Witness to Execution in Gaza

Saturday, June 01 2002 @ 03:45 PM GMT

By C E Carlson

When asked where I was going, I told the cab driver, "to Gaza to see the Palestinians." He responded, "Why do you want to see those animals." His were the first words I heard from the mouth of an Israeli when I entered through fashionable Elate on the Red Sea.

I am writing from inside the world’s largest gulag, living with those Palestinians many Israeli consider sub-human and expendable. Since I came to Gaza it has been bombed every day, sometimes more than once, and not a day has passed when Palestinian women and children did not die. One pre-dawn morning I watched and photographed some of the 42 guided missiles launched on government buildings where I had only days before walked; four died, and 30 were injured.

I photographed the inside of the bombed buildings, bombed again this week. I have been forced to observe the deliberate executions of Palestinians every day from my rented flat, done with American provided weapons. I will never again hear the slapping sound of a helicopter rotor without thinking of the people here, for I heard from my own rooftop what they may hear just before they are destroyed.

Because I have an American passport and have little here to be confiscated, I can probably always get out of Gaza. I may not always find it easy to get in, but I am not a prisoner. The Palestinians have more to lose; they are trapped in this Israeli Gulag that was created by others for them, and over which they have no control. Some are trapped here by lack of resources to leave; I knew that before I came to Gaza.

But now I have learned there is a more important reason why they cannot leave, even when they might be killed if they stay. They are bound to stay here by the most positive aspects of their culture. What is good and noble about the Palestinians is also that which keeps them here. It dictates that they should stay, regardless of cost; it is their sense of family and children.

Some Palestinians who I met are trapped by the weight of anguish for what has already been taken from their parents. The house that no longer exists, but the key to the front door they still hold. The place where it stood is still there, and that is home. Any reasonable person can easily see that most Palestinians are trapped in this Israeli Gulag by the glue that keeps families together and in which there is no room for separation or surrender to those who would expel and disperse them.

The Israeli cab driver lied to me and spoke down to me. For his own purpose, he tried to divert me from doing what I had come a long ways to do, and then he showed surprise when I did not tip him. He was so unlike the sensitive and courteous Palestinians that they could be of separate species were it not for God’s hand, which claims both among his creation. After what I have seen here, I must remind myself of God to consider these Israelis human; it is their government and their military that act like predatory animals. Not so with the Palestinians, they are human in every way.

In contrast to their neighbors on the other side of the gulag fence, the Palestinians have little left to lose. They could blame Americans for every loss, yet they treat me like a brother. They brew coffee on Bunsen burners in what are little more than huts for this gray-haired American stranger. They introduce their flocks of children to me simply because I am here and I listen to them. If I ask, and only if I ask, the Palestinians will politely and sometimes with surprising clarity, tell me it is my country that daily provides the instruments of death that are used to execute them. He may ask why we do it? I’ve learned in Gaza that the Palestinians do not need pity; they need the helping hand of Godly people, and they are not getting it.

After visiting Gaza, I do not think the Palestinian can be defeated by Israel without completely destroying Israel in every way. This self-destruction may have already accomplished; the tourist business in Israel is non-existent, and the oranges are unpicked on the trees. Israel is a police state of drafted young men and women serving its dubious massive military. In contrast, the Palestinians have little in the way of stuff and nothing left to lose. But the materialistic economy of Israel is on the brink of decomposition. Every Israeli I spoke to says the war is ruining Israel. It is sustained only by U.S. aid that has given it far over 300 billion dollars (in current valued money) value over its 55 year history.

Because the U.S. is by far the primary supporter of Israel’s campaign, which most of the world now considers genocide, the Palestinian war may well also be the straw that brings down the American economy into a depression worse than, but different from, the carnage after the War Between the States. We shall examine why this may well happen in a later series, but we had a first glimpse of how it could happen after Day911.

There is no way for me to experience being Palestinian, for if I were hit by a bomb it would be an accident. They are hit on purpose, sometimes precisely targeted. I stayed in a compound of Christian and other aid organizations on a hill in East Gaza City, and the Israelis would not bomb us except by gross accident. I am only a witness here, not a participant; I have nothing to fear.

Every night bombs explode in Gaza. All but one night I could hear or see them explode. On Thursday, March seventh, the planes began to overfly soon after dark. From the third story roof the sounds of the F-16s or F-15 was faint, but clear, as they streaked from south to north, an explosion preceding each plane. The explosions were thunderous even though they were miles away. One can only imagine what it is like to be only yards away from such a concussion, as many Palestinian families are. The F-16s were bombing a refugee camp that day where families live in less than four hundred square feet per family! I observed that bedtime is one of the Israelis’ favored times to bomb the densely populated camps; it creates fear, and the papa is usually home. That night, a lone Gaza 17-year old took deadly reprisals, killing at least five Israeli soldiers.

The next morning, Friday, Israel responded with a daylight F-15 raid on the Muslim holy day. I later learned it was a day of terror for the Palestinians that barely made the U.S. press. Starting about 8 A.M. at about five minutes intervals, American-made F-15 or -16 fighter-bombers flew over Gaza one by one going south and returning north. From the roof I saw only the streaking glints in the sun. Though I could not hear the explosions, the methodical constancy of the flights indicated someone was being attacked. It was horrible to contemplate in the densely packed refugee camps, and the truth was worse than I could imagine.

Few people appeared on the street that day--a day off for most who work--but those who were out went about their affairs without giving the Israelis the benefit of even looking up at the sounds. The bomb runs stopped at 930 A.M. and I headed out onto the street to find an Internet shop. In a little while, small parades for the new dead began on the principal streets of Gaza City. Muslims bury their dead the same day whenever they can recover the body, and there are many funeral marches that day. The unified Palestinian organizations appear to treat assassinations as military deaths and they also march. The impromptu parades reflect a combination of mourning and defiance; little clusters of grim-faced young people gathered on corners. For a few brief hours the Palestinians had a few smiles.

A man (who I must not name) in the United Nations Relief Agency office told me the fresh news That morning, the Israelis executed 23 civilians in resettlement camps. He told me he himself lived in such a camp and invited me to visit it. There were enormous numbers of civilian wounded. U.S. F-15s, Apache gunships, and ground troops all participated in the raid. Thirteen Palestinian prisoners of the Israeli Gulag were executed in the West Bank. The death toll from this raid alone had exceeded fifty when I left Gaza and was still rising. How many were left homeless and wounded, I did not hear. Among those selectively executed by smart bomb was Abdul Med, a popular civic leader in the Palestinian government organization and one of about six that day who had been targeted.

The Israelis also attacked two ambulances, executing the occupants, including three United Nations Aid Workers who were attempting to evacuate critical wounded. This information came directly from a United Nations worker in Gaza and was verified in the Arab press. This was the fourth ambulance crew to be murdered in 10 days. All were deliberate executions, this time carried out by Israeli riflemen who opened the ambulance doors and slaughtered the passengers and attendants. The Executioner has resorted to terrorizing and killing health workers, including U.N. employees, in order to deprive the Palestinians of medical treatment.

The executioners also paid a call Tulkarm in the West Bank, and 13 funerals were going on there as well. That night there were two deadly reprisals from what turned out to be only three Palestinians youths.

Israel responded the very next morning by destroying official buildings when they were closed and blasting rubble into smaller pieces. On Saturday, March 9th, Israel launched an amazing number--42--of smart bombs from Apaches. I photographed and recorded the sounds of war. Many of these were fired from a point almost directly over my rooftop in the pre-dawn darkness at a distance form me of about 2100 feet or less. I could easily approximate the distance to the Apache and also to the point of impact of the "smart bombs" by counting sound lag between the flash and the report. Each launch produces two flashes and two reports. The explosions were awful to observe even from a distance of 1.1 miles away. Government buildings that I had looked at that very week ceased to exist that morning. Coffins claimed four more Palestinians, and 30 were injured. I will never be the same for these five days I spent in Gaza.

Palestinian irregular elements (it has no military) make guerilla reprisal attacks against Israel every few days; it is the only way they have learned to make Israel pay. After the Thursday refugee camp bombings, a café only a stone’s-throw from Ariel Sharon’s house in Jerusalem was ripped by a suicide bomber, killing about 20 Israeli youths--some militarized. There are no longer tourists to scare way…they are gone. In this respect, Gaza and Israel are on equal footing, for I may have been the only tourist in Gaza, and I met only one other out-of-country tourist on any of my five bus tours around Israel.

That same Friday night, two young Arab men with automatic weapons gunned a crowded room in the West Bank many miles from Gaza. Israel is more in shock than Gaza. The sounds of funerals could be heard when I came to Gaza on Tuesday, and I heard them every day until I left. Israelis will also hold funerals for five of their ownoccupiers who were killed about 9 P.M. on Thursday by a lone 17-year old who grew up in the ghetto gulag called Jamalya Camp, north of Gaza, and who penetrated the security of a Jewish settlement with rifle and grenade. The boy was also killed by gunfire. One youth trying to avenge a 50 million dollar air raid.

The "settlers" killed do not fit the definition of civilians the Palestinian say, for they occupied space they knew to be contested land in an occupied zone. Women were among those killed, but Israeli women carry rifles everywhere; they are conscripted along with the men to serve in combat. And female settlers have rifles, too; they are not considered non-combatants either. Palestinian fighters have recently concentrated on inflicting damage on Israeli settlements within accepted Palestine. They do not view settlers as "civilians." I agree; if one steals his neighbor’s house and sleeps in it, he’d best sleep lightly. The Palestinian bombing and another shooting on Saturday night are reprisal, but the Israeli and American press usually call them unprovoked act so terrorism. I say the terrorists are those flying the f-16s

The Israelis are bent on frightening and demoralizing the people of Gaza so they often bomb rubble, not it slaughtering Palestinians in place, which they could easily do. This is clear from the bombing patterns. When Israel wants to commit a wholesale slaughter, as on March 9th, the response is quick and the cost appears to be higher than the Israelis are willing to pay. Palestinians live in fear because they know there will be deaths among them each day, but they seem never to be demoralized.

Why they are not demoralized is the topic of our next issue in this series, which will deal with the Arab culture, both Christian and Muslim, as I learned it from a dedicated Christian who lives it all the time.

Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities are like armed camps on the move. Buses are half filled with military personnel, moving to and from duty points by public transport. I felt more nervous on these buses than anywhere in Gaza at any time, because they are such obvious and simple potential targets, security being impossible.

Grim faces are the rule in Israel, especially among the youth in the military, who absolutely refused to talk to me. Other businesses are faltering; orange orchards stand unpicked because the Palestinians are quarantined to their ghettos and Israelis do not do that kind of work. The youth who should be picking fruit to pay for their cell phones and 10% beer (which is sold everywhere) are in the military instead, guarding every thing and place from the feared Palestinians. All Israelis who spoke to me describe tourism as non-existent. And this before Ariel Sharon’s neighborhood restaurant was blown up Saturday night.

Most Israelis do not talk muchnot to each other, and certainly not to me. They see, tense and worried. Though there is opportunity and plenty here, faces are grim and unhappy… many of the military appear frightened. Over 1000 reserve officers have signed a pledge refusing to serve in the occupied territories like Gaza.

In Gaza, Palestine, there is no money, few comforts, and little cause for hope…yet everywhere people are praying and smiling. After five days in Gaza no doubt remains the purpose of Israel’s attacks and executions of prisoners is to terrify the survivors. Yes, the million Palestinians in Gaza could leave, but only by abandoning the little that hey have left…their history, as individuals and as a people, and their hope.


This article was first published by "We Hold These Truths".  http://www.whtt.org/.