IMRA Newsletter
[IMRA: Chutzpa award] "Palestinian Heritage at Nablus' Old City faces Threat of Destruction"
2003-02-23
[IMRA: As news comes out that the Palestinians demolished Joseph's Tomb in Nablus - this even though they had earlier converted the holy site into a mosque - the Palestinians complain that when the IDF operates against terrorists located in an area that the area suffers damage. Reading this narrative one wonders who all the people disguised as Arabs trying to kill soldiers are since in this description there are only innocent civilians (some of whom are apparently celebrating Mardi Gras early as they don masks and toy (?) assault rifles and other weapons).
Does the IDF want to hurt innocent civilians? The answer is provided by the PMC article itself: Daddy Assad showed how many civilians an army can kill if that's what it wants to do when the Syrians slaughtered scores of thousands of Syrians in Hama. But after all the rhetoric about random and indiscriminate fire, the casualty figures the PMC itself reports tell a very different story.]
Palestine Media Center- (PMC) [Official arm of the PA]
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=613
In the fiercest attack on Nablus since April 2002, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have killed three Palestinians and destroyed much of the historic Old City known as the Casbah, which dates back to more than 3000 years.
Witnesses and hospital sources said IOF troops opened heavy fire on a group of Palestinians, mainly youths, throwing stones at them in the northern West Bank city's Casbah, killing two men, at least one of them a bystander.
Meanwhile in Saturday's early morning hours, Sami Murtada Halaweh, 43, was shot dead when he left his house to check up on his shop, which was heavily damaged by IOF soldiers.
Walid al-Masri, 23, was also killed instantaneously and a 14-year-old boy, Nasr Ja'afreh, died from critical injuries he sustained when IOF dispersed heavy gunfire at citizens in the densely populated Casbah.
Medical sources said al-Masri was shot in the heart and the boy Ja'afreh was shot in the head while several citizens were taken to hospital after IOF shot teargas canisters in the Old City.
Seven Palestinians are reported to have been killed since the Israeli occupation army launched its offensive-- euphemistically dubbed "Operation Root Canal"-- in Nablus on Thursday, where the IOF have been conducting house-to-house searches.
The slaying of al-Masri and Halaweh brings the Palestinian death toll in one week to a total of 34, most of whom were killed during an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Nablus' governor Mahmoud Alloul says the Israeli military onslaught is the fiercest since IOF re-occupied the northern West Bank city last June.
"The destruction brought about by the aggressive attacks of the occupation forces on the Old City, which is more than 3000 years old, suggests an earthquake has swept through." Alloul said.
Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested and several homes and shops were damaged, he added.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Sa'eb Erekat urged the international community to force Israel to stop what he called the "human catastrophe".
In the neighborhood of al-Kaisaria, IOF conducted scrutinized house-to-house searches, detaining several youths. In another part of the city, IOF troops moved from one house to another through holes they blew through the walls, causing severe destruction.
Witnesses say many houses have been turned into military posts, rendering the inhabitants homeless and subject to IOF gunfire as they tried to find shelter.
In defiance of the renewed aggressive Israeli attack, several of Nablus' citizens took to the streets Friday to peacefully protest the ongoing onslaught and express their support with the inhabitants of the Old City.
Challenging a strict curfew and rainy weather, thousands of men and women marched in the streets of Nablus, shouting anti-occupation slogans.
The reaction by the army was mammoth.
More than ten Merkava tanks were rushed to the city center accompanied by armored vehicles and jeeps. They openeIsrael Destroys Palestinian Culture, Heritaged fire seemingly randomly and without any specific targets.
Israel Attacks as Palestinians Urge Ceasefire
Israel's renewed attack comes at a time when the Palestinian leadership said it supported a one-year ceasefire to help resuscitate whatever is left of the moribund peace process.
The secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, said the Palestinian leadership was seeking a "demilitarized" Intifada, adding that Israel was torpedoing all attempts at solving the conflict.
"We do not expect the Israeli government will stop its escalation against our people even if the Palestinian factions stopped their actions, but in that case the whole world will see for itself who is responsible for escalating the conflict," Abbas told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.
"Therefore the accusations will be directed at Israel rather than the Palestinians," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "This is why we agreed to freeze military activities for one year."
Abbas said he expected the inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo to resume possibly next week, adding that he hoped the proposal would eventually win the backing of additional factions needed to make a truce hold.
Palestinians in Nablus have described the "campaign of terror" being waged by the Israeli army as "conspicuously criminal."
"With the world's attention focused on Iraq, the Israeli army is perpetrating daily atrocities against defenseless civilians," said Hanin al-Masri, a journalist working for a local newspaper.
"It is shameful that the world is allowing Israel to repeat the Gestapo experience against housewives, workers, school children and other innocent civilians."
Al Masri said the Israeli army was systematically destroying and damaging people's homes for no reason other than wanting to inflict pain and suffering on us.
"I want to remind the world that these soldiers are sick, they are sadists, they experience pressure by inflicting pain on innocent people and seeing people suffer."
Nablus mayor Ghassan Shaka'a said the real reason behind this Israeli onslaught is to drive people out of their homes and land.
"They simply would like us to leave so that they could establish a racially pure Jewish state, well it is like Hitler sought to create a racially pure Aryan state."
"It is [Israeli] Nazism, pure and simple."
Israel Destroys Palestinian Culture, Heritage
The Israeli occupation army raided the Casbah last Thursday and immediately began demolishing houses, shops, and an entire neighborhood. The rain was pouring and families were left in the freezing cold with their children and elderly. The shops that were demolished included a computer Internet service, a jeweler, and grocery stores, as well as private houses. In addition, all men in the area were arrested, beaten up, and taken to detention centers, international volunteers operating there said.
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers surveying the damage perpetrated by the IOF found that IOF soldiers had demolished a historic Turkish bathhouse ñ which is part of what they say is Israel's ongoing campaign against the Palestinians' cultural and historical heritage.
During the day, two more demolitions were carried out. One of demolitions was of a goldsmith's store.
As they surveyed the Old City, the activists discovered that throughout entire neighborhoods there was not one house that had not been trashed and that many had "rat holes" blown through the walls.
Foreigners operating in the West Bank city have also been subject to the dangers of the IOF sweeping through the city, leaving behind nothing but destruction, blood and tears.
On Thursday, a Welsh activist was shot in the leg as she was trying to help medics evacuate a heavily pregnant Palestinian woman.
Anne Gwynne, a 65-year-old grandmother, said two Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire on her and a colleague after they failed to hear an order for them to halt as they were trying to reach the woman.
Her ambulance driver was hit in the hand and Gwynne was left bleeding after being hit by a piece of flying metal.
She said, "We were being chased by three soldiersÖ we didn't hear them in the first place, and they were speaking in Hebrew, not English."
"They didn't repeat it, they simply shot at us," she added.
"It's like Hell here, there are tanks firing on children."