Tag: Ramallah

by Rann

Around 10:15pm on Tuesday, July 25th 2006, ISM activists were alerted to a large army operation taking place in the Ein Omesharayet neighborhood of Ramallah. Four activists arrived at the scene around 15 minutes later to act as eyewitnesses to the assault.

Israeli special forces had taken position near a six-storey building. Several jeeps, humvees and an army prison truck were also at the scene (20 vehicles according to press reports). Local youth were throwing stones at jeeps, who were intimidating them by driving up and down surrounding streets.

Spotlight from the Israeli jeep illuminates the windows the soldiers concentrated their fire on

To the best of the activists’ knowledge, the army had told families living in the building to leave and later put them in a ‘safe space’ nearby. The target of the operation, a Gazan owner of an apartment on the fourth floor of the building, had not left.

Israeli special forces fired at the building using live ammunition. When this did not seem to affect the situation, they used larger projectile explosives. From the outside, we could see two windows of the apartment on the fourth floor blown out. Following a few of these high-explosive projectiles exploding against or in the building, and a little further small-arms fire, the area became quieter, save for the revving jeeps still running youths up and down the streets. At one point, soldiers entered the building.

Shortly afterwards, the army evacuated the area and activists went into the building to take pictures and talk to Palestinians in the area. There were bullet holes all over the apartment’s kitchen, furniture scattered and blown around, remnants of food covered in dust from the walls and so on, the aftermath of a huge attack on a single person. On the way back downstairs, activists noted streaks of blood on the wall and the floor. Presumably the army captured the man they were looking for, though in what condition is hard to tell.

Additionally, there are reports of at least two injured youth, aged 14 and 15 who were taken to hospital with light to medium injuries.

by Signifier

Taking part in a national day of protest against the West Bank arrival of US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, residents of Ramallah, the site of Ms. Rice’s visit, shut down shop and took to the streets yesterday. The usually bustling downtown lay dormant, as store owners heeded the call for a one day strike across the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian Territories, the second in as many weeks.

At noon, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the city center to voice their opposition to American political and military support for Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Lebanon and the continued Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. On July 13th, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate halt to Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the killing of civilians. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that, per Israeli request, the US is rushing a shipment of precision-guided bombs to Israel as it expands its aerial assault on the population of Lebanon. Groups representing the spectrum of Palestinian political parties and resistance took part in the Ramallah protest. Joining them was a group of forty internationals in Palestine, including ISM activists and students from nearby Ber Zeit University, who came to show their disgust with the West’s sanction of Israel’s actions.

Conflict erupted as demonstrators marched to the Muqkatah Compound, where Ms. Rice was in meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. En route, a cordon of a hundred-plus armed Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces blocked the demonstrators. The PA security forces were charged with the unenviable task of protecting Ms. Rice in Ramallah, a woman who garners near universal Palestinian animosity and whom the PA men themselves likely despise, but whose security, if endangered, would spell grave consequences for all of Palestine. As the demonstrators attempted to push their way closer to the Muqkatah, the security forces reacted violently, beating demonstrators with truncheons and forcing a fearful stampede in retreat.

Shortly thereafter, demonstrators massed up again at the police line. A group of Palestinian women made it past the PA cordon and got to the Muqkatah doors. One woman carried a framed photo of four of her loved ones killed by Israel which she wanted to show to Ms. Rice. “What are you doing in that uniform?” another woman asked a PA security force man. “You should take it off and go join us over there. How can you hit your brothers like that? You should be ashamed!” When she sat down in front of the Muqkatah gates, security officials asked her to move. “What do you think,” she demanded “that Ms. Rice has more right to be here than me, a Palestinian?”