Story that mentions us from the Scotsman
Official version of shooting angers Arabs
BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
The Scotsman
August 5th, 2002
IF ANYTHING is clear about yesterday’s fatal shootings in East Jerusalem, it is that more happened at Damascus Gate than just an "exchange of fire" between security forces and a terrorist.
The violence claimed the life of an Israeli telephone worker, Yekutiel Amitai, who was shot in his lorry by an Arab assailant at the outset of the incident. Two other telephone workers were injured. The Arab assailant was "neutralised", according to a police spokesman.
Palestinians blame Israel for the death of a civilian, Nizar Aweisat, and the wounding of 17 people in the incident. Israel says they were hit in an "exchange of fire". Mr Aweisat was killed and at least three people injured as they sat in the al-Omal café, witnesses said. They said that the gunman had approached the entrance of the café to reload.
Israel Television said that a policeman had been shot in the head, but did not say by whom.
In an immediate sense, this incident may seem to be a footnote in a day punctuated by a Hamas bombing of a bus that killed nine Israelis in the northern town of Safad. But it is significant not only in terms of the damage it is causing to already acrimonious relations between Arab and Jew, but also because of the way police and the official Israeli media tried to gloss over what had caused Palestinians civilian bystanders to be killed and wounded.
Not showing what the Palestinians experience at the hands of Israeli security forces is part of a dehumanisation process by the state and media of the "enemy". This process is so extensive that if and when an Israeli leader decides to embark on genuine diplomacy, he may have a hard time convincing the public to follow along.
The Palestinian fatalities and casualties were almost certainly all caused by the police, who, according to witness accounts and bullet marks, fired automatic gunfire into a crowded area of shops and cafés. If there was any exchange of fire, it was a very lopsided one, pitting an array of automatic weapons against a lone gunman who, by all accounts, was a 19-year-old from Hebron, in the West Bank, who was armed with only a pistol.
"When there are exchanges of fire between the terrorist and the police and the terrorist is in a crowded area, it is possible civilians will also be hurt," said Jerusalem’s police chief, Miki Levy.
Palestinians are not buying that. Used to being treated as second-class citizens by the Israeli authorities, they are certain that police would never have opened fire into shops crowded with Jews.
They have a point. "This would never happen on Jaffa Street," said one man of Jerusalem’s main shopping street. "The police are criminals, they did not care who they hit," said another man.
Carl Williams, a US tourist, said the police had sprayed fire in all directions.
Police wounded two Palestinians at a table outside the al-Ayad restaurant, a full 25 yards from where the gunman’s corpse could later be seen on the pavement.
Ashraf Kastero, 23, who had gone to the al-Ayad for lunch, was hit in the groin.
The café’s fridge was shot up and there were bullet holes in the wall, 25ft away on the other side of the premises.
"I was having coffee, everyone in the café was having coffee or tea and playing cards," said Mohammed Saadi Salameh, 74.
"There were six tables and all were full. I did not see the shooting, I heard it. It was very rapid, in bursts. A man across from me was wounded, I saw three or four people wounded. I saw the blood of someone I knew next to me, Fakhri Shuweiki.
"I was afraid of dying. I lay on the ground.
"The police came and told us all to go. I do not know what happened to those who were wounded."
The Israeli police foreign press spokesman depicted the incident this way: "Two people were killed in addition to the terrorist and 17 people wounded, including two seriously, in a shooting attack by a pistol-wielding terrorist near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem."
State-run Israel Television Channel One reported that "border police identified the terrorist and opened fire at him" and that he and the Palestinian civilians were killed "in an exchange of fire". Police, but no eyewitnesses, were interviewed.
An Article that has terrible quotes from Chris and me ...
Wave of attacks rocks Israel, 13 dead, more than 80 hurt after Arab militants strike
By Charles A. Radin and Alon Tuval, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 8/5/2002
JERUSALEM - Arab militants launched attacks from the northern tip of Israel to the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing 13 people, including nine in a bus bombing, and wounding about 80 others, mostly Jews but also some Arabs and foreigners. One Palestinian suicide bomber and two Palestinian gunmen also were killed.
Also early today, Israeli forces searching a village north of Nablus killed two Palestinians, one a fugitive militant, Palestinian sources said, raising the 24-hour death toll to 18 from both sides.
The attacks began at about 4 a.m., when a Palestinian in scuba gear, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and hand grenades, was shot dead while infiltrating a Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza from the Mediterranean Sea. At 8:45, a suicide bomber on a bus bound from Haifa to the northern mountain town of Tsfat blew himself up, killing nine others and wounding about 40. Around 11, Hezbollah gunners in southern Lebanon fired shells at Kiryat Shemona, Israel's northernmost city.
In Jerusalem, the quiet that had long prevailed around the Damascus Gate, a bustling area of Arab produce markets and small businesses next to the walled Old City, was shattered an hour later when a Palestinian gunman shot dead a telephone company guard and ran into a crowded coffeeshop while firing at Border Police patrolling the area. At least one Palestinian bystander was killed and 17 people, mostly Palestinians, were wounded.
Fighting raged throughout the day: Three Israeli soldiers were wounded by a bomb as troops continued their assault on units of the Islamic extremist group Hamas that are based in the casbah of Nablus. Three soldiers were severely injured by roadside bombs north of Ramallah, and two others were injured near Tulkarem. There were numerous unsuccessful attacks on Israeli settlements in Gaza.
Early this morning, Palestinian gunmen struck a family traveling in the northern West Bank, killing the parents and lightly wounding two children.
Senior Israeli sources said they felt the multiple assaults were an attempt by Islamic extremists to reinvigorate support for continued armed struggle within an increasingly weary Palestinian public, and to provoke a massive Israeli retaliation that would lead Syria and Iran to give Hezbollah a green light to operate aggressively against Israel along the Lebanese border.
''It is a very delicate time,'' said a source close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, citing US efforts to discourage Russia from aiding Iran's developing nuclear-power capability and the perceived US preparation to assault Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. ''For all the hurt and agony we have, to escalate now would not be wise.''
Nevertheless, a senior Foreign Ministry source said, ''we are very close'' to launching a massive attack because the Israeli public will not stand for restraint in the face of more days like yesterday, and Sharon will OK the attack rather than allow former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to his political right to gain political leverage.
Hamas claimed responsibility for yesterday's bus bombing, as it did for last week's bombing of a cafeteria at Hebrew University that killed seven people, five of them US citizens.
The group, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, says it plans a long series of such attacks in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in Gaza City two weeks ago that killed Hamas's military leader and 14 other people, mostly women and children,
Yesterday's bombing took place near a Jewish holy site - the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, author of the Zohar, the central text of Jewish mysticism - at a junction in north-central Israel.
The jam-packed Egged bus 361, which set out from coastal Haifa at 7 a.m., was nearing its destination in Tsfat, an ancient mountain city which, since the mid-16th century, has been the center of Jewish mysticism, when the blast occurred.
''I saw the bus stop, the front door swung open, and suddenly there was a huge explosion,'' said Tomer Gani, 25, a gas station attendant who was fueling a car at the junction. ''The front section of the roof flew out in flames, and so did the front door with the people next to it. Thick black smoke came out of the bus'' - produced by a fireball that flashed through the vehicle, severely burning many of the passengers.
Gani and three drivers who were stopped at the service station ran to assist the wounded. ''It was a terrible sight,'' he said. The dead ''were totally ripped up, limbs missing, some with whole sections blown off. At first, everything was quiet - total silence - and then the screams started.''
Some of the passengers on the civilian bus were young Israeli soldiers on their way back to their posts after weekend home leaves. Of the nine people killed, three were soldiers; of 54 injured, 23 were in the military. At least two foreigners, Filipinos working in Israel, were also killed.
An hour after the bus bombing, mayhem erupted outside Damascus Gate. Just before noon, witnesses said, a Palestinian armed with a pistol jumped onto the running board of a Bezeq telephone company truck and shot the driver. The man ran to the other side of the truck, shot dead the guard riding in the passenger seat, and severely wounded another passenger.
Then, running toward the popular Al Umal coffeeshop and a neighboring falafel stand, both frequented almost entirely by Arabs, he fired repeatedly at Border Police patrols responding to the first shots. Before the firing stopped, three men were dead - the assailant, the guard in the telephone truck, and a Palestinian killed as he crouched for cover near the falafel stand - and 17 were wounded. Both Israeli Jews with the guard in the truck were severely wounded; most of the rest of the injured were Palestinians or Israeli Arabs.
Chris Williams, a 33-year-old Boston computer programmer who is visiting Jerusalem with his twin brother, Carl, dived for cover.
''I saw this guy had a pistol to the driver's head. We started to move away, and heard two or three pops,'' Williams said. ''We've heard gunfire before because we live in Mission Hill. I don't know who was who, but I'd bet a million the first kill was in the truck.
''We went into one of the shops and the automatic gunfire erupted,'' he said. ''Then the undercover guys came out of nowhere, and seconds later the M16-toting motorcycle police units.''
Chief Superintendant Ofer Sivan of the National Police said the shooter was a 19-year-old Palestinian from Hebron. Mickey Levy, Jerusalem district commander of the police, said the man was known to the authorities before the attack, but Sivan said further details would not be released until investigators had gone farther with their work.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the usually busy area of markets, businesses, and coffeehouses was all but deserted. Israeli security men walked along the top of the Old City walls. And a frantic Israeli Arab woman, who gave only her first name, Rullah, was telling whoever asked that ''an Israeli opened fire on the cafe, and many are injured.''
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a branch of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
Hezbollah's renewed firing across Israel's border with Lebanon did no physical damage, but signaled the radical Islamic group's re-entry into the violence after a few weeks' absence.
The Israeli government put blame for the surge in violence on Arafat, whose administration condemned yesterday's bus bombing, but Sharon spokesman Ra'anan Gissin declined comment on an Army Radio report that the United States, revolted by the violence of the last few days, was now prepared for Israel to expel the Palestinian leader - a step Washington until now has resisted strongly.
''All in due time,'' Gissin said.
Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Putting the cart before the Horse ::: Carl and Chris Williams Freedom Summer Update
We left the Dheisheh Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem on Tuesday. We traveled to Beit Sahour which happens to also be a suburb of Bethlehem. We went there to meet up with a new set of activist. The reason was 2-fold : First to get some people to stay in the one of the Palestinian homes we had just left (the home was under demolition orders from the Israeli Army) and second to possibly get a few new activist to join our affinity group (which lost members because one went home and another was going to be doing other work).
After a long series of discussions we divided up and we came to the decision that Chris, myself (Carl) and Susanne would go to Qalqilya (pronounced "Qual - Kill - E - ahh), Palestine. A small team of activist have been based in Qalqilya doing a lot of work around checkpoint monitoring and accompaning Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances.
To get to Qalqilya we had to go to Jerusalem (and through a checkpoint), then to Nablus, and finally to the checkpoint outside of Qalqilya. Qalqilya is basically under a sort of silent siege. It is very difficult to get in or out, and impossible unless you have the proper paperwork and identity card. All this for a town of about 35,000 people. We had a story fabricated to get into Qalqilya and what we were going to be doing. The Israeli Army wouldn't appreciated us telling them that we were coming to Qalqilya to monitor the treatment of Palestinians at this very checkpoint. Anyway, we made it in, but others international activists have had to sneak around the checkpoint which it a quite dangerous adventure.
Once in Qalqilya we met with local NGOs and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS, which is affiliated with the International Committee of the Red Cross and runs an ambulance service for Qalqilya and the surrounding villages and towns). We also met the international activists that have been working in Qalqilya for some time (Garrick, Susan, Eli, Dave, Ester and Laura). We found out that they work their asses of too.
Basically, they have 2 or 3 people on duty at the PRCS for ambulance accompaniment 24 hours a day (which is divided into 3 shifts). In addition to that they also have 3, 4 or more people on duty at the checkpoint from 8 AM to 4 PM to monitor the Israeli army's treatment of the local Palestinians and the assist Palestinians in trying to pass through the checkpoint. We you do a bit of quick math you'll find out that this crew sometimes works 18 hour a day! All this in 90+ degree heat.
We (Carl, Chris and Susanne) were quite inspired by this sturdy group of activists and were eager to join in with them. After a good night's sleep of course. We slept the sleep of the dead that night, except for when we did a call-in to a group of activists in Boston to talk about our work with the International Solidarity Movement and out experiences in Palestine.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
We awoke in the morning and had several actions planned for the day, the long day. Chris was to visit some local schools and a summer camp. The school was for the children of victims of Israeli attacks, there were scores and scores of kids at the school.
Carl was on checkpoint duty, pulling a double-shift from 8 - 11 am and from 2 to 4 pm. It is astonishing to watch the Israeli military at work. The face of the Israeli army is that of an 18 year old kid with wraparound mirrored sunglasses. In this specific case the image was completed with a fading hickey on the neck, which seemed to punctuate the boy's youth nicely. The soldiers would shout at the waiting Palestinians to line up this way or that way, back here or over there in an almost laughable manner. Periodically pointing an M-16 machine gun (US made and paid for in case you were wondering) at a middle aged woman or more likely a teenaged boy. We had brought about 6 1.5 liter bottles of water with us to share with the Palestinians waiting in the scorching sun. We were emptied out of water ("Mayy" in Arabic) in about 2 hours. A tom-boyish girl, about 8 or 9 years old, still seemed thirsty. While she was trying to communicate with us, one of the Army boy's came by to push the Palestinians back, seemingly where we were standing was no longer acceptable even though we had been there for about an hour. When the soldier approached the girl looked at him in a way that can only be described as sternly and said "Mayy!". I was baffled. So was the soldier. The girl repeated her demand "Biddi mayya!" ("I want water!" in Arabic). The soldier had wandered back to his cement block station at this point. He still seemed astonished at the girl's request but there was a bottle of water standing on the cement block between him and the girl. A bit of a staring contest ensued. The girl grasped the neck of the bottle of water but didn't move it. The staring continued. She seemed to be non-verbally saying, "I am going to take this water for me and my family, is that OK? And you are not really allowed to say 'no'". They she just took the bottle spun on her heal and walked off to her family. She chugged about a cup full before handing it to her younger sister. The family finished the bottle and the girl marched back to the cement block to politely return the empty bottle.
Astonishing. About half an hour later she asked the same soldier for more water. He seemed resigned to the fact that this girl was going to get her way and promptly produced a canteen from inside of him uniform.
I love kids!
Thursday, August 15, 2002
Meanwhile back at the 'ranch', Chris was on overnight ambulance duty (early Thursday morning). He was sleeping at the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society when a call came in to pick up a pregnant woman about to go into labor in the neighboring village of Azzun at around 5am. Chris headed out with on of the PRCS rivers Munthir and another paramedic in the back. It took the soldiers at the Qalqilya checkpoint about 7 minutes to even come out to the ambulance. A clarifying note here, it is against the Geneva Conventions to impede ambulance traffic in any situation. However the PRCS drivers know that they would be shot at if the even attempted to drive through the checkpoint without submitting to the Israeli military. The soldiers told all of the occupants of the ambulance to get out. For better or worse they did not think Chris was a foreigner. They probably thought that he was a Palestinian. Everyone was told to lift their shirts to see if they had any explosives belts on. This whole exercise took 10 minutes. It was raining that night which is bizzare weather for this time of year. This didn't deter Munthir, the driver. About 5 minutes later they pulled up to the checkpoint outside of Azzun. The family had a car but the Israeli military would not allow them to drive out of Azzun to the UN hospital in Qalqilya.
The woman and her husband were loaded into the ambulance and they took off. The woman was screaming from her labor pains.
Chris smelled the woman's water breaking, Munthir drove faster in the rain. He pulled over for a second just outside of Qalqilya thinking they would have to deliver there but the continued on to the Qalqilya checkpoint. Again the soldiers took more than 5 minutes to even show up. This time they did not take quite as long in searching the ambulance, however they did take just long enough that the baby's head came out and the delivery was starting. Munthir told the soldiers that he would have to deliver right here outside of the checkpoint gate. The soldiers, who seemed to be of North African or Druze backgrounds looked very similar to Chris. The soldier told Munthir that he could not stop here but would have to continue through the checkpoint. He drove through the gate about 10 feet past, stopped and went in the back to assist in the delivery.
It was a quick delivery. 14 minutes later Munthir was driving to the UN hospital and we had a baby boy in the back, with his mother and father. There is a kind of running joke in Palestine that lots of children are named Mahsoom, which means "checkpoint" in Arabic.
Arriving at the UN hospital at 5:37 am, Chris waited outside while the Munthir and the paramedic took the woman and child in to the hospital. Interestingly, a couple of guys outside the hospital greeted Chris with several phrases in Arabic, presumably believing him to be Palestinian.
Chris finished his shift at 8 AM and promptly went to sleep. Carl started another day of duty at the checkpoint, again having volunteered for a double shift. The first shift team was Carl, Susanne and Jennie and they were armed with 9 bottles of water, a digital video camera and a notebook. When the team arrived at the checkpoint there was moderate activity. About 30 - 40 people waiting in the morning sun. The group waiting included men, women, children and more that a few infants. The Israeli army institutes random policies at the checkpoints. Many times not allowing residents of a town to leave that town, only letting people who are in Qalqilya from somewhere else to go home, this is further complicated by the point that usually you cannot get INTO Qalqilya unless you are from Qalqilya. If you are confused at this point you are beginning to understand. Palestinians get in line as early as possible to try to cross the checkpoint before the rules change.
One of the other astonishing things that happens at checkpoints is that the Israeli military impounds horses, donkeys and their carts. There seems to be no possible explanation for this. They take the carts away and leave them next to the checkpoint tents housing the officers. If the army thought there was some kind of bomb threat they certainly wouldn't leave the carts there. One man, Lutvie, that we met had been at the checkpoint all day everyday for most of the past week. He was trying to get his cart back, since it was an integral part of his livelihood. He and his son approached us and if we could help him. We told him that we could. Throughout the day we had approched the army to request they let people thought the checkpoint for various reason, a mother needed to visit an ailing child, a father needed to return to his family after a week of work in Qalqilya and the like. We told Lutvie that we needed to wait a bit before asking the army for any more 'favors'. He agreed. At about 10:30 AM Carl and Lutvie approached on of the soldiers and asked if they could speak to the captain about the cart and horse situation. The soldier was hesitant but when pressured he allowed us to pass and approach the commander's tent. Outside the tent a young soldier asked, in a mish-mash of Hebrew and Arabic what Carl and Lutvie wanted. Carl asked if he spoke English.
"Yes, I speak English" was the reply.
"My name is Carl and I am an American citizen, this man's name is Lutvie and his horse and cart have been taken. Is there someone we could talk to about getting them back?"
"Yes."
"Ummm, who?"
"Me."
"OK, can we have the horse and cart?"
"Yes, not now, come back, 6."
"At 6 o'clock?"
"Yes."
"To whom should we speak at 6?"
"To me."
"O, OK, and what is your name?"
[Long pause]
"Doesn't matter, speak me at 6."
"OK, thank you."
Lutvie and Carl were annoyed and pleased at the same time. This was the first direct answer Lutvie had in three days regarding the horse and cart. But the arbitrariness of waiting until 6 PM was difficult to be happy about. Carl told Lutvie that he would certainly be at the checkpoint at 6 to try again.
After finishing the first shift Carl, Jennie and Susanne went home for a bit of a rest.
The second shift (from 2 - 4 usually, but due to circumstances this one would stretch to past 6) team was made up of Carl, Chris and Jennie. The soldiers were up to their usually pushing people around (they seem to always make a point of pushing people, sometimes with their M-16s).
The day seemed to drag on. We made a few interventions on behalf of people who asked for our help, provided water to people (and even to a horse!). And generally waited for 6 PM to roll around. At about 5 PM Lutvie returned to the checkpoint (he had gone home earlier in the day). We waited until a lot of the people and trucks were out of the way and they approached the soldier at the gate. We told him we had horse and cart related business at the commander's tent and could we be allowed through to discuss the matter. "No" was the answer. In situation like this we kind of learned to use the Jedi mind trick with the younger Israeli draftees.
"I am an American and I am going to talk to someone at the commander's tent."
"Oh."
"Is that OK?"
"Umm, oh, OK."
At the commander's tent the same young soldier was at the lounging on a pile of sandbags (he looked turtle-ish at about 5-foot-2 and with his olive drab uniform, battle helmet, battle flak jacket, and vest pouches loaded with sound grenades, half a dozen extra clips of ammunition and an M-16 slung around his neck). I asked about the horse and cart. To my astonishment he just pointed to an area behind the tent. Lutvie and I briskly skipped around the tent worrying that the decisions like this one can and very often are revoked at the slightest whim. I turned the corner to see about 25 battered carts.
Hmmm, "Terrorist donkey carts ... for terrorist donkeys, no doubt."
I would have laughed at the thought if it were not for the fact that something like this thought was probably their reason the Israeli military first impounded the dozens of carts (and does so regularly and continually I have been told). Lutvie and I grabbed the cart. I was in the donkey-position, that is I grabbed the poles in the front that would normally be tied to the animal. We navigated the cart out of its parking spot and onto the road as we approached the soldiers at the checkpoint about a half dozen men were shouting and running about. I thought they were happy to finally see Lutvie get his cart. Not exactly. They had impounded carts and wanted them back too. That is the problem with justice when people see tiny bits of it, everybody wants some. Hard to argue with thought. So I left Lutvie to his horse-less (and Carl-less at this point) to re-request cart releases from the military. Seemingly an order had been made to allow all the carts to be released. About 6 people some men and some pre-teenaged children where grabbing carts and wheeling them out. Then the rule changed. "No carts out", quickly became the unspoken order. How or why was anyone guess. One can imagine that the Israeli commanders getting an encoded radio message from Shin Beit (Israel's Secret Service) at the crucial moment:
"Islamic Jihad amassing donkey carts... stop ...
North West Judea ... stop ...
Dangerous situation ... stop ...
Israel's existence at risk ... stop ...
disallow movement of said carts ... stop ...
immediate and urgent ... stop ..."
Anyway, including Lutvie's cart, 3 were released. I was beaming with pride. Three people had their card back. Granted they had no animals to go with the carts and they should have never been taken in the first place. Further the very existence of the checkpoint is an injustice, but the minor victory of the free carts was overwhelming. I kind of came to a tiny understanding. When asked about the military occupation Palestinians will invariably say "What can we do?"
Insha' Allah -- it is God's Will.
People here feel helpless and any miniscule victory or resistance to the Israeli occupation is a gift from God. I, in my agnosticism, felt the same way.
Today, together, we freed the carts.
Tomorrow, together, we free Palestine.
For information on how you can work for a free Palestine check:
http://www.israel-divest.org/
and http://www.freepalestinecampaign.org/
Carl and Chris Williams
(Phone-less in Amman, Jordan in transit to the USA)
Official version of shooting angers Arabs
BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
The Scotsman
August 5th, 2002
IF ANYTHING is clear about yesterday’s fatal shootings in East Jerusalem, it is that more happened at Damascus Gate than just an "exchange of fire" between security forces and a terrorist.
The violence claimed the life of an Israeli telephone worker, Yekutiel Amitai, who was shot in his lorry by an Arab assailant at the outset of the incident. Two other telephone workers were injured. The Arab assailant was "neutralised", according to a police spokesman.
Palestinians blame Israel for the death of a civilian, Nizar Aweisat, and the wounding of 17 people in the incident. Israel says they were hit in an "exchange of fire". Mr Aweisat was killed and at least three people injured as they sat in the al-Omal café, witnesses said. They said that the gunman had approached the entrance of the café to reload.
Israel Television said that a policeman had been shot in the head, but did not say by whom.
In an immediate sense, this incident may seem to be a footnote in a day punctuated by a Hamas bombing of a bus that killed nine Israelis in the northern town of Safad. But it is significant not only in terms of the damage it is causing to already acrimonious relations between Arab and Jew, but also because of the way police and the official Israeli media tried to gloss over what had caused Palestinians civilian bystanders to be killed and wounded.
Not showing what the Palestinians experience at the hands of Israeli security forces is part of a dehumanisation process by the state and media of the "enemy". This process is so extensive that if and when an Israeli leader decides to embark on genuine diplomacy, he may have a hard time convincing the public to follow along.
The Palestinian fatalities and casualties were almost certainly all caused by the police, who, according to witness accounts and bullet marks, fired automatic gunfire into a crowded area of shops and cafés. If there was any exchange of fire, it was a very lopsided one, pitting an array of automatic weapons against a lone gunman who, by all accounts, was a 19-year-old from Hebron, in the West Bank, who was armed with only a pistol.
"When there are exchanges of fire between the terrorist and the police and the terrorist is in a crowded area, it is possible civilians will also be hurt," said Jerusalem’s police chief, Miki Levy.
Palestinians are not buying that. Used to being treated as second-class citizens by the Israeli authorities, they are certain that police would never have opened fire into shops crowded with Jews.
They have a point. "This would never happen on Jaffa Street," said one man of Jerusalem’s main shopping street. "The police are criminals, they did not care who they hit," said another man.
Carl Williams, a US tourist, said the police had sprayed fire in all directions.
Police wounded two Palestinians at a table outside the al-Ayad restaurant, a full 25 yards from where the gunman’s corpse could later be seen on the pavement.
Ashraf Kastero, 23, who had gone to the al-Ayad for lunch, was hit in the groin.
The café’s fridge was shot up and there were bullet holes in the wall, 25ft away on the other side of the premises.
"I was having coffee, everyone in the café was having coffee or tea and playing cards," said Mohammed Saadi Salameh, 74.
"There were six tables and all were full. I did not see the shooting, I heard it. It was very rapid, in bursts. A man across from me was wounded, I saw three or four people wounded. I saw the blood of someone I knew next to me, Fakhri Shuweiki.
"I was afraid of dying. I lay on the ground.
"The police came and told us all to go. I do not know what happened to those who were wounded."
The Israeli police foreign press spokesman depicted the incident this way: "Two people were killed in addition to the terrorist and 17 people wounded, including two seriously, in a shooting attack by a pistol-wielding terrorist near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem."
State-run Israel Television Channel One reported that "border police identified the terrorist and opened fire at him" and that he and the Palestinian civilians were killed "in an exchange of fire". Police, but no eyewitnesses, were interviewed.
An Article that has terrible quotes from Chris and me ...
Wave of attacks rocks Israel, 13 dead, more than 80 hurt after Arab militants strike
By Charles A. Radin and Alon Tuval, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 8/5/2002
JERUSALEM - Arab militants launched attacks from the northern tip of Israel to the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing 13 people, including nine in a bus bombing, and wounding about 80 others, mostly Jews but also some Arabs and foreigners. One Palestinian suicide bomber and two Palestinian gunmen also were killed.
Also early today, Israeli forces searching a village north of Nablus killed two Palestinians, one a fugitive militant, Palestinian sources said, raising the 24-hour death toll to 18 from both sides.
The attacks began at about 4 a.m., when a Palestinian in scuba gear, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and hand grenades, was shot dead while infiltrating a Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza from the Mediterranean Sea. At 8:45, a suicide bomber on a bus bound from Haifa to the northern mountain town of Tsfat blew himself up, killing nine others and wounding about 40. Around 11, Hezbollah gunners in southern Lebanon fired shells at Kiryat Shemona, Israel's northernmost city.
In Jerusalem, the quiet that had long prevailed around the Damascus Gate, a bustling area of Arab produce markets and small businesses next to the walled Old City, was shattered an hour later when a Palestinian gunman shot dead a telephone company guard and ran into a crowded coffeeshop while firing at Border Police patrolling the area. At least one Palestinian bystander was killed and 17 people, mostly Palestinians, were wounded.
Fighting raged throughout the day: Three Israeli soldiers were wounded by a bomb as troops continued their assault on units of the Islamic extremist group Hamas that are based in the casbah of Nablus. Three soldiers were severely injured by roadside bombs north of Ramallah, and two others were injured near Tulkarem. There were numerous unsuccessful attacks on Israeli settlements in Gaza.
Early this morning, Palestinian gunmen struck a family traveling in the northern West Bank, killing the parents and lightly wounding two children.
Senior Israeli sources said they felt the multiple assaults were an attempt by Islamic extremists to reinvigorate support for continued armed struggle within an increasingly weary Palestinian public, and to provoke a massive Israeli retaliation that would lead Syria and Iran to give Hezbollah a green light to operate aggressively against Israel along the Lebanese border.
''It is a very delicate time,'' said a source close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, citing US efforts to discourage Russia from aiding Iran's developing nuclear-power capability and the perceived US preparation to assault Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. ''For all the hurt and agony we have, to escalate now would not be wise.''
Nevertheless, a senior Foreign Ministry source said, ''we are very close'' to launching a massive attack because the Israeli public will not stand for restraint in the face of more days like yesterday, and Sharon will OK the attack rather than allow former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to his political right to gain political leverage.
Hamas claimed responsibility for yesterday's bus bombing, as it did for last week's bombing of a cafeteria at Hebrew University that killed seven people, five of them US citizens.
The group, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, says it plans a long series of such attacks in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in Gaza City two weeks ago that killed Hamas's military leader and 14 other people, mostly women and children,
Yesterday's bombing took place near a Jewish holy site - the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, author of the Zohar, the central text of Jewish mysticism - at a junction in north-central Israel.
The jam-packed Egged bus 361, which set out from coastal Haifa at 7 a.m., was nearing its destination in Tsfat, an ancient mountain city which, since the mid-16th century, has been the center of Jewish mysticism, when the blast occurred.
''I saw the bus stop, the front door swung open, and suddenly there was a huge explosion,'' said Tomer Gani, 25, a gas station attendant who was fueling a car at the junction. ''The front section of the roof flew out in flames, and so did the front door with the people next to it. Thick black smoke came out of the bus'' - produced by a fireball that flashed through the vehicle, severely burning many of the passengers.
Gani and three drivers who were stopped at the service station ran to assist the wounded. ''It was a terrible sight,'' he said. The dead ''were totally ripped up, limbs missing, some with whole sections blown off. At first, everything was quiet - total silence - and then the screams started.''
Some of the passengers on the civilian bus were young Israeli soldiers on their way back to their posts after weekend home leaves. Of the nine people killed, three were soldiers; of 54 injured, 23 were in the military. At least two foreigners, Filipinos working in Israel, were also killed.
An hour after the bus bombing, mayhem erupted outside Damascus Gate. Just before noon, witnesses said, a Palestinian armed with a pistol jumped onto the running board of a Bezeq telephone company truck and shot the driver. The man ran to the other side of the truck, shot dead the guard riding in the passenger seat, and severely wounded another passenger.
Then, running toward the popular Al Umal coffeeshop and a neighboring falafel stand, both frequented almost entirely by Arabs, he fired repeatedly at Border Police patrols responding to the first shots. Before the firing stopped, three men were dead - the assailant, the guard in the telephone truck, and a Palestinian killed as he crouched for cover near the falafel stand - and 17 were wounded. Both Israeli Jews with the guard in the truck were severely wounded; most of the rest of the injured were Palestinians or Israeli Arabs.
Chris Williams, a 33-year-old Boston computer programmer who is visiting Jerusalem with his twin brother, Carl, dived for cover.
''I saw this guy had a pistol to the driver's head. We started to move away, and heard two or three pops,'' Williams said. ''We've heard gunfire before because we live in Mission Hill. I don't know who was who, but I'd bet a million the first kill was in the truck.
''We went into one of the shops and the automatic gunfire erupted,'' he said. ''Then the undercover guys came out of nowhere, and seconds later the M16-toting motorcycle police units.''
Chief Superintendant Ofer Sivan of the National Police said the shooter was a 19-year-old Palestinian from Hebron. Mickey Levy, Jerusalem district commander of the police, said the man was known to the authorities before the attack, but Sivan said further details would not be released until investigators had gone farther with their work.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the usually busy area of markets, businesses, and coffeehouses was all but deserted. Israeli security men walked along the top of the Old City walls. And a frantic Israeli Arab woman, who gave only her first name, Rullah, was telling whoever asked that ''an Israeli opened fire on the cafe, and many are injured.''
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a branch of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
Hezbollah's renewed firing across Israel's border with Lebanon did no physical damage, but signaled the radical Islamic group's re-entry into the violence after a few weeks' absence.
The Israeli government put blame for the surge in violence on Arafat, whose administration condemned yesterday's bus bombing, but Sharon spokesman Ra'anan Gissin declined comment on an Army Radio report that the United States, revolted by the violence of the last few days, was now prepared for Israel to expel the Palestinian leader - a step Washington until now has resisted strongly.
''All in due time,'' Gissin said.
Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Putting the cart before the Horse ::: Carl and Chris Williams Freedom Summer Update
We left the Dheisheh Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem on Tuesday. We traveled to Beit Sahour which happens to also be a suburb of Bethlehem. We went there to meet up with a new set of activist. The reason was 2-fold : First to get some people to stay in the one of the Palestinian homes we had just left (the home was under demolition orders from the Israeli Army) and second to possibly get a few new activist to join our affinity group (which lost members because one went home and another was going to be doing other work).
After a long series of discussions we divided up and we came to the decision that Chris, myself (Carl) and Susanne would go to Qalqilya (pronounced "Qual - Kill - E - ahh), Palestine. A small team of activist have been based in Qalqilya doing a lot of work around checkpoint monitoring and accompaning Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances.
To get to Qalqilya we had to go to Jerusalem (and through a checkpoint), then to Nablus, and finally to the checkpoint outside of Qalqilya. Qalqilya is basically under a sort of silent siege. It is very difficult to get in or out, and impossible unless you have the proper paperwork and identity card. All this for a town of about 35,000 people. We had a story fabricated to get into Qalqilya and what we were going to be doing. The Israeli Army wouldn't appreciated us telling them that we were coming to Qalqilya to monitor the treatment of Palestinians at this very checkpoint. Anyway, we made it in, but others international activists have had to sneak around the checkpoint which it a quite dangerous adventure.
Once in Qalqilya we met with local NGOs and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS, which is affiliated with the International Committee of the Red Cross and runs an ambulance service for Qalqilya and the surrounding villages and towns). We also met the international activists that have been working in Qalqilya for some time (Garrick, Susan, Eli, Dave, Ester and Laura). We found out that they work their asses of too.
Basically, they have 2 or 3 people on duty at the PRCS for ambulance accompaniment 24 hours a day (which is divided into 3 shifts). In addition to that they also have 3, 4 or more people on duty at the checkpoint from 8 AM to 4 PM to monitor the Israeli army's treatment of the local Palestinians and the assist Palestinians in trying to pass through the checkpoint. We you do a bit of quick math you'll find out that this crew sometimes works 18 hour a day! All this in 90+ degree heat.
We (Carl, Chris and Susanne) were quite inspired by this sturdy group of activists and were eager to join in with them. After a good night's sleep of course. We slept the sleep of the dead that night, except for when we did a call-in to a group of activists in Boston to talk about our work with the International Solidarity Movement and out experiences in Palestine.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
We awoke in the morning and had several actions planned for the day, the long day. Chris was to visit some local schools and a summer camp. The school was for the children of victims of Israeli attacks, there were scores and scores of kids at the school.
Carl was on checkpoint duty, pulling a double-shift from 8 - 11 am and from 2 to 4 pm. It is astonishing to watch the Israeli military at work. The face of the Israeli army is that of an 18 year old kid with wraparound mirrored sunglasses. In this specific case the image was completed with a fading hickey on the neck, which seemed to punctuate the boy's youth nicely. The soldiers would shout at the waiting Palestinians to line up this way or that way, back here or over there in an almost laughable manner. Periodically pointing an M-16 machine gun (US made and paid for in case you were wondering) at a middle aged woman or more likely a teenaged boy. We had brought about 6 1.5 liter bottles of water with us to share with the Palestinians waiting in the scorching sun. We were emptied out of water ("Mayy" in Arabic) in about 2 hours. A tom-boyish girl, about 8 or 9 years old, still seemed thirsty. While she was trying to communicate with us, one of the Army boy's came by to push the Palestinians back, seemingly where we were standing was no longer acceptable even though we had been there for about an hour. When the soldier approached the girl looked at him in a way that can only be described as sternly and said "Mayy!". I was baffled. So was the soldier. The girl repeated her demand "Biddi mayya!" ("I want water!" in Arabic). The soldier had wandered back to his cement block station at this point. He still seemed astonished at the girl's request but there was a bottle of water standing on the cement block between him and the girl. A bit of a staring contest ensued. The girl grasped the neck of the bottle of water but didn't move it. The staring continued. She seemed to be non-verbally saying, "I am going to take this water for me and my family, is that OK? And you are not really allowed to say 'no'". They she just took the bottle spun on her heal and walked off to her family. She chugged about a cup full before handing it to her younger sister. The family finished the bottle and the girl marched back to the cement block to politely return the empty bottle.
Astonishing. About half an hour later she asked the same soldier for more water. He seemed resigned to the fact that this girl was going to get her way and promptly produced a canteen from inside of him uniform.
I love kids!
Thursday, August 15, 2002
Meanwhile back at the 'ranch', Chris was on overnight ambulance duty (early Thursday morning). He was sleeping at the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society when a call came in to pick up a pregnant woman about to go into labor in the neighboring village of Azzun at around 5am. Chris headed out with on of the PRCS rivers Munthir and another paramedic in the back. It took the soldiers at the Qalqilya checkpoint about 7 minutes to even come out to the ambulance. A clarifying note here, it is against the Geneva Conventions to impede ambulance traffic in any situation. However the PRCS drivers know that they would be shot at if the even attempted to drive through the checkpoint without submitting to the Israeli military. The soldiers told all of the occupants of the ambulance to get out. For better or worse they did not think Chris was a foreigner. They probably thought that he was a Palestinian. Everyone was told to lift their shirts to see if they had any explosives belts on. This whole exercise took 10 minutes. It was raining that night which is bizzare weather for this time of year. This didn't deter Munthir, the driver. About 5 minutes later they pulled up to the checkpoint outside of Azzun. The family had a car but the Israeli military would not allow them to drive out of Azzun to the UN hospital in Qalqilya.
The woman and her husband were loaded into the ambulance and they took off. The woman was screaming from her labor pains.
Chris smelled the woman's water breaking, Munthir drove faster in the rain. He pulled over for a second just outside of Qalqilya thinking they would have to deliver there but the continued on to the Qalqilya checkpoint. Again the soldiers took more than 5 minutes to even show up. This time they did not take quite as long in searching the ambulance, however they did take just long enough that the baby's head came out and the delivery was starting. Munthir told the soldiers that he would have to deliver right here outside of the checkpoint gate. The soldiers, who seemed to be of North African or Druze backgrounds looked very similar to Chris. The soldier told Munthir that he could not stop here but would have to continue through the checkpoint. He drove through the gate about 10 feet past, stopped and went in the back to assist in the delivery.
It was a quick delivery. 14 minutes later Munthir was driving to the UN hospital and we had a baby boy in the back, with his mother and father. There is a kind of running joke in Palestine that lots of children are named Mahsoom, which means "checkpoint" in Arabic.
Arriving at the UN hospital at 5:37 am, Chris waited outside while the Munthir and the paramedic took the woman and child in to the hospital. Interestingly, a couple of guys outside the hospital greeted Chris with several phrases in Arabic, presumably believing him to be Palestinian.
Chris finished his shift at 8 AM and promptly went to sleep. Carl started another day of duty at the checkpoint, again having volunteered for a double shift. The first shift team was Carl, Susanne and Jennie and they were armed with 9 bottles of water, a digital video camera and a notebook. When the team arrived at the checkpoint there was moderate activity. About 30 - 40 people waiting in the morning sun. The group waiting included men, women, children and more that a few infants. The Israeli army institutes random policies at the checkpoints. Many times not allowing residents of a town to leave that town, only letting people who are in Qalqilya from somewhere else to go home, this is further complicated by the point that usually you cannot get INTO Qalqilya unless you are from Qalqilya. If you are confused at this point you are beginning to understand. Palestinians get in line as early as possible to try to cross the checkpoint before the rules change.
One of the other astonishing things that happens at checkpoints is that the Israeli military impounds horses, donkeys and their carts. There seems to be no possible explanation for this. They take the carts away and leave them next to the checkpoint tents housing the officers. If the army thought there was some kind of bomb threat they certainly wouldn't leave the carts there. One man, Lutvie, that we met had been at the checkpoint all day everyday for most of the past week. He was trying to get his cart back, since it was an integral part of his livelihood. He and his son approached us and if we could help him. We told him that we could. Throughout the day we had approched the army to request they let people thought the checkpoint for various reason, a mother needed to visit an ailing child, a father needed to return to his family after a week of work in Qalqilya and the like. We told Lutvie that we needed to wait a bit before asking the army for any more 'favors'. He agreed. At about 10:30 AM Carl and Lutvie approached on of the soldiers and asked if they could speak to the captain about the cart and horse situation. The soldier was hesitant but when pressured he allowed us to pass and approach the commander's tent. Outside the tent a young soldier asked, in a mish-mash of Hebrew and Arabic what Carl and Lutvie wanted. Carl asked if he spoke English.
"Yes, I speak English" was the reply.
"My name is Carl and I am an American citizen, this man's name is Lutvie and his horse and cart have been taken. Is there someone we could talk to about getting them back?"
"Yes."
"Ummm, who?"
"Me."
"OK, can we have the horse and cart?"
"Yes, not now, come back, 6."
"At 6 o'clock?"
"Yes."
"To whom should we speak at 6?"
"To me."
"O, OK, and what is your name?"
[Long pause]
"Doesn't matter, speak me at 6."
"OK, thank you."
Lutvie and Carl were annoyed and pleased at the same time. This was the first direct answer Lutvie had in three days regarding the horse and cart. But the arbitrariness of waiting until 6 PM was difficult to be happy about. Carl told Lutvie that he would certainly be at the checkpoint at 6 to try again.
After finishing the first shift Carl, Jennie and Susanne went home for a bit of a rest.
The second shift (from 2 - 4 usually, but due to circumstances this one would stretch to past 6) team was made up of Carl, Chris and Jennie. The soldiers were up to their usually pushing people around (they seem to always make a point of pushing people, sometimes with their M-16s).
The day seemed to drag on. We made a few interventions on behalf of people who asked for our help, provided water to people (and even to a horse!). And generally waited for 6 PM to roll around. At about 5 PM Lutvie returned to the checkpoint (he had gone home earlier in the day). We waited until a lot of the people and trucks were out of the way and they approached the soldier at the gate. We told him we had horse and cart related business at the commander's tent and could we be allowed through to discuss the matter. "No" was the answer. In situation like this we kind of learned to use the Jedi mind trick with the younger Israeli draftees.
"I am an American and I am going to talk to someone at the commander's tent."
"Oh."
"Is that OK?"
"Umm, oh, OK."
At the commander's tent the same young soldier was at the lounging on a pile of sandbags (he looked turtle-ish at about 5-foot-2 and with his olive drab uniform, battle helmet, battle flak jacket, and vest pouches loaded with sound grenades, half a dozen extra clips of ammunition and an M-16 slung around his neck). I asked about the horse and cart. To my astonishment he just pointed to an area behind the tent. Lutvie and I briskly skipped around the tent worrying that the decisions like this one can and very often are revoked at the slightest whim. I turned the corner to see about 25 battered carts.
Hmmm, "Terrorist donkey carts ... for terrorist donkeys, no doubt."
I would have laughed at the thought if it were not for the fact that something like this thought was probably their reason the Israeli military first impounded the dozens of carts (and does so regularly and continually I have been told). Lutvie and I grabbed the cart. I was in the donkey-position, that is I grabbed the poles in the front that would normally be tied to the animal. We navigated the cart out of its parking spot and onto the road as we approached the soldiers at the checkpoint about a half dozen men were shouting and running about. I thought they were happy to finally see Lutvie get his cart. Not exactly. They had impounded carts and wanted them back too. That is the problem with justice when people see tiny bits of it, everybody wants some. Hard to argue with thought. So I left Lutvie to his horse-less (and Carl-less at this point) to re-request cart releases from the military. Seemingly an order had been made to allow all the carts to be released. About 6 people some men and some pre-teenaged children where grabbing carts and wheeling them out. Then the rule changed. "No carts out", quickly became the unspoken order. How or why was anyone guess. One can imagine that the Israeli commanders getting an encoded radio message from Shin Beit (Israel's Secret Service) at the crucial moment:
"Islamic Jihad amassing donkey carts... stop ...
North West Judea ... stop ...
Dangerous situation ... stop ...
Israel's existence at risk ... stop ...
disallow movement of said carts ... stop ...
immediate and urgent ... stop ..."
Anyway, including Lutvie's cart, 3 were released. I was beaming with pride. Three people had their card back. Granted they had no animals to go with the carts and they should have never been taken in the first place. Further the very existence of the checkpoint is an injustice, but the minor victory of the free carts was overwhelming. I kind of came to a tiny understanding. When asked about the military occupation Palestinians will invariably say "What can we do?"
Insha' Allah -- it is God's Will.
People here feel helpless and any miniscule victory or resistance to the Israeli occupation is a gift from God. I, in my agnosticism, felt the same way.
Today, together, we freed the carts.
Tomorrow, together, we free Palestine.
For information on how you can work for a free Palestine check:
http://www.israel-divest.org/
and http://www.freepalestinecampaign.org/
Carl and Chris Williams
(Phone-less in Amman, Jordan in transit to the USA)
posted by Christian at
8/19/2002 05:55:00 PM
