------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 9, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- REPORT FROM PALESTINIAN INTIFADA: YOUTHS DEFY ISRAELI SHOOT-TO-KILL TACTICS Special to Workers World Israeli tanks and helicopter gun ships escalated the one- sided war against the Palestinians by opening fire Oct. 30 on Palestinian towns, targeting residential areas, civilians and offices of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement. By Oct. 31, the official death toll in over a month of Israeli repression rose to 154 Palestinians killed, plus 12 Israelis. Over 6,000 Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank have been wounded. The U.S. military-industrial complex supplies most of the weapons and ammunition used by the so-called Israeli Defense Force. From his wrecked apartment near the Fatah office in El Bireh, Ramallah's twin city, a Palestinian man seemed aware of this. He waved a piece of the wall blown in on him at visitors from the United States, saying, "I want to send a message to President Clinton, I want to send this back to him." The visitors were a four-person team from the International Action Center, including IAC Co-director Sara Flounders, West Coast Co-director Richard Becker, Los Angeles Co- director Preston Wood, and Randa Jamal of Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. They had come not only to observe the events but also to bring antibiotics, wound dressings and other medical supplies to Palestinian hospitals and clinics. These are badly needed now with Israeli military checkpoints preventing the normal delivery of medical supplies, plus the much greater number of wounded to be treated. The delegation landed in Tel Aviv on Oct. 28, and by the next day had made the first delivery of medical supplies to a hospital at Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. By Oct. 30, the Israelis had made a new aggressive escalation of the war, firing on Palestinian cities, and the IAC delegation was in the middle of a rocket attack on Ramallah. ISRAELIS SHELL RAMALLAH >From a rooftop near the home where they were staying, IAC delegation members could see and hear the step-up in shelling from tanks and helicopters. This is how Becker described it: "At about 10:30 p.m. local time we saw a rocket attack from what we believe was an Apache helicopter some distance from the house that we're staying in. A plane that was flying over, we could see that, we saw a flare and then a large explosion took place possibly within a mile, mile and a half. "We went immediately to the site and it turned out that a very small building from the Fatah organization had been rocketed in a residential neighborhood in Ramallah's twin city, El-Bireh. "When we arrived on the scene there were many people on the streets. There's no other commercial buildings or offices in this neighborhood, all the rest of the neighborhood was residential. The rocket hit the Fatah office, which is about 6 feet by 12 feet, a really tiny office. "Then we went immediately across the street to see the widespread damage to the residential apartments. We went inside to talk with the people inside the apartments, which all had the glass blown off in the front of buildings. There were pieces of the rocket inside the apartment, on the floor. "By very great fortune none of the people were injured. We interviewed a 7-year-old boy who was very scared and 13-year- old and 16-year-old girls who were terrified. Fortunately, their mother, a U.S. citizen who lives most of the time in Birmingham, Ala., had heard the planes and the helicopters outside the house. She brought the children into the center of the house in the hallway and had them on a mattress. "Then the rocket hit across the street and destroyed the office and blew up the whole front of the square unit apartment building. There was massive debris everywhere, including pieces of the missile inside. There was another house where, according to the neighbors, the people had just left five minutes before the rocket hit. This house suffered structural damage, large pieces of stone from the house lying in front of it, the windows were all blown out. "We were not able to go into the house next door that was rocketed. Inside the apartment building there were pieces of missile that burned the rug. It was also very fortunate that the apartment building wasn't destroyed by fire." In Ramallah that night, an announcement came over the television that everyone in the entire Palestinian nation was to go to the center of the town for a demonstration. They gathered there and marched to the site of the shelled office. THE INTIFADA IN ACTION The next day, Oct. 31, the Israeli military kept up its attacks, killing five Palestinians and wounding scores in Gaza, including a CNN correspondent. As Flound ers put it, "The Israeli regime and the U.S. corporate media claim the Israeli troops use force to 'respond' to attacks, to defend their positions. This is absurd. The Israelis are armed with machine guns and tanks, facing young people with at most slingshots. "They are attempting to use superior military power and terror to force the Palestinians to submit to a horribly unequal treaty. The demonstrations, by the entire Palestinian population, are the answer: they refuse to submit." In Ramallah on Oct. 31 hundreds of Palestinian youths walked through the town and converged on the checkpoint at the north end where they faced a line of Israeli tanks. "For a few moments," said Flounders, "we got to experience what these young people have been living through for the past month. "First the troops opened up with tear gas, no, it was stronger than tear gas, sort of a CS gas. We still have some of the canisters," said Flounders. "You can read on them, 'Made in USA.' "The courage of the youths confronting the troops was incredible to see. There were hundreds along the sides and some who got up close to where the soldiers were. Even with the firing going on they would continue to resist and throw stones. "When the Israeli troops opened up with live ammunition, and we could hear it whistling over our heads and ricocheting off the buildings, most of the young people had to pull back. Finally the Israelis opened up with fire from the tanks, heavy machine-gun rounds, and everyone had to retreat. But really the statement of the youths was that they would not be intimidated, they would continue to resist." Flounders said that when the IAC delegation delivered the medicine, they visited some of the wounded at the hospitals and clinics. "The medical teams said there have been 6,600 people wounded in the past month," she said, "seriously enough to spend time in a hospital. About one-fifth of them will have permanent disabilities from the wounds, they estimated." The doctors have also trained volunteer ambulance crews to go to the front lines and bring back those wounded by the Israeli troops. The IAC had visited the Union of Health Work Committees and the Union of Palestine Medical Relief Committees that morning. According to Flounders, "The work these courageous crews trained by the committees have done has helped to reduce the number of people killed in the fighting. They go out while under fire, rescue the people hit by bullets, and bring them back to the hospitals and clinics. At least 15 have been seriously wounded, shot in the chest, back or head." ISRAELI TROOPS SHOOT TO KILL Along with the tank fire, rockets and shells, the Israelis also have snipers operating from rooftops and from the fortified hilltops where there are settlements, said Flounders. "These snipers aim to kill. We saw them today taking aim from the City Inn at the demonstrators. There is nothing to describe this but terrorism." The Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees made a special statistical report on Oct. 30 on how those killed by the Israeli forces had died. It turned out over 98 percent of wounds that caused death were in the head, neck, chest or abdomen. Some 84 percent of injuries were from wounds to the head, neck or upper body, excluding upper body limbs. By this evidence, it is apparent that the Israeli forces are shooting to kill unarmed Palestinians. Flounders described how in the past seven years since the Oslo Accords were signed, the Israelis have built up a system of settlements in the West Bank connected by roads that only cars with Israeli license plates can travel on. These settlements, she said, are on hilltops in and around Palestinian villages. "Now, during the olive harvest," Flounders said, "the Israeli settlers are firing on Palestinian farmers gathering olives. Israeli patrols are confiscating the crops at checkpoints. They are trying to starve out the Palestinians economically." Dr. Majed Nassar, deputy director of the Union of Health Work Committees, had this to say when he met the IAC delegation after the Israelis shelled Beit Jala and Beit Sahour on Oct. 28-29: "I have to admit that the Israeli artillery made us afraid. Only fools do not get afraid when they are subjected to four hours of bombardment. But what did it achieve? Did it make us surrender? Did it make us weak? "We know that the aim of the Israeli bombardment is to impose their terms on us by force. They want to translate their force into political achievements. ... Are they really trying to fool the world by showing that this is a war between two armies? That's more than ridiculous. "We know how weak we are in terms of military capabilities, but also we know how strong we are because we have a case and a cause. We also know how weak they are because they are simply wrong and evil cannot prevail. ... We will continue to do our best to see that the occupation is over. The quicker, the better." To read the delegation's daily reports and for further information see the Web site www.iacenter.org. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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