• Palestine Monitor Israel Heightens Siege over Palestinian Territories, Excessive Use of Military Force against Unarmed Civilians Continues
• Al Mezan The belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces reinforce closing the Gaza Strip and divide it into three isolated parts
• Defence for Children International - Palestine Section REMEMBERING THE INNOCENTS

Palestine Monitor

The Israeli government has recently heightened the state of siege imposed over the Palestinian territories by sealing all exit and entry points into the West Bank and Gaza through the military closure of all land bridges and of the Palestinian Airport. The Gaza Strip has been divided into four areas separated by Israeli erected roadblocks and checkpoints. The north of Gaza, the central region, as well as Rafah and Khan Younis in the south have all been placed under closure, not allowing passage of peoples or goods between each of these areas.

Every major town and village in the West Bank has also been placed under complete closure and Israeli tanks have recently been positioned threateningly close to the borders of Palestinian controlled areas. The effects of closure upon the Palestinian population have been disastrous. The health care system in Palestine is now completely paralyzed, bringing the national vaccination program to near collapse.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s Headquarters was attacked with automatic machine gun fire and other heavy ammunition shot from Pisgot settlement. Five first aid vehicles were destroyed, including an ambulance as well as a vehicle used to transport deaf children. The water reservoir on top of the building was also destroyed.

While the Israeli military and government continue to claim that their soldiers only fire live ammunition at civilians when they are endangered, the story of Jadallah al-Jabari, a Palestinian man from Hebron, proves otherwise. Yesterday, Al-Jabari, a 50 year-old sanitation worker for the city, approached an Israeli soldier on foot at a barrier of concrete blocks. After the soldiers asked the man where he was going, an Israeli soldier shot Al-Jabari in the foot. An Associated Press cameraman was present and filmed Al-Jabari whose foot had been severed from his leg, leaving it hanging by sinew and flesh. Eyewitnesses attest that the soldiers delayed the call for a medic for fifteen minutes after the man had been shot while he lay in the street bleeding.

al mezan

The belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces reinforce closing the Gaza Strip and divide it into three isolated parts

Today 2/1/2001, and in the context of its policy aiming at closing the Palestinian Occupied Territories and separating them into isolated cantons, the belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces has separated the Gaza Strip into three isolated parts. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time Israel does this since 29/9/2000. After separating the southern part of the Gaza Strip from its northern part on 25/1/2000 onwards, the belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces have today closed Salah Addeen road at Alshuhada’/Nitsareem junction to the south of Gaza. At the same time, they have closed the western (Beach) road, which connects Annuseirat with Gaza, where an Israeli tank has been positioned. Both Palestinian vehicles and pedestrians have been prevented from using these roads. As a result, the Gaza Strip has been divided into three isolated parts:

- The northern zone: It extends from Beit Hanoun in the north till Alshuhada’/ Nitsareem junction in the south.
- The middle zone: It extends from Alshuhada’ junction in the north till Kfar Darom junction in the south.
- The southern zone: It extends from Kfar Darom junction in the north till Rafah in the south.

In the same context, the belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces have closed the international airport of Gaza, Rafah border passage, and (Allenby bridge) border passage. Besides, they have isolated the different cities in the West Bank from each other.

In the context of the Israeli policy aiming to kill the highest possible number of Palestinian civilians, the belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces have deliberately killed Sabry Awadh Ibraheem Khadhr, a 50 year-old Palestinian farmer, this mourning. The martyr was working in his field, which is located in Beit Lahia near Dogeet settlement, when Israeli soldiers shot him in the neck. Yesterday, and in the same context, Israeli soldiers opened fire on Jadallah Alja’bary at Hebron’s market from a 2 meter- distance. As a result, his leg was severely crushed. He called for help, but the soldiers did not provide even first aid for him, which aggravated his condition.

In the context of the Israeli policy aiming at arresting Palestinian civilians, the belligerent Israeli Occupation Forces arrested three Palestinians while on their way to travel abroad via the international airport of Gaza.

These are: 1. Salah Zaid Abu Samahdanah, a resident of Rafah. 2. Suhail Mustafa Abboud Mudallah, a resident of Jabalya. 3. Mohammad Saeed Balata, a resident of Jabalya.

In the light of all of this, we, at AL-MEZAN Center for Human Rights, reaffirm that the state of silence shown by the international community in regard to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian civilians encourages Israel to commit further crimes against the Palestinians. We also stress that the Israeli closure of the Palestinian Occupied Territories, killing of Palestinians, destruction of property, and bulldozing agricultural lands are considered war crimes. Therefore the international community is requested to fulfill their legal obligations and to bring the Israeli war criminals to justice.

Defence for Children International - Palestine Section

REMEMBERING THE INNOCENTS

On 28 December 2000, Defence for Children International/Palestine Section, in coordination with the Holy Land Trust and 'Remembering the Innocents' Day, organized in Manger Square a memorial to Palestinian children who have been martyred since the beginning of the Intifada 2000. The following piece was written about the event by Lori Allen, a U.S. doctoral student currently volunteering with DCI/PS.

28 December 2000 Manger Square, Bethlehem, Palestine

REMEMBERING THE INNOCENTS

By Lori Allen

This was the place where, according to religion, history, myth, belief, Jesus was born. Cement now covers what used to be, some two thousand years ago, a field, or a musty inn overflowing with travelers and merchants passing through. Or a dusty stall, sawdust floors stamped upon by groggy sheep or a donkey in a fit of pique. Here, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a town too preoccupied with its business and revelry to take him in, is where-- they say-- the child who was to become a world savior, a herald of peace, a prophet preceding Muhammad, a source of solace for millions of Christians, began his short life.

Two thousand years later, Manger Square became a place in which to commemorate the end of more than ninety children's even shorter lives. More than ninety Palestinian children murdered in three months of brutal military repression. More than ninety children who were students, or still too young to go to school, like twenty-three-day-old Hind Abu Quweider, dead from tear gas. Tear gas, indeed.

More than ninety children who played in the streets, or who felt they were too old to play in the streets, too hopeless to go to school, and desperate enough to face tanks with stones.

Spread across the small plaza of Manger Square, tens of styrofoam rocks, a meter high, eye level to the children roaming through, framed the glossy posters of the martyred children. Shyly grinning Nasser Khamis Birash, fifteen-years-old, from Al-Bireh. Gapped-tooth, crew cut hair on the head of Mohammad Abu Tahoun, fifteen-years-old, from Tulkarem. Deep blue eyes of sixteen-year-old Shadi Ahmad Hassan Zghoul look out from a stone-faced, straight-on expression. The widest grin on Jihad Abu Shahma. Dead at twelve, though his picture must have been taken five years ago, when he was a seven-year-old little boy, rather than a twelve-year-old martyr. Alaa Osaama Hamdan died when she was ten years old. She and her father were stopped at a checkpoint by an Israeli soldier. This soldier, probably himself only 18-years-old, maybe following orders, maybe because he was in a bad mood, refused to let them through to a hospital. Alaa died from a lung infection, an illness normally treatable, curable, survivable. But not if you are Palestinian at an Israeli checkpoint. She is now a martyr, her face pasted on a styrofoam grave-stone, marking her death, attesting to her life, insisting on justice.

It was a maze of remembrance. Palestinian families, children in arm-linked groups, cool teen-age boys with nothing else to do, journalists, the rare tourist all wandered through this macabre outdoor museum, pausing in front of the pictures, maybe considering the lives behind these faces. Maybe some were imagining these children as their own, thinking of their own sons, boisterous sons still alive, trouble-makers skipping school, polite reserved boys who like to draw and read, frustrated teenagers who have begun to think about the future, baby girls still without teeth or words speaking volumes with glistening eyes and flailing arms. Maybe some were thinking about when they themselves were romping thoughtless boys happy to scamper across hills, shimmy up trees, contemplate insects.

The family of fourteen-year-old 'Alaa Mohammad Mahfouth congregated in front of his photo, at his styrofoam gravestone. The mother of 'Alaa--his poster shows a little boy with deep brown, intelligent eyes and a polite small smile-- wept quietly. The father looked away with tears at the corners of his eyes. Onlookers cried. I watched this unbearable scene, unable to offer comfort, no solace possible to express, thinking of my own fourteen-year-old nephew who hates Spanish class and has started wearing cologne. 'Alaa's cousin, himself just a young man, a dark blue police uniform on his tall frame, respectfully asked if his family could take the poster. A poster for a child.

These were the children killed, now recalled as individuals rather than numbers, people with their own pasts, who should have had futures. Here, where the child peace-maker is said to have received the expensive gifts of wise men, these soft, styrofoam shapes, criss-crossed by children's pastel finger paints, were transformed into grave stones, children of the stones, our hearts have turned to stone, David's stones against Goliath, stones against guns, stones crying out.

The invitation to this ceremony reads: "Remembering the Innocents: If they are silenced the stones will cry out." And from a loud-speaker, the voices of children fill the air, calling out the names of the dead. Sami Fathi Mohammad Al-Taramsi, from Rafah, Mohammad Misbah Abu Ghali, from Khan Younis, Khan Younis, Ibrahim Ahmad Athman, from Gaza… Seventeen, fourteen, sixteen (the shadow of a moustache), twelve, twelve… Many of these boys are--were-- from the Gaza Strip. A ribbon of land, (17 miles long, about 4 miles wide), literally encircled by barbed-wire, a crown of thorns, crowded in by settlers, patrolled by soldiers in tanks, stifled by poverty. The parents of many of these boys have been forbidden from working, stopped at the checkpoints, threatened with death if they try to sneak through a side-road. Their death or the slow starvation of their children.

These boys who were killed knew who is responsible for this grim choice, as do all Palestinians. They know how many Israeli settlers (6,100) live one how much land (36 square kilometers, one-third of the Gaza Strip). They see the futility of a younger sister's hopes to become a doctor, the almost laughable nature of a little brother's desire to fly a plane, to get out. Their future holds little promise. Many of these boys learned a cynicism that is not without reason. They know that there are few choices and diminishing prospects for their lives, rare are the possibilities which normally spur a young person to work, to look ahead, to hope for something better. This is their reality and all the children with ears to hear and eyes to see know it. Survival is what most hope for. But, for many, even that simple aspiration has been snuffed out by the pressures of daily life.

The shame of a father unable to provide for his children, the grief of an aunt mourning the imprisonment of a husband or death of a brother, the restlessness of a little brother forbidden from leaving the house because his parents fear he will be cursed and hurt by a soldier, run over by a settler, killed at a stone- and bullet-filled confrontation. These are not unreasonable fears.

The children's voices on the loud-speaker continue. Karam Fathi Al-Kurd, from Khan Younis, Nizar Mohammad Eida, from Ramallah, Wajdi Al-Lam Al-Hattab, from Tulkarem, Mohammad Jamal Al-Dura, from Gaza. All the children know Mohammad Al-Dura. Countless times they have witnessed the moment of his death, shot while huddling at the side of his father, helpless to save him, a sinewy arm and shouting voice incapable of protecting his eleven-year-old son from the Israelis' bullets. I ask a group of girls, do you know anyone who was killed? They cry out in unison, "Mohammad Al-Dura!" These girls are not from Gaza, they didn't go to school with Mohammad, they never met him. But I think they feel as if they know him personally. They tell me they can't sleep at night. They identify with that boy, terror so plain on his face, the violence of his death so graphically displayed in the television's freeze-frames. Mohammad screaming. Mohammad shot. Mohammad fallen dead. Mohammad's body slumping onto the legs of his father. Father's head tilting over, body crouching over into shock. Dead son on his lap. Children here think a lot about this event. Their drawings show stick-figure Mohammad, the father calling out in voice-balloon desperation, sloppy oval bullets in the air, red crayon blood. Mainly they show fear.

Three banners are hung on the building across from Manger Square. Long white sheets painted with children's stories. They had been asked to remember the innocents. (Should twelve-year-olds have to remember innocence?) What's on their minds? Lots of bullets, the occasional Palestinian flag, more soldiers, Mohammad al-Dura prone on the ground. Two older girls spent hours diligently painting the Arabic word for Jerusalem, "Al-Quds." Inside the letter Q, spelled out with just as much care, the word "peace." What's this, why is the word peace so small? "Because, one day, some day, there will be peace." Looking at a square full of grey and green uniformed Israeli soldiers, Palestinian youth in street clothes, more bullets, more blood, I asked the artist, a teen-age girl, what this was. Looking at me, perhaps wondering if I was as stupid as I sounded, she replied with articulate vehemence, "This is our reality. This is what we live in. This is what surrounds us. We have no thoughts to draw anything else."

One square of canvas held a bright yellow flower encased in gray barbed wire. I asked the shy artist of that one, what's this about? She mumbled, embarrassed, "Children, Israelis, like this..." Her message clear.

A representative of Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS), the organization which set up this exhibition, explained the significance of the large, red plastic flowers sprouting from the styrofoam gravestones. This is called shaqa'iq al-no'man. According to Palestinian myth it was originally a white flower. It grows from the graves of martyrs, and from their blood the petals turn red.

A young man from Deheishe refugee camp sweeps his arm out in front of him, across the stones and flowers and pictures of children, "This is our blood."