An American Student in Ramallah

April 3, 2002

 Under Fire

 An American Student in Ramallah

 By Tzaporah Ryter

 Ramallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is 
 Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American student from the 
 University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are 
 under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by 
 both the Israeli army and armed militia groups of Israeli 
 settlers. They are shooting outside at anything that moves.

 I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible 
 to help save lives here.

 I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come back for a 
 visit to the Palestinian city where I had been previously living 
 and studying. On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli army began 
 sealing off each entrance to Ramallah and there were rumors 
 that they planned to invade.

 People were rushing back home from across checkpoints and 
 also people were trying to flee. People were not allowed to go 
 out and many working people -- with homes and children to 
 return to -- were not allowed in, everyone was trying to take 
 cover. Those traveling in began desperately searching for 
 alternative ways and traveling in groups, but the Israelis 
 were firing upon them and everyone was running and 
 screaming.

 Women carrying their children were trying desperately to 
 flee from Ramallah, carrying infants and toddlers, and their 
 young children were running along in the rain through the 
 fields, slipping and falling on the rocks, trying to reach 
 safety. Israeli jeeps were speeding across the terrain pulling 
 up from every direction and shooting at the women and 
 children, and also at me, as we ran in opposite directions. 
 They were chasing down people, hunting them like that in 
 the fields.

 When I reached Ramallah, people were panicking and trying 
 to buy bread, rice and milk from corner stores, but most 
 supplies were already gone. We bought what we could and 
 went inside to wait for what was coming.

 When night fell, Israeli tanks began to invade and also we 
 saw Israeli troops coming on foot from the valley, and 
 surrounding our house. I could hear them calling to each 
 other in Hebrew. They were against our door and all around. 
 They were firing everywhere a barrage of bullets and there 
 was tank fire. We had to lay on the floor and keep silent. We 
 stayed there, on the floor, for nearly four days in the 
 darkness.

 We knew that our circumstances were better than others 
 because old people or infants or people with medical 
 emergency needs had no help. It was very cold, with most 
 families packed all in one room. Some people are without life 
 sustaining medicines like insulin, and they are altering their 
 doses dangerously if they have any medicine left to take. 
 People are becoming dangerously sick from lack of food and 
 water and heat. The fear and terror only makes things worse, 
 but it cannot be avoided.

 In the daytime, we heard them shooting people in the 
 streets, and could hear them screaming and screaming. No 
 ambulance was allowed through. Then their screams stopped 
 and there was just silence.

 We had a telephone and would receive calls from all over 
 telling us what was happening. Everyone is in grave danger 
 and Israeli soldiers were killing people everywhere. They are 
 arresting medics and ambulance drivers, including foreign 
 volunteer medical workers.

 They keep taking doctors and medics, just now another call. 
 Again, this time the wife of a doctor telling us her husband 
 has been taken from the ambulance.

 Large groups of people have been found in rooms, shot dead, 
 there are blood marks where they have lined people up on 
 their knees and shot them, with their ID cards laying on top 
 of them. They are taking people from their homes, 
 blindfolding them, removing their clothes, taking them away 
 or lining them up and shooting them against the wall.

 People are making phone calls and saying that these soldiers 
 and militia have come in and are shooting people and then 
 the line cuts off.

 The numbers of these killings I fear are much greater than 
 the numbers confirmed in the press, because the human 
 rights offices and the media centers have been stormed, and 
 everything is shut down. No one can move without almost 
 certain chance of being shot by the Isreali snipers, who are 
 everywhere.

 The Israelis are demanding that all journalists leave 
 Ramallah and today another foreign journalist was shot. They 
 do not want any more internationals here and are deporting 
 people. It seems quite clear that they do not want 
 eyewitnesses which is only heightening my own fears.

 The hospitals have also been surrounded and invaded and 
 Israeli troops are taking the injured people and interrogating 
 them. Today a woman, a patient, tried to walk out from 
 hospital. The Israelis shot her in the neck and killed her.

 The Palestinian Ministry of Health is saying that they fear the 
 spread of diseases because of the number of unburied 
 corpses.

 The numbers are only growing in reports of the mass killings 
 here and Israeli troops continue to round up people. People 
 are calling frantically, missing a relative and we do not know 
 where they have been taken, including children.

 The numbers we have now exceed 600, and we are 
 estimating between 700 and 800. All human rights groups 
 and legal advocates are being denied any information of 
 where the detained are being held. From what we know 
 confirmed is that 10% of those taken so far have been 
 children under age 18.

 On the fourth day I decided to try to move. People were 
 running out of supplies and I also was so worried about 
 people, and had to check to see if they were okay. If I didn't, 
 I feared panic would overtake me so badly that I really had 
 no other choice but to try and go.

 It was not safe where I was in any case and at least if I left I 
 would still have my sanity. It was really terrifying as there 
 are some internationals here, usually traveling in groups, 
 and the Israelis are saying on the radio that they will arrest 
 or shoot the internationals. They did shoot some yesterday 
 and regardless, it's not as if snipers differentiate and they are 
 everywhere.

 My friends told me not to go, and were really scared for me, 
 but I had to go. When I went outside, there were cars all shot 
 up and hit by multiple bullets and shells in the middle of the 
 road, unparked. There must have been people in them but I 
 don't know where their bodies are. There are no reports of 
 them, but they must exist.

 I got to the corner trying to go to the bakery for bread and 
 food for people. Some people were calling and calling with 
 only one cup of rice left. I made it to the corner but they 
 opened fire on my first try, and shot at me, so I had to turn 
 back.

 After that I tried again and it took me one day to make it a 
 block because I had to start over again and again. I had to 
 climb through the valley, and as I passed house by house, 
 people were warning me and pointing out what path seemed 
 safest for these two minutes. In the next two minutes, it 
 would be something different. They really helped to keep my 
 path safe.

 Today is Day Five and they are still rounding up people like 
 this and we hear them shooting all day long.

 This afternoon the Israelis suddenly lifted the curfew, 
 suddenly announcing that everyone had two hours to go out 
 to get food. However, the Israeli soldiers also took food from 
 many of the stores, looted, and there is no bread or things. 
 People went to get whatever they could.

 Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the closure for 
 two hours -- in which we still were not able to transfer 
 medical supplies and still was not long enough to everything 
 that was badly needed -- the Israelis continued shooting 
 people in the streets indiscriminately on their way, so people 
 were running around trying to make it to the store or find a 
 safe route only to have to run back home again. It was an 
 added cruelty and terror tactic in this macabre situation, a 
 sick joke: starve people and then shoot them when they try 
 to find food with your permission.

 In an apartment building in Beitunia neighborhood where I 
 used to live, they took 60 people who were my neighbors, 
 including several familes, and pushed them into one room 
 since last night. The Israelis told them that they are to be 
 used as "human shields", as the apartment building is across 
 from a building that they were invading.

 One child needs to go to the hospital since last night and, 
 initially, the families were able to call outside. Now, the 
 Israelis have taken their phones.

 There are reports that they are rounding up men between 
 the ages of 14 and 45 in that neighborhood, and these 
 civilians, from these same Palestinian families trapped in that 
 building, were just used to walk in front of an Israeli tank as 
 it invaded the Preventative Security Compound.

 Reports also have alleged that the Israelis were saying that 
 some could leave but shot them when they attempted to 
 leave. The buildings there are burning, and people are 
 trapped inside.

 We keep calling to try to find people but there has been no 
 electricity and most people's phones are dead now. I do not 
 know what is happening to many people. The only solution to 
 this is to try to brave the deadly streets in order to check, 
 but its almost impossible and terrifying to leave the house at 
 all.

 Each place I come to, I am afraid to leave not only for myself 
 but for everyone else in this horrifying position. Israeli death 
 squads have been yanking people into the street. I also hear 
 only shooting and shooting, with no return fire. This suggest 
 that unarmed civilians are being gunned down mercilessly 
 everywhere and I am so scared for everyone. I feel like 
 maybe if I leave one place, one area or neighborhood I will 
 never see the people again alive.

 There are more explosions outside now and more shooting. 
 Another explosion. More firing, it just doesn't stop.

 This is a massacre. The foreign delegations tried to get in but 
 were turned back, the International Committee of the Red 
 Cross is trying to help but they are being ignored. Please 
 help.

 I am not only scared for myself and for people here, but if 
 this cannot be stopped, I am truly scared for all of humanity, 
 for a world in which we send men to the moon but cannot 
 stop ethnic cleansing.

 On the news in America, we see hardly anything of 
 demonstrations. What are you doing over there?

 There do not seem to be any reports of what is happening. In 
 truth, its got to stop. Please go out to the streets, please 
 demand a response from your representatives. Be loud, 
 march up to the capitals, refuse to leave until the Israelis 
 withdraw. Act now! Tell them the Israelis are murdering 
 innocent people whose only crime is being born in their own 
 homeland, a Palestinian under a military occupation.

 Demand international protection for the Palestinian people, 
 scream that this is an affront to humanity and that it is time 
 that the US not only stop supporting Israel, but that the US 
 stop its abuse of human rights within its own borders. This is 
 about all of our struggles. 

 For the love of God, please stop this slaughter. Please help. 


http://www.counterpunch.org/ryterramallah.html