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ISM Reports: IOF Attacks Jenin Today.

ISM Jenin. Ewa (c.) | 11.05.2003 18:07

IOF Attack On Jenin Today

and more on arrested internationals in Palestine.

At approximately 4.30pm today two apache helicopters circulated above
the
Yahiya Aiyash area and shot repeatedly at unspecified targets. People
believe it was at fighters speeding to assist their brothers targetted
in
the Jabbal Abu Dher area up above Jenin, west of the Camp, other think
it
may have been to lure and distract them from their arrest operation,
IOF
tanks - approximately six, 2 hummers and three jeeps entered Jenin from
Haifa Street and Naser Street. They shot round after round of
ammunition
and shot 9-year-old Afmad Rahal from the Camp in the leg during clashes
between the kids and an APC and Tank. The tanks zoomed around the town
centre as people went about their shopping and busines in the market.
People ran for cover and many flocked to the local hospital.

The targets of the IOF operation were Jihad Islami fighters Mhammad
Zaatan, 19, Iyyad Jawadat and Aness Jawadat, both aged 19.
Approximately
50 soldier surrounded the house of the Kherri Khalad family in the
Jabbal
Abu Dher area, enerting the surorunding homes - ordering residents out
with their hands up - and taking up sniper/atatck positions at the
windows and on the rooves. Eyewitneses reported strong resisatnce from
fighters in the area. The number of injured soldiers, if any, is
unknown.
The three Wanted men were not injured but stepping into the downstairs
apartement they were snatched from revealed a scene of bullet shattered
windows, smashed furniture, shot-up walls, an open and rifled-through
fridge and torn matresses. A 13-year-old boy was with the men at the
time. he was unharmed but shaken. The whole operation - from the first
thundering Apache missiles imapcting on the already tank-smashed
streets
of Jenin, to the chasing, fist throwing kids attacking APCs and the gun
battle between scantily armed fighters for their brothers being shot
out
of their hiding place - lasted aproximately half an hour.

Jenin is quiet now. Below is a report I wrote about the relative calm
of
the past 10 days or so, ruptured so meticulously and jarringly today.


ISM Repression News

IOF soldiers detained and arrested ISMers Alice (UK) and Nick
(Scotland)
2 days ago at Erez Checkpoint in Gaza. They were told they were
suspected
of being terrorists. They were interrogated for over 20 hours. Alice
was
chained and resisted by screaming repeatedly into the ears of her
captors
and wrestling against them. This happened when they attempted to
re-cuff
her after allowing her to eat some food. They are currently being held
in
a prison near the Negev desert, awaiting deportation.

The Beit Sehor HQ of ISM was raided friday afternoon. 20 jeeps
surrounded
the place, soldiers entered, arrested three volunteers, one from ISM,
US
citizen Flo, the other a Palestinian volunteer and the other an
Australian human rights worker. Flo is being held in an unknown
incarceration facility but she is to be deported.

Yesterday, soldiers arrested and severely beat Osama (he needed
hospital
treatment), a Palestinain ISM co-ordinator living in Tulkarem and then
stormed the ISM office and arrested Charlotte (Ireland) and Radika (US)
from therein. They said they had been aiding rioting youths. They are
being held at Ariel settlement/military base. They are also expected to
be deported. Osama was released.


Jenin aaade

4 days ago the IOF began to ease up restrictions on the movement of
Palestinian Citizens of Israel (commonly defined as Aarab Israelis but
the term offends many and is seen as yet another tactic of colletive
state-propelled amnesia of the enduring Nakba) coming from 1948 zones
in
Israel. Almost a million (900,000) Palestinians were burned out of
their
villages and towns in the '48 Nakba. The areas that remain - like Afula
and Om el Fahm - are Arab-Israeli towns inside the Isralei side of the
Green Line with Palestinian residents having Israeli citizenship but
being denied the right to cross over into the further occupied
Palestinian Territories. Families saw eachother for the first time in
two
and half years - since the beginnig of the intifada. Yellow number
plates
have been flashing through the streets and I even saw a big dusty
battered Israeli bus chuggin its way through town. Palestinian vehicles
must carry green number-plates to distinguish them from Israeli cars
and
to facilitate the harrassment and targetting of their owners by the
Israeli Authorities.

About 5 days ago two shebab from The Al Aaqs Martyrs Brigade hicked up
to
a settlement behind Jenin Camp and shot a soldier. Noone knows ehere he
was injured on his body but the two shebab succeeded in escaping
unharmed. People I mentioned the attack to groaned or grimaced with
disappointment. Enough is enough seemed to be the sentiment. People
didn't want the reprisals, the revenge incursions, the hate-taut
tension
to rise again.

People are still expecting something. There is a popularly known total
of
5 tank guns hidden away in Jenin right now. The three tieff'd from
Kadeem
settlement by three kids last week and two more that were ripped off
the
tops of APCs or Tanks by Allah O'Ahkbar-ing shebab during
curfew-smashing
street clashes a few weeks ago. Tank-top guns can shoot down Apaches.
Tank-top guns spell danger in big jeep-devastating, tank-denting,
soldier-body-halving letters. There are fears there may be an incursion
to retrieve these guns. Although an incursion to retrieve them would
inflate the chance to use them.

A friend of mine's brother - just 19 years old - left for Ramallah to
get
his trianing with the Mohabarat - Palestinan Shin Beit (Isralei secret
services), Palestinan CIA basically, the now fast expanding
Palestinian-American-Israeli triangular partnership aparatus of
Intifada
suppression and free-market roadmap paving. If Sharon is a Bulldozer,
then the Mohabarat are the construction sub-contractors clearing away
the
refuse, trying to collect the 'detritus' of the Palestinian resisatnce.
Operation clean-up Palestine is up and running and its going to be the
biggest Jayyasousing (Collaboration) seen this side of Oslo. This isn't
just my speculation, it's been articulated by many. And my friend's
brother is coming back in approximately one month. Where his work will
take him is anyone's guess but the dragnet on the wanted will be
drawing
in tighter as the Sulta (PA) finishes off its new prisons and the
released detained from Israeli prisons free-up space for the uncaught
fighters of the past.

Some people here think its all over. Others, fresh from prison, ready
again to resist, think it's going to pick up again. Maybe there could
be
a newer, stronger structure of armed resistance built up now, but the
key
is community support and the 3 year grind of collective punishment
meted
out by the Israeli state since this intifada ignited has taken its
toll.
Death kills you, grief becomes a living from of death and people want
to
live again, however comparatively caged that life remains. Like in any
State and Capital (Free dominated society, relative 'freedoms'
brokered/imposed upon populations following the defeat of social
movements, uprisings and strikes that shook the foundations of a class
system, - The 6 month solid General Strike of Palestine 1936 or the UK
Miners in 1984 - the repression and the buy-off translates to bigger
cages and longer chains.

ISM Jenin. Ewa (c.)
- Homepage: www.palsolidarity.org

Comments

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  1. Sounds like Nick — AnarchoAl