IOF Invade Ramallah and Trashes Al Bireh Apartment Block
from Brighton Palestine, 15 April 2007
At around 11pm last night (Saturday 14th April) a large number of soldiers entered Ramallah and surrounded an apartment block in Al Bireh. The picture above shows an apartment belonging to the family of one of our contacts in Tubas
The residents of apartment block were ordered to crowd into a small room on the bottom floor while soldiers searched the flats. The residents were kept in one room until 5am and were not allowed to have privacy even to breastfeed. The soldiers arrived in jeeps, trucks and Hummvees, as they entered they blew apartment doors off their hinges with explosives despite many homeowners offering them the keys to their front doors. They then sent dogs into the building to herd the sleeping residents out of their flats.
After the soldiers had left residents discovered that intercoms had been smashed, the water containers on the roof broken, the lift trashed and windows broken. One person who rented an apartment in the building found that $3000 dollars had been taken during the search. Another said that at least $4000 worth of damage had been done to his home. One man, a policeman, was arrested. The corridor and adjacent flat where he was arrested were smeared with blood. One man living in the building said that ‘the damage caused to our homes was completely unnecessary, they only do this to take away our dignity.’