Ramallah: Israeli War Crimes

http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4385097,00.html

I saw the bodies, killed by a shot to the head Israeli killings:
Troops stormed Arafat's men's base - and Palestinians believe that
what followed was an execution

Observer Worldview

Peter Beaumont in Ramallah
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer

The ambulancemen were carrying the first body out of the Cairo-Amman
bank in the centre of Ramallah when I came across them.

His knees were doubled up in rigor mortis. One of the legs of his
green parachute jumpsuit had been burnt through to the skin by a round
fired at such close quarters that the muzzle flash had ignited the
fabric. A gaping wound was visible in his chest - also, apparently,
from a burst of fire from close range. What killed him, however, was
the gunshot to his temple.

A few minutes later, the paramedics brought the second body, that of a
young man, also in Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit, Force 17.

Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue socks. The wounds
that he had obviously been clutching when he died were also to his
upper body.  But what must have killed him, like his colleague, was a
shot fired at close range to his temple that had demolished the back
of his head.

The third body was of an older man, perhaps in his forties,
grey-haired and with a full moustache. Someone had pulled his
parachute suit up above his head to hide the wound. But when the
stretcher-bearers put him down, the covering was pulled back. The
wound was also to the head.

What happened on the third floor of the Cairo-Amman bank at midnight
on Friday during Israel's occupation of the Palestinian city of
Ramallah can only be surmised. But in the few minutes after Israeli
soldiers stormed the Palestinian position, five men were wounded and
five men were put to death by the Israelis, each with a single coup de
grace to the head or throat.

Maher Shalabi, bureau chief of Abu Dhabi television in Ramallah, was
in his office in the same building when he heard several bursts of
heavy shooting on the floors below. 'I heard heavy shooting; maybe it
was an exchange of fire. But I believe this was an execution. This is
what I understand.'

Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator, added: 'They were
executed in cold blood. This is a clear example of the collective
execution policy adopted by the Israeli government against the
Palestinian people.'

According to local residents, the dead men were part of a large group
of Palestinian policemen who had taken shelter in the building, which
also houses the offices of the British Council, when the Israeli army
entered their area of Ramallah.

The men had taken shelter in the foyer area on the third floor next to
a dentist's surgery. Yesterday bullet holes spattered the walls and
the floor was flecked with blood. On one wall were large splashes of
blood. Several bloody trails had been marked along the floor where
someone had pulled the bodies towards the lift.

An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers entered the building after
Palestinians opened fire from inside and threw a grenade at the force
outside.

The coups de grace administered for these five men is a metaphor for
what the Israeli incursion is hoping to achieve inside Ramallah. By
isolating Arafat within his headquarters, Sharon hopes to decapitate
the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, inside Arafat's compound, it was clear that, for all the
claims of Ariel Sharon, Arafat was neither under threat nor under
arrest. Arafat, simply, was surrounded by the Israelis.

As we approached the compound we could see the tanks and armoured
personnel carriers ringing his sprawl of offices and barracks. On
every side soldiers were taking positions and aiming their weapons.

Here and there was evidence of the desperate fighting that had taken
place as Israeli forces stormed the wall and then the
buildings. External walls were pocked with gunfire, while scorch marks
were visible at third-floor windows.

Approaching closer, the Israeli army tried to prevent us following a
delegation from the Palestinian solidarity movement into the compound,
led by José Bové, the French farmers leader and anti-globalisation
protester.

In a surreal touch Bové and his colleagues had marched through the
ruins of the town, even as fighting continued in some parts. With
their hands above their heads, and some carrying palm fronds as Easter
symbols of peace, they approached Arafat's compound with two columns
of heavily armed Israeli infantry jogging the last few hundred metres
behind them.

Seeing Bové, who had marched through the town with a small group of
fellow protestors bearing a tray of medicines for those injured inside
Arafat's compound, the soldiers relented and let us enter with him and
approach the offices where Arafat was holed up.

Crossing a large car park we could see a three-storey block, its walls
splattered with tank fire, two windows blackened by fire with sheets
hanging where the occupants had tried to escape the flames.

I followed Bové to the entrance to the offices where Arafat was hiding
but was grabbed from behind by an Israeli soldier and pulled
away. Arafat may not be a prisoner but it is the Israelis who choose
who goes to see the Palestinian chairman.

On every corner yesterday stood Israeli tanks. The devastation that
these tanks have wrought inside the Palestinians' most attractive city
has to be seen to be believed. Roads have been dynamited or torn
up. Buildings are burnt and shattered. Everywhere there is rubble,
spent ammunition and broken glass.

A little later, I met Hossam Sharkawi and Mohamed Awad, two senior
officials in the Palestinian Red Crescent whom I had met before.

Standing by a convoy of ambulances the clearly exhausted Sharkawi, a
co-ordinator for emergency services, told me the Israelis had arrested
five of his drivers.

'They have them blindfolded and handcuffed. I cannot understand what
the Israelis are thinking. They also used one of our ambulances today
as a human shield. They sandwiched it inside a convoy.'

Sharkawi and his colleagues were able to reveal something of life
inside Arafat's compound. 'We know there are injured inside,' he
said. 'But they have been blocking ambulances entering to give
treatment.

'All that we hear is that there may be between 50 and 100 people
trapped with Arafat inside the building, without food, or water or any
electricity and no telephone communication.' He shook his head and
walked away.