A dozen journalists under gunfire

Jerusalem April, 3, 2002, Wafa - At least 11 journalists have come under gunfire and three of them have been hit since the Israeli occupation army declared Ramallah a "closed military zone" and barred the media from the West Bank city, the first such ban since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000.

Three others were expelled from the city, bringing to about 30 the number of journalists Israeli troops have either fired on, expelled or arrested in that time.

Calling the ban on journalists "a serious new attack on press freedom" in a situation that has steadily worsened over the past few months, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières - RSF) secretary-general Robert Ménard called today on the Israeli civilian authorities to "cancel the ban immediately."

"Allowing the Israeli occupation of Ramallah to take place without media witnesses is to foment rumors and disinformation," he said. RSF is also concerned that the army's media ban was extended today to Bethlehem.

RSF notes that Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by Israel guarantees the "freedom to seek, receive and impart information."

Since the beginning of the second Intifada, RSF has counted 52 cases of journalists wounded by gunfire in the Occupied Territories and has established that the shooting was done by the Israeli army. It has several times deplored the lack of any serious army enquiry into these shootings. Italian journalist Raffaele Ciriello was killed on 13 March in Ramallah by shots from an Israeli tank. RSF appeals once again for the authorities to seriously investigate all the cases of journalists killed or wounded since September 2000.

On 29 March, Carlos Handal, a cameraman for the Egyptian station Nile TV, was wounded by gunfire while on his way by car to the Lions Square in Ramallah with a colleague.

On 30 March, a crew from the French TV station France 2 were fired at by Israeli troops when they wanted to pass a roadblock between East Jerusalem and Ramallah. The same day, Israeli soldiers broke into the headquarters of Palestinian TV and radio, forcing The Voice of Palestine to go off the air. The occupation troops ordered four journalists to leave their offices. The ministry of culture building which housed a local radio and TV station was also occupied.

Israeli soldiers also entered a building with offices of several Palestinian and foreign media, including the British news agency Reuters, and forced the journalists to leave. Four Turkish journalists were detained for several hours at the Ramallah press centre by Israeli soldiers who searched them, confiscated their passports and stopped them leaving the building.

On 31 March, the vehicle of two Swedish journalists, Bengt Norborg and Rickard Collsi??, special correspondents for the Swedish public TV station SVT, were the target of shots by Israeli troops at a roadblock on the outskirts of Ramallah. An American journalist, Anthony Shahid of the Boston Globe, was hit by in the shoulder by a bullet although he was wearing a bulletproof vest with "Press" written on it.

On 1 April, Israeli soldiers expelled an American CBS News television team from Ramallah. As this was happening, a vehicle containing six Western reporters and photographers was fired on by Israeli troops near the city centre. "I think the soldiers were irritated," said one of the journalists, who refused to be named. The same day, a Palestinian journalist working for APTN (AP Television News) was hit in the leg at Beit
Jala while covering a demonstration by pacifists.

On 2 April, in Bethlehem, Majadi Banura, a cameraman for the Qatari TV station Al-Jazeera, was wounded in the head by a bullet while on a balcony on the fifth floor of the Star Hotel, where about 20 journalists are staying. The same day, Atta Iwisat, a photographer working for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot and the GRamallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American student from the University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by both the Israeli army and armed militia groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting outside at anything that moves.





Ramallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American student from the University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by both the Israeli army and armed militia groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting outside at anything that moves.

I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible to help save lives here.

I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come back for a visit to the Palestinian city where I had been previously living and studying. On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli army began sealing off each entrance to Ramallah and there were rumors that they planned to invade.

People were rushing back home from across checkpoints and also people were trying to flee. People were not allowed to go out and many working people -- with homes and children to return to -- were not allowed in, everyone was trying to take cover. Those traveling in began desperately searching for alternative ways and traveling in groups, but the Israelis were firing upon them and everyone was running and screaming.

Women carrying their children were trying desperately to flee from Ramallah, carrying infants and toddlers, and their young children were running along in the rain through the fields, slipping and falling on the rocks, trying to reach safety. Israeli jeeps were speeding across the terrain pulling up from every direction and shooting at the women and children, and also at me, as we ran in opposite directions. They were chasing down people, hunting them like that in the fields.

When I reached Ramallah, people were panicking and trying to buy bread, rice and milk from corner stores, but most supplies were already gone. We bought what we could and went inside to wait for what was coming.

When night fell, Israeli tanks began to invade and also we saw Israeli troops coming on foot from the valley, and surrounding our house. I could hear them calling to each other in Hebrew. They were against our door and all around. They were firing everywhere a barrage of bullets and there was tank fire. We had to lay on the floor and keep silent. We stayed there, on the floor, for nearly four days in the darkness.

We knew that our circumstances were better than others because old people or infants or people with medical emergency needs had no help. It was very cold, with most families packed all in one room. Some people are without life sustaining medicines like insulin, and they are altering their doses dangerously if they have any medicine left to take. People are becoming dangerously sick from lack of food and water and heat. The fear and terror only makes things worse, but it cannot be avoided.

In the daytime, we heard them shooting people in the streets, and could hear them screaming and screaming. No ambulance was allowed through. Then their screams stopped and there was just silence.

We had a telephone and would receive calls from all over telling us what was happening. Everyone is in grave danger and Israeli soldiers were killing people everywhere. They are arresting medics and ambulance drivers, including foreign volunteer medical workers.

They keep taking doctors and medics, just now another call. Again, this time the wife of a doctor telling us her husband has been taken from the ambulance.

Large groups of people have been found in rooms, shot dead, there are blood marks where they have lined people up on their knees and shot them, with their ID cards laying on top of them. They are taking people from their homes, blindfolding them, removing their clothes, taking them away or lining them up and shooting them against the wall.

People are making phone calls and saying that these soldiers and militia have come in and are shooting people and then the line cuts off.

The numbers of these killings I fear are much greater than the numbers confirmed in the press, because the human rights offices and the media centers have been stormed, and everything is shut down. No one can move without almost certain chance of being shot by the Isreali snipers, who are everywhere.

The Israelis are demanding that all journalists leave Ramallah and today another foreign journalist was shot. They do not want any more internationals here and are deporting people. It seems quite clear that they do not want eyewitnesses which is only heightening my own fears.

The hospitals have also been surrounded and invaded and Israeli troops are taking the injured people and interrogating them. Today a woman, a patient, tried to walk out from hospital. The Israelis shot her in the neck and killed her.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health is saying that they fear the spread of diseases because of the number of unburied corpses.

The numbers are only growing in reports of the mass killings here and Israeli troops continue to round up people. People are calling frantically, missing a relative and we do not know where they have been taken, including children.

The numbers we have now exceed 600, and we are estimating between 700 and 800. All human rights groups and legal advocates are being denied any information of where the detained are being held. From what we know confirmed is that 10% of those taken so far have been children under age 18.

On the fourth day I decided to try to move. People were running out of supplies and I also was so worried about people, and had to check to see if they were okay. If I didn't, I feared panic would overtake me so badly that I really had no other choice but to try and go.

It was not safe where I was in any case and at least if I left I would still have my sanity. It was really terrifying as there are some internationals here, usually traveling in groups, and the Israelis are saying on the radio that they will arrest or shoot the internationals. They did shoot some yesterday and regardless, it's not as if snipers differentiate and they are everywhere.

My friends told me not to go, and were really scared for me, but I had to go. When I went outside, there were cars all shot up and hit by multiple bullets and shells in the middle of the road, unparked. There must have been people in them but I don’t know where their bodies are. There are no reports of them, but they must exist.

I got to the corner trying to go to the bakery for bread and food for people. Some people were calling and calling with only one cup of rice left. I made it to the corner but they opened fire on my first try, and shot at me, so I had to turn back.

After that I tried again and it took me one day to make it a block because I had to start over again and again. I had to climb through the valley, and as I passed house by house, people were warning me and pointing out what path seemed safest for these two minutes. In the next two minutes, it would be something different. They really helped to keep my path safe.

Today is Day Five and they are still rounding up people like this and we hear them shooting all day long.

This afternoon the Israelis suddenly lifted the curfew, suddenly announcing that everyone had two hours to go out to get food. However, the Israeli soldiers also took food from many of the stores, looted, and there is no bread or things. People went to get whatever they could.

Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the closure for two hours -- in which we still were not able to transfer medical supplies and still was not long enough to everything that was badly needed -- the Israelis continued shooting people in the streets indiscriminately on their way, so people were running around trying to make it to the store or find a safe route only to have to run back home again. It was an added cruelty and terror tactic in this macabre situation, a sick joke: starve people and then shoot them when they try to find food with your permission.

In an apartment building in Beitunia neighborhood where I used to live, they took 60 people who were my neighbors, including several familes, and pushed them into one room since last night. The Israelis told them that they are to be used as “human shields”, as the apartment building is across from a building that they were invading.

One child needs to go to the hospital since last night and, initially, the families were able to call outside. Now, the Israelis have taken their phones.

There are reports that they are rounding up men between the ages of 14 and 45 in that neighborhood, and these civilians, from these same Palestinian families trapped in that building, were just used to walk in front of an Israeli tank as it invaded the Preventative Security Compound.

Reports also have alleged that the Israelis were saying that some could leave but shot them when they attempted to leave. The buildings there are burning, and people are trapped inside.

We keep calling to try to find people but there has been no electricity and most people’s phones are dead now. I do not know what is happening to many people. The only solution to this is to try to brave the deadly streets in order to check, but its almost impossible and terrifying to leave the house at all.

Each place I come to, I am afraid to leave not only for myself but for everyone else in this horrifying position. Israeli death squads have been yanking people into the street. I also hear only shooting and shooting, with no return fire. This suggest that unarmed civilians are being gunned down mercilessly everywhere and I am so scared for everyone. I feel like maybe if I leave one place, one area or neighborhood I will never see the people again alive.

There are more explosions outside now and more shooting. Another explosion. More firing, it just doesn’t stop.

This is a massacre. The foreign delegations tried to get in but were turned back, the International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to help but they are being ignored. Please help.

I am not only scared for myself and for people here, but if this cannot be stopped, I am truly scared for all of humanity, for a world in which we send men to the moon but cannot stop ethnic cleansing.

On the news in America, we see hardly anything of demonstrations. What are you doing over there?

There do not seem to be any reports of what is happening. In truth, its got to stop. Please go out to the streets, please demand a response from your representatives. Be loud, march up to the capitals, refuse to leave until the Israelis withdraw. Act now! Tell them the Israelis are murdering innocent people whose only crime is being born in their own homeland, a Palestinian under a military occupation.

Demand international protection for the Palestinian people, scream that this is an affront to humanity and that it is time that the US not only stop supporting Israel, but that the US stop its abuse of human rights within its own borders. This is about all of our struggles. For the love of God, please stop this slaughter. Please help.amma news agency, were arrested by Israeli soldiers






 http://jerusalem.indymedia.org/news/2002/03/1269.php

No Movement Possible: Inhabitants of the city are under complete curfew. There is absolutely no freedom of movement, even for ambulances, doctors or international agencies, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). There is no medical access. Palestine Red Crescent medical relief workers have not been permitted to provide medical services to the local population. Israeli forces are firing on anyone walking out on the streets.

On Thursday, based on fears of an Israeli re-invasion, more than 500 inhabitants, including foreign nationals, lined up in the mud and rain at the Qalandiya checkpoint—the only exit point from the city allowed by Israel—begging Israeli soldiers to allow them to escape. In response, Israeli soldiers fired over their heads, exacerbating the panic and causing most to simply return to Ramallah.

Israeli Forces Using Human Shields: Israeli soldiers are occupying an increasing number of private residences and detaining the residents collectively in single rooms, with little or no access to telephone lines, news coverage or even food and water. In some cases, tens of civilians (including entire families) are being held in one room. Meanwhile, Israeli occupation soldiers have taken up armed positions in the houses or apartments of these residents. Civilian detainees include foreign nationals.

No Access to the City: The ICRC, the UN and other humanitarian agencies are unable to access the city or to access the civilian detainees and other prisoners.

Food Resources Limited: There is no food entering Ramallah and no one is allowed to restock. There will shortly be a food and drinking water crisis. Some parts of Ramallah are already without water altogether. Israeli soldiers are also eating the food of residents while taking up positions in their houses.

Electricity Being Cut: Large parts of Ramallah are without electricity and heat. The weather has been raining and unseasonably cold - residents have been struggling to keep warm. The lack of electricity also means that residents are without television and any news reporting of the situation outside their homes. Many residents of the city rely on cellular phones for communication and without electricity they are unable to recharge their phones. Therefore, the population is being held in isolation and there is increasing fear and confusion. Also, some telephone landlines have been cut.

Prisoners Being Taken: Israeli forces are taking Palestinians prisoner, in the streets and in house-to-house searches. Israeli troops are calling upon all male residents between the ages of 16 and 40 in some neighborhoods to “surrender”. The wounded are being treated roughly and being denied medical access. Now, their fate is unknown. There are reports of summary execution of some prisoners. The ICRC does not have access to them to ensure adherence to international law, and specifically the Geneva Conventions.

Gratuitous Vandalism and Destruction: There are on-going spiteful acts of destruction. Most commonly, Israeli tanks are driving over and flattening cars whether on the streets or parked on pavements in front of residences. Personal property inside houses is being destroyed in house-to-house searches.  http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=161126&group=webcast