Some Palestinian reactions to the suicide bombing

1. Some Palestinian reactions to the suicide bombing

2. The Party Line: ‘Palestinians attack, Israelis respond’

3. Palestinians commemorate Prisoners Day, as all hell breaks loose

4. Update on Occupied Home in Nablus

5. Journalists, medical volunteers and bystanders targeted, Palestinian bystander shot in the neck by Israeli sniper

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1. Some Palestinian reactions to the suicide bombing

April 18th, 2006

FromSa’eed Yakin, the coordinator of the Popular Committee in the northwest Jerusalem area: ‘The first thing I would like to say is that we are categorically against the killing of civilians on both sides. The second thing is that this suicide bombing came as a result of the Israeli policy, especially that of the last two months. The third point is that murdering innocent people is an egregious crime when it is acted by a formal state like the Israeli government. They have been doing this and other violence in Gaza Strip, Nablus, and all around for over two months, by invasions, inflicting poverty on the people, the one sided racial separation, the wall, demolitions of houses, etc. The last two months more than 16 people were killed in Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation forces.’

FromMohammed Issa Abadia, Jenin District popular committee against the wall, settlements, and occupation: ‘This kind of resistance [the suicide bombing] doesn’t lead to any positive result, but the reason behind it is that there is nobody and no state in the world really supporting the Palestinian Popular struggle. So that is the reason, the frustration and the need to bring attention to the situation here.’

FromFatma al Khaldi, member of the Popular Resistance in Salfit District: ‘Insulting people all the time in checkpoints, humiliating them in many other situations; this led to this thing. Israel in particular, and the whole world in general, bear the responsibility for what happened today. What do they expect from us? If you plant violence, as Israel does, then you will harvest violence. We will never surrender, and we won’t allow the Israeli government to slaughter us like sheep. They are fighting us even in our daily food and basic living resources.’

FromAhmad Hassan Awad, Palestine Scientists Forum (Islamic Scholars

Org.): ‘We are people seeking peace, but the occupation refuses our offer and insists on not working for peace. The occupation completely bears responsibility for what’s going on right now. This is a natural reaction against the crimes of the occupation.’

Fromanonymous from Al Araqa, which is the village where the bomber came from: ‘Most of the people here are against all kinds of violence, but violence generates violence. This [bombing] came as a result of the Israeli’s brutal acts against the Palestinian citizens.’

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2. The Party Line: ‘Palestinians attack, Israelis respond’

April 17th, 2006

by Asa

For links to facts within article and additional information see

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/04/17/the-party-line-palestinians-attack-israelis-respond/

In an attempt to disguise the current Israeli military operations in Nablus as a response to the suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv, the Israeli media are either directly lying that the military entered Nablus ‘in response to the terror attack’ (Jerusalem Post) or strongly implying the same by saying the army is there ‘in [the] wake of [the] Tel Aviv blast’ (Ha’aretz).

In actual fact, house occupations and shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers in Nablus were underway well before the bombing. Furthermore, the military have been in and out of Nablus almost constantly over the last week. The Ha’aretz news timeline today directly contradicts the claim by the Jerusalem Post and even the strong implication that it was a ‘response’ in the headline of their own story. At 12:34, the timeline refers to an AP wire report covering the military operations in Nablus: ‘Palestinian youth shot by Israeli troops during W. Bank protest’ (note that there is no mention of the Tel-Aviv bombing in this story). The bombing does not appear in the Ha’aretz site’s timeline until over an hour after the Nablus story was filed: 13:43.

It is possible that the military operation intensified in Nablus after the Tel-Aviv bombing. But the Israeli media were ignoring the story about Israeli jeeps rolling into Nablus before it became possible for them to re-cast the incursion as a ‘response to terrorism’. A response to what is often characterised as ‘irrational, unprovoked, fanatical terrorism’. All this despite the fact that the Israeli army has been shelling civilian areas in Gaza for the past 12 days killing at least eighteen people, including at least two children with many more injured.

We in the general public might be niave enough to think that terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians, regardless of their natonality, but it would seem that the major media defines Israeli bombing of Palestinians as ‘counter-terrorism’ almost by definition.

Before the bombing in Tel-Aviv, the story about Nablus was all but ignored by the Israeli media. This currently remains the the policy of the western media, despite the fact that the army continues to occupy as many as five houses in Nablus using them as sniper posts, and have injured at least four Palestinian young people with live rounds and rubber-coated bullets.

We have been covering this story here in the ISM Media office since
10am this morning, and have watched the hypocrisy and subservience to establishment interests of the Israeli media explicitly illustrated before our own eyes. Apparently, Palestinian lives are only of use to the propaganda system. It could be argued, however, that this position is morally superior to the position of western media agencies such as the BBC on whose radar the attacks in Nablus do not even register.

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3. Palestinians commemorate Prisoners Day, as all hell breaks loose

April 18th, 2006

By Laila el-Haddad (http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/)

Posted by her on Monday, April 17, 2006

I’m very tired so instead of posting something on how all hells break loose here between one second and the next, and how just when you say to yourself-well how about that, only 20 shells today! and no gunbattles between bickering testosterone charged gunmen with nothing better to do! and no suicide bombings! well..needless to say, things have a way of turning very bad, very quickly here. 9 killed in Tel Aviv, another Palestinian boy killed in Beit Lahiya by Israeli shelling (that makes 16 since the start of the year)- and I just heard an explosion near my house -

So.. instead, I’m going to talk about commemorations of Palestinian
Prisoners Day (yes, we have so many ‘days’), and then go to sleep, because God knows we ALL need sleep

Thousands of Palestinians-mothers, sisters, daughters, sons-from all different factions filled the streets of Gaza City today to commemorate Palestinian Prisoner’s Day-April 17.

Palestinians marched through the streets of Gaza to the Palestinian Legislative Council, carrying pictures of their imprisoned family members and in some cases symbolically tying their hands together with chains. They called on Palestinian parliament members and ministers, human rights organizations and the world community to make the release of the prisoners a top priority.

The parliament convened a special session to address the plight of the prisoners today.

One of the demonstrators, 27-year-old Leila Dabbagh, had not seen her
fiancee who is being held in an Israeli jail, for 5 years. They got legally married, but had not yet consumated the marriage, at the time of his imprisonment.

Others are able to see their detained loved ones through the Red Cross, only by glass partitions. Extended family members cannot go however. One women wept as she told me she had not seen her only nephew in 18 years. Most of those detained are very young. Children grow up without ever really knowing their fathers.

The issue of the prisoners is a uniting factor, a common denominator amongst Palestinians.

Some 8000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons or detention centers by the Israeli army, including 370 minors and 103 Palestinian women, according to the Palestinian prisoner’s rights and support group, Addammeer.

Over 750 are held without charge or trial.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are regarded as political captives who have been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained under the broad banner of ‘security’, according to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem.

‘If these same standards were applied inside Israel, half of the
Likud party would be in administrative detention,’ noted the group in a report.

Palestinians have been subjected to the highest rate of incarceration in the world-since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel-constituting some 20% of the total Palestinian population, and 40% of all Palestinian men.

According to Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and Btselem, their conditions of detention are extremely poor, with many prisoners suffering from medical negligence, routine beatings, position torture and strip searches.

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4. Update on Occupied Home in Nablus

April 17th, 2006

The Israeli army has withdrawn from one of the homes occupied earlier today in Nablus, although as many as five other houses remain occupied.

The twelve soldiers left the Mushara home at 3pm, after having occupied it since 3:30am Monday. The family, four children between the ages of six and twelve, their father, and their four months pregnant mother, were held in the kitchen for the entire time. The mother has now been evacuated to a hospital.

Bassam Mushara, the father of the home, reported that their cell phones were confiscated, and that they were told that if they made any noise the soldiers would kill them. When their neighbors knocked on the door this morning, to pick the children up for school as usual, the soldiers responded by firing shots at the ceiling.

The neighbors realized that the army must have occupied the house, now for the second time this week. Word of the house’s occupation spread, and soon a crowd of about 200 youth gathered outside the house, some of whom threw stones at soldiers through the windows.

In response soldiers fired live ammunition into the crowd, which included journalists and international human rights workers. A 13 year-old boy was hit in the neck while ‘standing next to the wall doing nothing,’ according to Chilean activist Ana Maria who witnessed the shooting. ISM volunteers saw another four people in the crowd be injured, at least one by shrapnel.

When the soldiers left at 3pm, internationals went inside the house to survey the situation. They reported that the house was completely trashed. All of the windows were broken, shells from the soldiers firing were seen under every window, and pieces of the house, including a door, were torn apart to be used as shields in front of the window. The house was filled with rocks and rubble.

19 people were injured in Nablus today during the invasion, according to Palestinian news sources. Most of the injuries occurred in the center of town, where there were not any occupied houses. The army was seen driving through the center of Nablus for no apparent reason. When children threw stones at the army vehicles, soldiers responded with live ammunition.

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5. Journalists, medical volunteers and bystanders targeted, Palestinian bystander shot in the neck by Israeli sniper

April 17th, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israeli snipers shot live ammunition at journalists, international medical volunteers and unarmed Palestinians gathered outside of a house occupied by the army. A crowd of over a hundred was gathered in protest of this house occupation. Palestinian youth threw stones at wooden planks that the soldiers placed on the window of the house.

According to international medical volunteers from the United States,
England, Germany, Chile, and Denmark, eighteen year old Islam Aktshot was shot with live ammunition in the neck while he was watching the events at 11:45 Monday morning. ‘He was standing next to the wall doing nothing when suddenly he put his hands to his neck. When he put his hand down large amounts of blood poured out,’ said Danish volunteer Anamaria. ‘We, the medical volunteers and the journalists were standing together when the soldiers fired in our direction. A bullet whistled five centimeters away from me. ‘

At 12:05pm Basam Balbali 15 years old with shot with live ammunition in the leg.

The house, which is situated on the eastern edge of the old city of Nablus, was occupied Sunday night. The Israeli military is currently occupying at least five homes in Nablus.

The practice of occupying a tactically important home and holding the occupants incommunicado 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.

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