Tag: Nablus

Child Captives Freed

Nablus, Occupied West Bank

Soldiers who occupied an 8th floor apartment in the Sharif residential building and held eleven children and three adults captive left at 6:30AM today. The families want to thank everyone who wrote faxes, e-mails, and letters to the Israeli authorities in protest.

The following is a testimony of the events as they happened from the families:

On 07/04/06 at 04.00AM – Seven Israeli soldiers occupy the 8th floor apartment of Abu Amare and Huda Al Hajd Hamad family in Nablus because of it’s vantage point over al Aiyn refugee camp.

Soldiers brought down their neighbours from the 9th floor: Noor who is a 5 months pregnant mother, her husband and their one and a half year old infant.

The disturbance caused the Audah family on the ground floor to send 12 yr old Mohammed up to the 8th floor neighbour’s apartment to investigate. Mohammed knocked on the door, a soldier grabs him by the neck and throws him to the floor whilst two others point guns at him. Subsequently Mohammad’s family members follow; his 14 year old brother, mother and father are all taken into the 8th floor apartment – leaving three girls in the ground floor apartment alone with the cooker on and one girl aged three in the shower. It takes the family 20 minutes before the husband can convince the soldiers to allow him to collect the children accompanied by two soldiers. There are now 17 people in one room held captive.

The soldiers insist on silence, shout “shut up” and are abusive but do not beat anyone.

Twenty-five hours later, Noor who is pregnant starts crying. Soldiers tell her to stop, her husband fears they will beat her. She can’t stop. She gets more upset and is crying loudly. She says she cant breathe. She has pain in her abdomen, is extremely scared, and hasn’t been able to eat or sleep all day.

The families plead with soldiers to let her go to hospital, but they refuse. The commander accuses her of faking her symptoms.

An Israeli military doctor is called but the families want a specialist. He arrives and prescribes drugs. Noor says they are too strong for pregnant women.

At 3PM on the 8th of April a Commander arrives and Noor is finally allowed to be driven by her husband to hospital with their infant accompanied by jeeps.

There are now 14 people in apartment

Medical relief teams and international volunteers make multiple attempts at visiting the families. The volunteers talk to the soldiers through the door but the soldiers ignore them. The adults are forbidden to speak but 4 year old Bashar speaks through the door. He requests food and asks the internationals not to leave because the families feel safer when they are present.

At 5 PM soldiers enter the room the family are captive in and point guns at youth in the street below. The children are extremely scared. Their mothers demand that the soldiers leave room demanding that the human rights of children respected. The soldiers finally leave.

At 8 PM the internationals leave food at the door and tell the soldiers that they are leaving but will return to see if the food was taken for the families. After a few minutes the soldiers take the food and pass it to the families.

At 2 AM on the ninth of April the military operation that seems to be the purpose of house occupation takes place. An APC & jeeps drive into al Aiyn refugee camp. The military demand over loudspeakers that the family of Abu Mahde Marka exit their home. The snipers in the apartment are active with night vision equipment and a soldier with a 25mm gun enters the families room. The mothers again demand that he leaves – and he does. Then 7 sniper rounds are fired. The cases are left on the apartment floor.

At 6 AM this morning the soldiers leave- they say nothing to the families and leave the apartment messed up, furniture moved, dirt on the wall, the families clothes used to clean the floor, their Koran taken out of it’s case and left in bathroom

The practice of occupying a tactically important home and holding the occupants captive and isolated is known in the Israeli Army as a “Straw Widow” operation. The army uses the occupied home as an observation post and sniper position. Such homes are often reoccupied several times.

Although the Sharif building is now unoccupied, the army occupied several more homes in Nablus during a night of sporadic gunfire and explosions in the city and the adjacent Balata refugee camp.

Pictures to follow soon at www.palsolidarity.org

Balata invasion journal Part 1

By Jane

On the morning of April 6th I had a call saying the Israeli military have invaded Nablus, would I join 3 others and go? During military invasions the role of ISM is to go with medical teams, try to approach houses the military have occupied to speak with the families held there, bring them food and medicines.

We were not allowed to pass the checkpoint into Nablus so we walked over the mountain, a wonderful hour and a half walk thru beautiful hills. By the time we arrived the military operation was over. It left 12 injured. We went to the hospital to get the details of the injuries. Crumbling plaster work, half unpacked boxes, people on sat waiting on the stairwell, sad faces, a young man crying. A 17 year old boy was critically injured by a rubber bullet entering his head. Two were injured running from jeeps. One 45 year old woman had shrapnel in her leg, one 25 year old was shot by a live bullet in the abdomen. The others were hit by rubber bullets in the legs and back.

Mohammed A., the ISM Co-ordinator told us that arrests are intensifying and he thinks another big invasion, such as the one a month and a half ago is about to happen. Two women were arrested 3 nights ago. The Neighbors said that they were bought out of their house naked, beaten in the street and taken to a military base. Listening to Mohammed speak about Nablus and Balata refugee camp is hard. What can you say to someone who shows you photos of his friend, head half missing, guts spewing out, corpse blackened by the explosion?

During the night there were two explosions and gun fire. At 8am in the morning the mosque load speaker system announced the death of the young man killed in the previous days violence.

Jane

Three Palestinian non-violent actions this Friday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Villagers of Bil’in will hold a demonstration against the wall which annexes village land into the Modi’in Elite settlement.

In Beit Sira villagers will hold a demonstration against the annexation barrier that will mean the loss of land to the Makabim settlement.

Both Bil’in and Beit Sira demonstrations will start after midday prayers, heading off from the villages mosques.

This Friday Salem villagers will be joined by Israeli and international human rights activists, to try to complete the plowing near Scully’s Farm in an attempt to avoid the recent heavy settler violence that the villagers have been the victims of.

Last Shabbat(Sabbath) Salem villager Saber Shtaya was taken to hospital after being brutally attacked by settlers.

For more information call:
Beit Sira -Mansur 0545420464
Bil’in – Abdullah 0547-258-210
Salem –Arik Ascherman (Rabbis for Human Rights) 050-5607034
ISM media office at 02-2971824

AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy

By Alison Weir

“The trend toward secrecy is the greatest threat to democracy.”
– Associated Press CEO, in a speech about the importance of openness

“The official response is we decline to respond.”
– Associated Press Director of Media Relations, replying to questions about AP

In the midst of journalism’s “Sunshine Week” – during which the Associated Press and other news organizations are valiantly proclaiming the public’s “right to know” – AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting.

Most of all, it refuses to explain why it erased footage of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a Palestinian boy.

AP, according to its website, is the world’s oldest and largest news organization. It is the behemoth of news reporting, providing what its editors determine is the news to a billion people each day. Through its feeds to thousands of newspapers, radio and television stations, AP is a major determinant in what Americans read, hear and see – and what they don’t.

What they don’t is profoundly important. I investigated one such omission when I was in the Palestinian Territories last year working on a documentary with my colleague (and daughter), who was filming our interviews.

On Oct. 17, 2004 Israeli military forces invaded Balata, a dense, poverty-stricken community deep in Palestine’s West Bank (Israel
frequently invades this area and others). According to witnesses, the vehicles stayed for about twenty minutes, the military asserting its power over the Palestinian population. The witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance–no “clash,” no “crossfire,” not even any stone-throwing. At one point, after most of the vehicles had finally driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a pre-pubescent boy nearby, and pulled the trigger.

We went to the hospital and interviewed the boy, Ahmad, his doctors, family, and others. Ahmad had bandages around his lower abdomen, where surgeons had operated on his bladder. He said he was afraid of Israeli soldiers, and pulled up his pants leg to show where he had been shot previously.

In the hospital there was a second boy, this one with a shattered femur; and a third boy, this one in critical condition with a bullet
hole in his lung. A fourth boy, not a patient, was visiting a friend. He showed us a scarred lip and missing teeth from when Israeli
soldiers had shot him in the mouth.

This was not an unusual situation. When I had visited Palestinian hospitals on a previous trip, I had seen many such victims; some with worse injuries. Yet, very few Americans know this is going on. AP’s actions in regard to Ahmad’s shooting may explain why.

We discovered that an AP cameraman had filmed the entire incident. This cameraman had then followed what apparently is the usual routine. He sent his video–an extremely valuable commodity, since it contained documentary evidence of a war crime – to the AP control bureau for the region. This bureau is in Israel.

What happened next is unfathomable. Did AP broadcast it? No. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? No.

According to its cameraman, AP erased it.

We were astounded. We traveled to AP’s control bureau in Israel. With our own video camera out and running, we asked bureau chief Steve Gutkin about this incident. Was the information we had been told correct, or did he have a different version? Did the bureau have the video, or had they indeed erased it. If so, why?

Gutkin, repeatedly looking at the camera and visibly flustered, told us that AP did not allow its journalists to give interviews. He told us that all questions must go to Corporate Communications, located in New York. He explained that they were on deadline and couldn’t talk. I said I understood deadline pressure, and sat down to wait until they were done. When he called Israeli police to arrest us, we left.

Back in the US later, I phoned Corporate Communications and reached Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes, AP’s public relations spokesman. I had conversed with Stokes before.

Over the past several years I have noticed disturbing flaws in AP coverage of Israel-Palestine: newsworthy stories not being covered, reports sent to international newspapers but not to American ones, stories omitting or misreporting significant facts, critical sentences being removed from updated reports.

I would phone AP with the appropriate correction or news alert. One time this resulted in a flawed news story being slightly corrected in updates. In a few cases stories were then covered that had been neglected. In many cases, however, I was told that I needed to speak to Corporate Communications. I would phone Corporate Communications, leave a message, and wait for a response. Most often, none came.

Several times, however, I was able to have long conversations with AP spokesman Stokes. None of these conversations, however, ever ended with AP taking any action. Some typical responses:

* The omitted story was “not newsworthy.”

* The story deemed by AP editors to be newsworthy to the rest of the world – e.g. Israel’s brutal imprisonment of over 300 Palestinian youths – was not newsworthy in the US (Israel’s major ally).

* Burying a report of Israeli forces shooting a four-year-old Palestinian girl in the mouth was justified.

* Misreporting an incident in which an Israeli officer riddled a 13-year-old girl at close range with bullets was unimportant.

Despite this unresponsive pattern, when I learned firsthand of an AP bureau erasing footage of an atrocity, I again phoned Corporate Communications. I no longer had much expectation that AP would take any corrective action, but I did expect to receive some information. I gave spokesperson Stokes the numerous details about this incident that we had gathered on the scene and asked him the same questions I had asked Gutkin. He said he would look into this and get back to me.

After several days he had not gotten back to me, so I again phoned him. He said that he had looked into this incident, and that AP had determined that this was “an internal matter” and that they would give no response.

While I should have known better, I was again astounded. AP was blatantly violating fundamental journalistic norms of ethical
behavior, and clearly felt it had the power to get away with it.

Journalism, according to the Statement of Principles of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, is a “sacred trust.” It is the bulwark of a free society and is so essential to the functioning of a democracy that our forefathers affirmed its primacy in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights.

According to the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the four major pillars of journalistic ethics is to “Be Accountable.” According to SPJ’s Code of Ethics:

“Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

“Journalists should:

* Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.

* Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.

* Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

* Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.

* Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

Finally, this week, on deadline with a chapter about media coverage of Israel-Palestine, I again tried to confirm some of my facts with AP. Certainly, I felt, during “Sunshine Week” AP would respond. As part of the Sunshine campaign, AP’s CEO and President Tom Curley is traveling the country giving speeches on the necessity of transparency and accountability (for government) and emphasizing “the openness that effective democracy requires.”

“The trend toward secrecy,” AP’s president has correctly been pointing out, “is the greatest threat to democracy.”

I emailed my questions to AP, talked to Stokes by phone, and again was told he would get back to me. Again, I got back to him. Then, in a surreal exchange, he conveyed AP’s reply: “The official response is we decline to respond.” As I asked question after question, many as simple as a confirmation of the number of bureaus AP has in Israel-Palestine, the response was silence or a repetition of: “The official response is we decline to respond.”

The next day I tried phoning AP’s President Curley directly. I was unable to reach Curley, since he was on the road giving his Sunshine Week speeches (“Secrecy,” Curley says, “is for losers”), but I left a message for him with an assistant. She said someone would respond.

I am still waiting.

It is clearly time to go to AP’s superiors. The fact is, AP is a cooperative. It is not owned by Corporate Communications spokespeople or by its CEO or even by its board of directors. It is owned by the thousands of newspapers and broadcast stations around the United States that use AP reports. These newspapers, radio and television stations are the true directors of AP, and bear the responsibility for its coverage.

In the end, it appears, the only way that Americans will receive full, unbiased reporting from AP on Israel-Palestine will be when
these member-owners demand such coverage from their employees in the Middle East and in New York. As long as AP’s owners remain too busy or too negligent to ensure the quality and accuracy of their Israel-Palestine coverage, the handful of people within AP who are distorting its news reporting on this tragic, life-and-death, globally destabilizing issue will quite likely continue to do so.

In the final analysis, therefore, it is up to us – members of the public – to step in. Everyone who believes that Americans have the
right and the need to receive full, undistorted information on all issues, including Israel-Palestine, must take action. We must require our news media to fulfill their profoundly important obligation, and we must ourselves distribute the critical information our media are leaving out.

If we don’t take action, no one else will.

To obtain cards exposing AP actions to disseminate in your community go to: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/clues.html

AP can be reached at 212-621-1500.

Alison Weir, a former journalist is Executive Director of If Americans Knew, which is currently conducting a statistical analysis
of AP’s coverage of Israel-Palestine, to be released within a few months.

Printed in CounterPunch, Weekend Edition March 18/19, 2006, http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03182006.html
and at: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/erasevideo.html

—
Alison Weir
Executive Director
www.IfAmericansKnew.org
310-441-8580

IWPS report on the Nablus invasion


Inside the destroyed house of Mohammad Amar Abu Hamis, 32, where he and two other fighters of the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Hammoudeh Ishtawi, 32, and Hassan Hajaj, 21, were killed by the IOF

Sunday 19th of February

At approximately 1:30 a.m. of the 19th of February, the Israeli army started an operation named “Northern Glory.” The IDF invaded Balata with helicopters and drones as well as about 50 army vehicles, including four armored personnel carriers (APCs) and two bulldozers, starting to block of the camp with its 30 000 residents from its surrounding and from Nablus City. The UNRWA schools of the camp were turned into a military base and a number of civilian houses were occupied.

In the early morning, the army surrounded the house of the Hamami family in search of Ahmad Abu Ras, 28, and arrested him and another person. In an act of collective punishment they then destroyed the house.

The army declared a curfew on the refugee camp the following morning and enforced it for 64 hours, until leaving Balata in the evening of the 21st of February. An unknown number of houses were occupied and used as sniper position, while holding the families inside and restricting them to one room. In some areas of the camp house to house searches were conducted, causing property damages to varying degrees.

Children and youth inside the camp and in its surrounding started resisting the invasion by throwing stones, bottles with paint etc. on the armored army vehicles and building barricades. The army responded with excessive use of rubber coated steal bullets and live ammunition, resulting in about 35 injuries, most of them youth, on the first day of the invasion. IWPS volunteers also witnessed soldiers in a Jeep with the number 611 338 inciting youth by cursing their parents and threatening the youth to make them martyrs.

Around 2 p.m. Mohammed Ahmad Natur and Ibrahim Ahmad Sheikh Issa, both 17 years old, were killed by a sniper shooting from an occupied house while being on the roof of one of their houses, watching the confrontation. One boy was hit by a live bullet in his neck, the other in the chest. The brother of one of the boys was shot in the thigh when he tried to come to their help. The army later clamed they were planting bombs. However, while the army tried to block the fatally injured boys from being carried to the ambulance, no attempts were made to enter the house and no bomb squad were brought to either the house or the streets around it.

Monday 20th of February

The operation continued throughout Monday and Tuesday, the 20th and 21st of February, with the army using tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets – often shot with a device that spray shoots several bullets at once – and live ammunition against youth throwing stones, resulting in more injuries.

Between 2.30 a.m. and 4 a.m. on the 20th of February the army searched the house of the Kitawi family, looking for their wanted son. The whole family, including children, were forced on the street, while the army destroyed much of the family belongings. Food and clothing were thrown on the floor and furniture damaged, a fridge, TV, electronic equipment smashed. Sound bombs were exploded inside the house. The father of the family reports being cursed by soldiers and threatened that his wanted son would be killed unless he turned himself in. He also reports that 4500 Shekel and 550 Dinar were stolen from the house.

In the same night the army also entered the old city of Nablus and killed Islamic Jihad militant Ahmad Mohammad Nayef Abu Sharkh, 29.

Around 17.00 p.m., when the situation had quieted down, international and medical volunteers sitting outside a field clinic in the Balata Market Street witnessed two shots being fired from an occupied house on the house across the street. A 22 year old man, who was standing at the window of his room, was hit in the chest and seriously injured. Army jeeps drove up to the house, but did not interfere as the injured youth and his heavily pregnant sister, who went into labor due to the shock, were evacuated by ambulances. Shortly afterwards the soldiers forced the rest of the family, including two small children and two babies, into the street, while searching the house and shooting live ammunition inside. They later threatened the ambulances on the scene and the family with shooting and throwing tear gas to make them leave the area. An explosion was set in front of the house.

Late Tuesday afternoon the army pulled out of the camp, injuring more youth in the process. Many people had taken to the streets thinking the army had left, when some jeeps came back to evacuate an occupied house.

Wednesday 22nd of February

On Wednesday 22nd, the army conducted an arrest operation in Kufr Kalil, a village on the outskirts of Balata Refugee Camp, lasting from the early afternoon till after midnight. The Amer family house, where four fighters from the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades were hiding, was surrounded and the two resident families, about 22 persons including children, were called to leave the house and kept under the trees in the area. Four surrounding houses, each home to 2-3 families with many children and babies, were occupied by the army and the families were kept inside, forbidden to turn on the light or to use their phones to contact family members outside the house. The operation ended with the arrest of the four fighters.

Thursday 23rd of February

Thursday around 3 a.m. the refugee camp was re-invaded and army bulldozers again blocked most of the entrances.

Thursday morning Ibrahim Saideh, 19, was killed in ad-Dahiyyeh, a neighborhood overlooking Balata Refugee Camp. The youth was hit by two live bullets in the abdomen and back, damaging his liver, intestines and one of the main veins.

At 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, Naim Abu Saris, 29, was killed by a live bullet in the heart, shot by a sniper from an occupied house, while being on the roof of his house. The army claimed he was armed, but eye witnesses deny this. No confrontations were going on in the area of his house at that time.

During the morning an area close to the Balata Camp cemetery was sealed off and house to house searches were conducted. The Israeli Army surrounded the house of Mohammad Amar Abu Hamis, 32, where he and two other fighters of the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Hammoudeh Ishtawi, 32, and Hassan Hajaj, 21, where hiding. Around 11.45 a.m. the army set of an explosion in the house, without prior warning to the civilians in the area, which caused a fire. The smoke also affected the families in neighboring houses, two of whom had to be evacuated with the help of medical volunteers. The army forbid the medical team from checking on the residents of other affected houses and prevented the Palestinian firemen who arrived to the area shortly afterwards from approaching the house, attempting instead to put out the fire with water brought in cooking pots and buckets by women from the neighboring houses.

At 12.30 more explosions were set of. Reportedly, there was an exchange of fire between the army and the surrounded militants, resulting in the injury of two Israeli soldiers.

At about 2 p.m., after a quiet period, an explosion followed by live fire hit a group of medical workers, international volunteers and journalists who where observing the events around the house from the end of the narrow alleyway next to the cemetery. Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (PMRC) ambulance driver Jareer Candola was hit by shrapnel in the hand and the leg, cutting nerves and veins under the knee. Ihab Mansour, a medical volunteer with the Scientific Medical Society, was hit by either shrapnel or a live bullet in the head and lost consciousness. Another PMRC volunteer was lightly injured by shrapnel in the chest and two IWPS volunteers from Holland and the United States also suffered light injuries by shrapnel, one in the shoulder and the thigh, the other in her arm. The army blocked the rescue efforts, causing a delay of at least 30 minutes. The ambulance transporting Ihab Mansour was then stopped again on its way to the hospital and Mansour was arrested from the ambulance. At the time of writing he is reported to be under arrest in critical condition in Beilinson Hospital inside Israel.

At around 3.30 p.m. the army evacuated the area and the camp after dragging the bodies of the three militants out to confirm their death. As the army left, residents and medical teams rushed to the scene to recover the bodies, which were all severely mutilated by the explosions.

Throughout the invasion at least 12 persons were arrested, two of them from ambulances.

Number of injuries during the invasion

Dr. Samir Abu Zaroor from Rafidia hospital gives the following data on the injuries throughout the invasion. These numbers are not complete; due to the large number of casualties some cases were transferred directly to other hospitals in Nablus.

About 100 people were injured during the invasion. Their ages range from 12 to 63, though the majority of casualties were young boys and men between 15 and 25.

Injuries included:

  • 14 cases of severe bruises and fractures caused by jeeps driving into people
  • 28 cases of injuries by beating
  • 4 cases of injuries caused when people fell while running away from the army
  • 37 injuries caused by plastic coated steel bullets (so called rubber bullets)
  • 21 cases of live bullets

Severe cases included:

  • a 17 year old boy shot with a live bullet at short range into his left shoulder, breaking his shoulder and damaging a main artery, which caused heavy bleeding;
  • a youth, who suffered multiple fractures in his thigh by a live bullet and will be permanently disabled;
  • a man, 26 year old, hit by live bullets in the throat and the head, who was transferred to Ihloff Hospital in Tel Aviv in critical condition;
  • a 63 year old taxi driver, who was injured by bullet fragments in his left shoulder and a live bullet in his head;
  • a youth who was transferred to Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem who was shot in the throat.

Restrictions on medical access

Apart from the injuries directly inflicted by the Israeli army, the several day long siege and curfew of the camp and its population of about 30 000 people created a more general humanitarian crisis. Families were running out of bread and milk for the children and some patients out of medicine. Women in labor, sick children and chronically ill people, suffering from Asthma, Diabetes, high blood pressure or needing dialysis, were all cut of from the normal medical infrastructure, the army often preventing or delaying their access to medical treatment. In addition, severe restrictions were imposed on the movement of ambulances and medical volunteers. Ambulances, medical teams and the UN clinic in the camp were attacked several times. The most severe case, resulting in the injury of two medical workers on Thursday 23rd, is described above. Following are other cases of preventing or delaying access to medical care and attacks on medical workers that where witnessed by IWPS volunteers or reported to them by Palestinian medical workers. More cases may have occurred.

Sunday 19th of February

At around 11.30 two injured, Mahmoud Rajeh and Saleh Abu Alfa were arrested out of Ambulances on their way to the hospital. A PMRC ambulance was later called to Huwara Military base to pick up Rajeh, while Abu Alfa was arrested and transferred to Beilinson hospital inside Israel.

At around 12.30 two jeeps cornered an ambulance carrying an injured person and a women with labor complications. The jeeps pushed the ambulance from the front and the back, fired a shot in its direction and forced it to stand between the jeeps for about half an hour, while youth were throwing stones at them.

At around 1:00 pm two ambulances were held stopped by several jeeps outside Balata camp. According to the ambulance team they were detained for about 40 minutes and a young man with a bullet wound in the shoulder was beaten inside one of the ambulances. The soldiers forced the ambulance personnel to undress his wound to prove he is injured, making the wound start bleeding again. The ambulance was held until the family, with the help of the ambulance team and the IWPS volunteers, brought his ID card. After his ID was checked, the ambulance continued its way, only to be stopped again by the next jeep on the road.

At around 1:30 pm two boys, aged between 11 and 14 years, were injured in their legs with live ammunition. One had a flesh wound, while the other had his femur crushed by the bullet. The soldiers did not allow the ambulance to reach the injured, who had to be carried about two kilometers out of the camp by medical volunteers using a stretcher and a mattress.

Around 6 p.m. a boy hit by a plastic coated bullet in the head also had to be carried out of the camp to reach the ambulance.

Monday 20th of February

At approximately 7:15 am, a military jeep shot in the direction of the ambulance from a distance of about 200m preventing it from approaching the area close to the main entrance of the camp.

At approximately 11:15 the army attempted to close the UN medical clinic by shooting warning shots and percussion grenades. They also prevented patients from entering the clinic.

At approximately 11.35 a team of medical and international volunteers was shot at with tear gas.

At approximately 15:40 Israeli soldiers denied entry to a medical team attempting to deliver food and medicine into the camp. The Israeli soldiers also threatened to shoot them.

Tuesday 21st of February

Around 1 p.m. soldiers in a Jeep with the number 611 323 shot tear gas at an ambulance delivering medical supplies and pointed their guns at a team of medical and international volunteers accompanying patients including a small child to the UN clinic.

– – – – –

Witness/es: IWPS and Palestinian Medical Relief workers.

Report written by: Clara and Vera
Edited by: Grace

Contact details: IWPS withholds this information as a courtesy to those involved – we will do our best to furnish you with all the relevant information you might need to begin action.

For the photos please see the report on our web site.

The International Women’s Peace Service, Haris, Salfit, Palestine.
Tel:- (09)-2516-644. Mobile:- 067-870-198
Email:- iwps@palnet.com Website:- www.iwps.info