Five Palestinians Killed
Palestine Media Center
15 May, 2003
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed five Palestinians, including two boys, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the past twenty-four hours as Palestinians on Thursday marked the 55th anniversary of their “Nakba” (Catastrophe), the loss of their homeland to the new state of Israel.
Every year, Palestinians commemorate Al-Nakba by feature rallies of refugees holding banners with names of villages in what is now Israel from which they were forced to flee or were expelled in the war over the Jewish state’s founding.
On the ground, three Palestinians were killed when dozens of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles raided the northern Gaza early Thursday, near the town of Beit Hanoun in one of the largest IOF incursions in recent months, witnesses said.
Among the victims was a 12 year-old boy identified as Mohammed al-Za’anin who was killed instantly after IOF soldiers shot him in the head.
The other two slain Palestinians were Nidal Kareem, 22, and Khalil Karmout, 33. At least ten people were wounded, some of them critically during the invasion, Palestinian medical sources aid.
IOF also demolished six Palestinians’ houses after forcing residents to leave at gunpoint, witnesses said.
Residents also said Israeli snipers were posted on the roofs of many buildings in Beit Hanoun while IOF soldiers conducted house-to-house searches.
Israeli tanks also surrounded the nearby town of Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp between Beit Lahiya and Gaza City and cut off the electricity in the area, witnesses said.
Palestinian officials condemned the Israeli assaults as proof that Israel is “not interested” in restoring the peace process and putting an end to bloodshed.
“All the circumstances indicate the Israelis are not interested in the peace plan,” said Abd al-Razak al-Majaydah, the Palestinian security chief in Gaza. “What they did today is part of a vicious circle. Today, Israel carried out this incursion, and tomorrow someone will retaliate.”
In the West Bank, a 14-year-old boy was shot dead by IOF in the grounds of the main hospital in the northern West bank city of Jenin, Palestinian medical sources said.
Hospital nurse Sa’ed Atatra said Diya’ Hawadreh was killed and six other Palestinians, also inside the hospital compound, were wounded in the attack.
“When the shooting started, many of the civilians and neighbors of the house took refuge inside the hospital walls,” he explained.
IOF Use Children as Human Shields
IOF also used two Palestinian women and three girls aged 4, 6 and 9, as human shields during an exchange of fire with Palestinian activists sheltered in a building, in central Jenin.
A young British-Polish human rights activist volunteering with various local humanitarian organizations and identifying herself only as Ewa said she was among them.
“Some soldiers were standing beside us holding big metal shields to protect themselves, and others were behind the wall against which we were sitting, hurling grenades inside the building where the men were,” Ewa, 24, told AFP.
She was reporting via telephone while she stood with the family that the Israeli occupation army was using as human shields.
An IOF soldier ordered her to disconnect the call when he realized that she was reporting on the actions of the Israeli forces.
“I joined three girls, aged four, six and nine, and a very distressed woman who were not allowed to leave the scene of the fighting and forced to sit on the floor against a wall facing the targeted building,” she added.
“Palestinian men were then brought out of the building, handcuffed and forcibly thrown to the ground,” before the assault was completed, she said.
“I was briefly allowed to leave and when I came back with water for the woman, who needed medical care, I was shoved to the ground and we had to sit against the wall,” said the human rights activist.
Israeli and Palestinian rights groups have documented several cases of IOF using civilians, often children, as human shields during their almost daily West Bank incursions.
The Israeli Supreme Court last year issued a temporary ban on the use of human shields but never outlawed it completely in spite of several petitions filed by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Earlier, IOF killed one Palestinian and wounded two others in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security sources said.
Tayseer Abu Shab, 26 was shot in the chest Wednesday when IOF troops raided Nablus’ Old City, Palestinian hospital sources said.
Some 20 other Palestinians were wounded in the onslaught, hospital sources added.
Also the West Bank, IOF detained at least 15 Palestinians in Jenin, Tulkarem and Qalqilya.