FW: [pga] FW: 1 - News from israel-palestine

-----Original Message-----
From: mblevy@actcom.co.il [mailto:mblevy@actcom.co.il]
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 6:20 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: 1 - News from israel-palestine


Hello to all,
I hope you are well.  i took a short jaunt through some
major internet media sources today, from all the major
continents, and found very little about what is really
happening here.  i'm sending a little bit of information
from here, because it is really very serious. even to those
living it, and those of us having to watch is, it is very
difficult to comprehend how it can continue to get worse,
but it really does.  a just resolution to this conflict will
not come without international pressure.  please feel free
to pass on any information here you think might be of
interest to anybody.

sharon made a public announcement a few days ago that,
basically, he was now going to beat the palestinians into
submission.  it was something very close to: "They need a
really good blow, and then they'll go back to
negotiations."  the israeli establishment cannot afford to
not return to negotiations, because negotiations are where
the palestinian basic needs can be compromised to israeli
benefit. it is the palestinian people who are refusing to
allow their leadership to negotiate under these terms, which
is precisely why sharon is attempting to clobber them into
submission.

The "escalation of violence" in the last days is largely
comprised of a series of Israeli military incursions into
Palestinian refugee camps.  the pretense for their actions
is "hunting down terrorists".  One of their tactics, quite
well publicized here out of a need to explain how so many
people could be injured in one day, is hte following:
rather than going from door to door, which would put the
military at a physical disadvanatage to all the palestinian
people on the street, they are going from home to home
through by breaking down the common walls between the
cramped camp homes.  F-16s and tanks are being used.  there
have been several reports of targets being adjacent to
schools, in both gaza and the west bank.

refugee camps in both gaza and the west bank have been
targeted.  camps outlying ramalla, and one small one inside
of bethlehem are two that have not been targeted yet, and
people are just waiting.  not sleeping at night.  i spoke
with someone at azza camp in bethlehem yesterday, and she
says the tiny camp is surrounded by tanks.  they can walk
within the camp, but don't leave the camp.  if a child goes
outside with firecrackers, they fear for their lives,
thinking it could give the military pretense to enter, and
shoot.

freedom of movement not only outside of refugee camps, but
between various locations, has been almost completely
stopped for days.  friends that work in jerusalem can
perhaps get to ramalla for a meeting, but it might take all
day, or they may stay overnight.  these locations are less
than an hour apart.  in places where there was a checkpoint
two weeks ago, there are now three.  one checkpoint is
military control of your life; three checkpoints is complete
restriction of freedom of movement.

i just spoke with a palestinian child psychologist who has
been going from school to school, classroom to classroom,
just letting children speak their truths, process something
with her guidance.  she says she feels like her head is
about to explode from the level of helplessness she exists
in everyday.

i don't know how much i can say here, and i know much, much,
much less than the people that live it every day.  should
you want to try to get a glimpse of something happening here
- and are able to read between the lines quite well -  you
may try the English internet version of Ha'aretz, one of the
israeli newspapers.  they of course don't write everything,
and scew almost everything, but they do give some framework
of what's happening: www.haaretzdaily.com more useful would
be to check palestinian or other arab press.

concerning palestinian violence, i am almost as safe as you
are, whereever you may happen to be.  this is not an equal
fight, or a fight between equals: this is a fight between
oppressor and oppressed, and i'm on the side with the bigger
bat.  there is a well known statistic here that more than
twice as many people have died in car accidents in israel
than have died as a result of the Palestinian Intifada. on
the other hand, one of the reasons the numbers of injured
Palestinians have escalated so high in the last days is that
palestinian men in the refugee camps are fighting the
israeli military, on their streets.  facing the tanks,
weapons, tear gas, they are refusing to be victimized and
are fighting.  in one camp near bethlehem, there was a
public decision made that all the men should leave the camp,
so that when the military comes, they have no one to look
for, no one to fight, no excuse to do damage.  in this way,
they are trying to preserve everyone's safety.  in the camp
written about below, hundreds of people blocked the entrance
to the camp, trying to keep the military out; many were
injured, many died.  rumor has it that hundreds (200-400)
have been arrested and are being held under god-knows-what
conditions.

As an example of one of the most recent atrocities, this
message was posted today to a listserv for primarily israeli
activists.  Tamar Pelleg Sryck is one of isreael's foremost
human rights lawyers.

[1] A report on what is still going on in Tul Karm right now

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:              Sat, 09 Mar 2002 15:53:14 +0200
From:                   Tamar Pelleg Sryck
<tamarpel@netvision.net.il>

I want to share with you information I received from a
friend in Tul Karm about the situation in the town and 
the nearby  refugee camps. As there is curfew there, and 
many phones don't answer it is difficult to reach people 
there. Therefore there can be some imprecisions in the 
following

There were close to 600 men arrested from  the town of Tul
Karm and the camps Nur A-Shams and Tul Karm. Some have been 
released. In the Tul Karm Camp men 14 to 60 years old were 
ordered to leave homes and reach the UNRWA school. There they 
were arrested and transferred to the Ofer military camp in
Bitunia.

About 90 wounded were allowed to be transported to the
hospital in T.K.

A woman 17 yers old, Rana Jayussi  the wife of Ziad  Salah
Jayusi from the village of KOOR (near TK) died after having 
tried alternative ways to reach alternative hospitals to give 
birth.The baby died as well.

There is no electricity in the camps and in  about 2/3 of
the town.

The curfew continues.

People are running out of their food supplies. Some don't
have food left. There is no water in Tul Karm camp.

Right now the army is destroying houses and shops in the
camp.