| Author | Message | | sharkman | | Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2002 12:37 am Post subject: The tragedy in Nablus, another war crime by Israeli army |
| forwarded:
----- Original Message -----
From: kamilia
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 5:40 PM
Subject: Fw: My article in Seattle Times
Today, the Seattle Times published the article below by me. It is highly expected that they will be getting many negative feedback. Positive feedback will help greatly.
Please take few minutes and send them a thank you note at opinion@seattletimes.com.
And please forward to others.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134464608_nablus31.html
Thanks, Ayman
Friday, May 31, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Guest columnist
Brutality in Nablus defies reason
By Ayman Aldahleh
Special to The Times
Earlier this month, two essays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "Christians can't remain on Middle East sidelines" by the Rev. Donald M. Mackenzie Jr., University Congregational United Church of Christ minister, and "The Jenin offensive: beyond the TV images" by Ruth Etzioni, a Seattle resident who is a longtime friend of a major in the Israeli Defense Force, appeared on these pages. Today, two different perspectives are aired.
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I have followed the news about the destruction of Palestinian cities and villages during Israel's invasion of the West Bank that began on March 29. Jenin and Ramallah have become household names, and images of streets lined with the rotting corpses of Palestinians and now-homeless children wandering the mounds of ruin that once were their homes are known to us all. For me, the experience of this invasion has been especially heart-wrenching because in addition to watching the tragedy unfold on television, I got to hear about it live, day by day.
My sister, Azizeh, lives with her husband and three children in the Palestinian city of Nablus. Every day, for weeks, I would call Azizeh to make sure she and her family were alive and unharmed, and when Israeli tanks tore down telephone poles in Nablus, I would call her cellular phone, and we would talk until the battery died, with the sound of bombing in the background.
My friends have urged me to share Azizeh's experience because it completes the story that we struggle to understand, a story that is fraught with falsehoods and polemics. In the U.S., we repeatedly hear Israeli spokespersons claim a purity of arms and that great efforts were made to avoid harming civilians. What Azizeh witnessed and experienced as the invasion unfolded showed me that contrary to that claim, Israeli Occupation Forces made every effort to break down the Palestinians of Nablus and the West Bank in every way possible.
Azizeh explained that the first action taken by Israeli soldiers upon entering Nablus was to impose a strict curfew on all residents. That means that more than 150,000 civilians who live and work there could not leave their homes for weeks. It became difficult if not impossible to meet basic daily needs, and many families struggled to feed their children or care for the sick and the elderly. Israeli tanks smashed privately owned cars, tore down electricity poles and crushed everything in their path.
My sister and her family live in an apartment on the third floor of a six-story residential building. Israeli soldiers forced them and their neighbors out of their apartments at gunpoint, and the soldiers converted her apartment into a command post. The soldiers made themselves comfortable in her home, helped themselves to her food, and — upon their departure — totally destroyed everything there. Furniture, artwork, personal belongings, food stored for emergencies such as this one, everything was decimated.
Sounding humiliated and enraged, my sister catalogued the destruction surrounding her, but I found myself thankful that she and her family had escaped the fate that befell many of Nablus' residents.
One of my sister's closest friends, Fatima Alshoabi, lived in a nearby apartment building with her brother Sameer and his family. Sameer and his wife Nabila had three children — ages 3, 6 and 9 — and were expecting their fourth child this summer. Israeli bulldozers demolished the residential building where the Alshoabi family lived. The soldiers gave absolutely no warning to the residents inside, and everyone in the building died except Fatima's elderly parents, who were among the few Palestinians rescued from beneath the rubble.
The grandfather told Azizeh: "I will never forget hearing my youngest grandchild's voice screaming, 'Dad! They're going to tear it down!' " Nabila's pregnant body was found clutching her three children tightly, trapped in the doorway as they tried to escape. To this day, the Israeli army has offered no explanation for this act. Neighbors observed that it was to clear the path for Israeli tanks to enter the heart of Nablus' city with its narrow, centuries-old alleys.
The list of horrors visited on Nablus is endless. Olive trees that are the livelihood of Palestinian farmers, with root systems dating back 2,000 years to Roman times, have been uprooted by the hundreds to clear roads for Israeli soldiers. The ancient city, with its 600-year-old mosque and Arab baths, has sustained severe damage. And like Azizeh, Palestinian parents have had to hold their children through night after night of attacks and airstrikes, and pray desperately that theirs will not be the next building to collapse.
Witnessing these horrors through my sister's experience has left me with a very strong conviction. I can't imagine that peace will ever be possible or sustainable if Israelis continue to dehumanize and subjugate Palestinians through acts of brutality and collective punishment. The single most brutal act and the one that must come to an immediate end is the military occupation.
Ayman Aldahleh, a Palestinian American born in Tulkarem, West Bank, is an engineer who lives and works in Redmond. | |  | | sharkman | | Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2002 12:44 am Post subject: additional information on ongoing war crimes by israeli army |
| for additional information on the ongoing israeli war crimes being committed in the occupied palestinian territories, please access the following web site (be sure to scroll down to the bottom to see links for the archived coverage as well):
http://www.flashpoints.net
http://www.palsolidarity.org[/url] | | | | sharkman | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
