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Murder in Jenin 7/11-2003

Anonyme, Samedi, Novembre 15, 2003 - 17:27

Sounds Like Freedom

After three weeks of relative quiet the Israeli Occupation Forces returned to the streets of Jenin on the 7th of November. Violence from Israeli soldiers left at least 6 Palestinians dead and a number wounded in the space of two days, with four of the martyrs under the age of 18.

On Friday 7th the IOF announced a curfew over Hora Shakiyye, a poor district in eastern Jenin. A force of possibly 20 or more military vehicles including tanks, armored personnel carriers, hummers and police jeeps surrounded a house on the top of a hill overlooking Jenin and cordoned off the surrounding area. Crowds of young boys from Hora Shakiyye gathered to throw stones at the tanks that were preventing entrance to part of their neighborhood. As news of the incursion spread they were joined by children and young men from other parts of the city. The Israelis responded to this behavior by firing live ammunition at the children. At least one child was injured from gunfire during the course of the afternoon. As the sun went down and the children went home to break their ramadan fast, the soldiers raided the house that they had been surrounding all afternoon. Inside was the Amjad Abeidi, the local leader of Seraya Al Quds, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. Amjad was wounded by the soldiers and arrested. Another man who was not believed to have been wanted for anything was also taken during the operation.

According to the Israelis Amjad was responsible for the 4th of October suicide bombing of a Haifa restaurant. His family home was demolished on the 5th of October by the Israelis and his wife was arrested a few days later and faced deportation to Gaza as a punishment aimed at her husband. Following his arrest she was released. Resistance fighters opened fire at the Israelis in order to prevent Amjad's arrest. The better armed Israelis returned fire and killed one fighter from the Al Aqsa martyrs brigades, Mohammed al-Kaud, aged 22. Another young man was also hit by Israeli fire and lost a hand. The Israelis then withdrew from Hora Shakiyye and news spread of the death of the latest martyr in the Palestinians fight for freedom. In little time a funeral procession was marching through the streets of of Jenin. Mohammed al-Kaud's sobbing friends and relatives carried his body through the streets surrounded by members of his Fatah faction and other residents of Jenin who joined in to pay their respects. As the procession marched the rumble of tanks could be heard on the edge of the city. The procession continued undeterred, however and there was no further bloodshed that night.

Early the following morning however the Israelis returned to Jenin in even greater numbers. This time they invaded Jenin refugee camp on the opposite side of the city. Tanks and APCs blocked every street around the target area forming a cordon around the house that was to be the target of today's raid. Children from the camp gathered to throw stones and the tanks again opened fire. Two stone throwers aged 12 and 19 were killed (the Israeli press claims the older boy Mohammed Salah was a "Hamas militant"). A seven year old child was also critically wounded in the head and later died from his wounds. Several other children including a 9 year old on his way home from school were wounded.

A convoy of ten jeeps and hummers entered the cordoned off area to raid the suspect house. The soldiers forced a Palestinian to act as a human shield for them and open the door to the house. The resistance fighters who had been hiding in the house escaped shortly before the soldiers arrived however and the house was empty. As a punishment to the owner of the house for allowing the resistance to operate from his house (even though he was not actually there at the time) the army wired his home for demolition. They may have hoped that this action of collective punishment would turn people against the resistance due to fear of Israeli reprisals if the resistance entered their homes. The residents of several adjacent houses pleaded with the soldiers to allow them to leave the area before the explosion and were eventually allowed to flee their homes. The families in other nearby houses however remained inside. The soldiers then pulled back and a massive explosion ripped through the home completely destroying it, with all of the families possessions still inside. All of the neighboring house were also damaged by the blast. The wall of one was partially collapsed, as was part of a floor, and a water tank on top of the house was ruptured. Other houses in a large radius had their windows smashed sending broken glass flying everywhere. A neighbors car was also completely wrecked.

After the blast residents and medical workers gathered to survey the scene of the devastation and make sure no one was hurt, and those who had been allowed to flee returned to their homes. A tank and APC then drove past and opened fire, causing people to flee in panic. The army then pulled out of the camp, as apache attack helicopters circled overhead and shelled houses in another part of the camp from which the resistance was believed to have fired on Israelis from earlier in the day. No one was believed to have been hurt in this attack.

The bloodshed did not end there however. The different Israeli army vehicles left Jenin in different directions. One tank and an APC drove through the near by village of Birkin. Children on the streets threw stones at the tanks as they passed and the soldiers inside the vehicles decided to open fire on them. In the hail of gunfire a 14 year old boy was killed and at least four others were wounded. One of these, aged 17, died in hospital four days later from a gunshot wound to the chest that he had sustained.

Friday 7th and Saturday 8th of November also saw bloodshed elsewhere in Occupied Palestine with Palestinians also killed in Nablus, Ramallah and Gaza, where children were also among the dead. To many Israelis the deaths and destruction in Jenin on these two days will be seen as necessary collateral damage in the course of a successful military operation against 'terrorists'. But to many Palestinians they were just two more days of the bloody Israeli state terror that is becoming a regular feature of their daily lives. As a resident of one house damaged during the Israeli attacks put it these two days in which so many children were killed or wounded "were just normal days here".

www.soundslikefreedom.org


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