Without mercy: Israelis execute Arafat's elite guards

The Observer (U.K.) ^ | 03/31/2002 | Peter Beaumont

[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.

[Dan Day]

If Israel wanted Arafat dead, he would be dead. It clearly doesn't. And that is smart. Killing Arafat solves nothing, and simply makes him a martyr. Who would he be replaced with?

Somebody who would have learned a very valuable lesson.

[texlok]

People wonder why Israel still exists. It's because they are tough. I have no sympthy for these "guards" (terrorists would be a more apt word).

Before anybody in the rest of the world complains about what's going on, they should remember, Israel is just one lost war away from making a long swim.

[mv1]

2 tribes who have nothing in common with us in the West descend into barbarity. We should stop all aid to these nations PRONTO!

[RIGHT IN SEATTLE]

So what!

The Arafat garbage has to be taken out-------

It really smells, the only way to cleanse the air is to scrub the surroundings!

Rock on IDF!

[Light Speed]

"The Palestinians most attractive city"
Ya right...where has this writer been for the last decade.
Ramallah looks like Beruit..walls are covered in Islamic hate rhetoric, ..pictures of Martyrs abound.
First we kill the people of the Saturday..then the peoples of the Sunday!
The "Rumble in Ramallah" ...Ramallah has never looked so good!

[Robert_Paulson2]

some days... it just doesn't pay to be one of the elites. today apparently has been one of those days.

[river rat]

..."Without mercy: Israelis execute Arafat's elite guards"

I presume the reporter witnessed this "execution"...

If the only wound, was to the head -- perhaps execution, perhaps suicide, perhaps sniper, perhaps GOOD shooting.
If NOT the only wound, perhaps the shot to the head was a gift of mercy from one warrior to a mortally wounded enemy. or an "insurance" shot to ensure an inert risk.

The reporter made a comment that the pant leg was burned away from a shot taken at close quarters.....
They were fighting inside a building, close....
or perhaps the wounded guard shot himself in the jerking reaction to taking his initial hit. It happens folks....

In any event, at least these pigs died with weapons in their hands - facing an enemy they hated and wished to kill - that was coming for him on his turf.. They weren't killed by some 18 year old girl with a bomb that walked into their mosque.

Sounded like a fair fight to me....(fairer than I would have set up) they lost. In this game, the loser dies... These folks have been spoiling for war -- the war finally came to them.... Works for me.
Semper Fi

[American in Israel]

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.

That is strange, the other stories posted of this incident say that the bodies were found right after the Jews left the building. Rigor Mortis takes over an hour to set in and it happens after the body cools. The bodies had to be laying there for some time before the Israeli Patrol got in there.

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.

Impossible. If he was shot in the head, he would not be clutching his wounds. He would already be dead.

The third body was of an older man...When the stretcher-bearers put him down, the covering was pulled back. The wound was to the head.

When guys are shooting out of windows in brick buildings, what part of the body gets hit? Uh, the head, unless they are mooning their enemy. There was no mention that the floor was littered with AK47 and M16 rounds from the guns they carried. This article is very loaded for propaganda, but poorly written. Like the title, "Without mercy: Israelis execute Arafat's elite guards " Did the writer think the Palestinians were trying to shake hands with the Israeli's by firing out the windows at them?

In reality, shooting at the police and military squads doing house to house searches for illegal weapons tends to shorten the life span. It is also very illegal. In fact these guys were suppose to be helping the Jews do the searching, not shooting at them. Remember giving arms to Arafat so his "Police" could enforce anti-terrorism in trade for land? A fact that the reporter just seems to have missed.

[American in Israel]

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.

PICTURES! I LOVE PICTURES! Now we can surmise for ourselves without the Palestinian spin.

Look at the blood stains on the wall. Obviously the guys were standing when the grenade that caused the burn mark on the wall to the left went off, because they splattered the wall at waist level and above. But the most interesting blood marks are on the wall right next to the grenade. In order for that to happen the guy in the corner had to be standing there. Either the guy had a grenade tossed at his feet or he dropped it there killing everbody in the room.

Now my guess is as good as anybody elses, but if the grenade had been tossed in there after they died, the blood would not have been on the wall so high and the one guy would not be sitting right in the grenade mark, but would have been blown away from it. Looks like another "work accident" to me.

[rmlew]

Hangin,
TYhe implications of Sgt. Fury's post is that Israel should not exist. He considers it a crime against the Arabs.
Logically, then it doesn't matter how Israeli leaders choose to defend Israel. Any defense would be a further crime.

I would note that Fury's facts are wrong. I would also note that his language closely parallels that of the Islamists calling the Israelis Crusaders. I'm not sure I like the idea of anyone having such affinity to our enemies.

[SevenDaysInMay]

There are no rules in this war, started by the Pan-Islam movement leaders. Israel's crime is that it exists. Jews are hated for being; America is perceived as inseparable from Israel. We are both targetted, our innocents and economies. The islamists want to kill and maim simply to cause fear. Civilized humans are noe forced to exterminate these terrorists before they murder more innocents. There are no rules, only Faith.

[rmlew]

2 tribes who have nothing in common with us in the West descend into barbarity. We should stop all aid to these nations PRONTO!

Now you have just gone off the deep end.
You are trying to tell us that Jews are not part of Western Civ? Do you even understand what you are saying?
Western Civ was built on two major pillars
1. Roman and through it Greek Civs.
2. The Bible: Judaism and Christianity.

Moreover, Jews have been part of Europe for 2000 years. There were Jews in Gaul, Spain, and Britain before the Goths invaded the Roman Empire. If you go by historical timelines, European Jews have been part of Western Civ more than the Germans.
While most Europeans were farmers cowering in fear of Viking Raiders, Jews were creating the banking and trade links that took Europe out of the Dark Ages.
(I'm not picking these examples to belittle either group. Rather, Mv1's line of reasoning is perilously close to the German Occultism that was used by the Nazis. Think of historical absurdities like an Aryan Christ. Mv1's attempt to claim that Jews are not part of Western civ is just as absurd. )

Ron
PS. It is no accident that both Islamists and Neo-Marxist professors consider Israel a colonial outpost of western civ.

[SevenDaysInMay]

IDF should be killing off Paliban leaders while Arafat is holed up by the compound attack units. Video should be archived to avoid media BS.

[blaze]

All's fair in love AND WAR!!! If they don't want to get hurt, don't mess with the guys with the BIG STICK!!!(NUFF SAID)

[rambo316]

Good that they are getting the guards but when are they going to get Arafat?

[dennisw]

The Pallies prolly inflicted the head wounds themselves. Propaganda is more important than a disfigured body. Anyway the deadman's people get to gnash teath and wail even louder. All part of Muslim psycho drama.

[onyx]

Murderers are not known to tell the truth. Islam be damned.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

It is doomed to failure I suspect, and Sharon's government will fall.

I think you are right. Furthermore I think that this is the INTENTION of the Israelis. I think that this is the last step of this government, and that when it falls, Bibi (who appears to be settling his personal arrangements so that he will be ready to assume office) will take over on a 'no more Mr. Nice Guy (Sharon)' basis.

He will then deal with the Palestinians in the way they must be dealt with, which is one of three possibilities:

A) Kill them;
B) Enslave them;
C) Expell them

I vote for C, but will not argue with the other two.