to yours --- I repeated myself. Since you prefer only one-way communications and hectoring, whereas I tend to like a discussion, I shall take another risk and end this discourse for now.
I do hope you will not take it as offense. Have a good Easter Holiday.
Unlike most of the "Israel first" crowd here on FR...you understand the long term ramifications of what is going on in the Mid East. Thanks for your cogent post. I would like to see a two state solution to the problem...unfortunately, Israel, under Sharon, wants a one state solution with all of the Palestinians killed or exhiled (except the ones needed for manual labor in Israel). I heard on FOX today that the Palestinians refer to the suicide bombers as "F-11s" as oppossed to the "F-16s" that the U.S. supplies Israel.
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