Eyewitness report from Ramallah:

2.04.2002–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.

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Filmmaker Sobhi al-Zobadi: A first hand account of the brutality of occupation in Ramallah

After Israeli army left Ramallah after reoccupying the city for three days, I took my camera and went to film the aftermath of the attack. My first stop was Al-Amari refugee camp where some 8000 Palestinian refugees live in block houses. At the camp entrance I noticed one house with its front balcony ridden with bullets. A young woman was sweeping around. "How did you get all these bullets?" I asked. "From the helicopters" she replied, looking into the sky. "Are there any wanted men in your house?" I asked boldly, "No," she answered. "I have three children, and my husband sells vegetables." She went inside and returned with a pocket full of used bullets, the kind used with heavy machine guns. "What did your kids do?" I asked. "Nothing" she said and silently went inside.

I continued my tour along with hundreds of people who flocked the camp to assess the damage and express support to the people there. I didn‘t need to make any effort to find the damaged houses; on seeing my camera people called me to come and film what happened to them. One particular house I remember, because the soldiers who occupied it, locked a family of ten in one room, and then spent some time tearing every single piece of cloth.

It was an amazing scene. The clothes were not thrown out or burned, no, they were picked piece by piece and torn in half. It must taken time to complete the mission. One would think that in a large scale military operation, soldiers don‘t have time for such things. I wonder.

It was tiring, the same thing over and over, holes in the walls, broken furniture, smashed cars, I stopped filming. Went to the center of Ramallah. There was a lot of activity, municipal workers fixing broken water pipes and damaged electricity lines. Shop owners cleaning the broken glass from their fronts. People gathering for the funeral of the ten people killed in the raid. There were many young men bearing arms. I ran into a friend, an Armenian-Palestinian, a DJ and musician. He asked me to film his shop, which I did.

Standing in the studio over broken glass and pieces of furniture was his father looking for the small Armenian flag on the desk. He is soft spoken with a permanent smile and has a pony tail. "How do you feel?" I asked. "Particularly today, I feel much better than any other day=85 I am a positive person, and I know that things will get better. It was much worse during the first Intifada. Two years ago Israelis from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would come to Ramallah to dine and have fun. We had a restaurant were we hosted a mixed Israeli and Palestinian jazz band." His son interrupted: "But they don ‘t want us to develop, they don‘t want to see us improving, they prefer to see us as terrorists, uneducated, uncivilized, people without culture, without faces or even names."

A friend saw me filming and asked if I had seen the house in front of the school occupied by soldiers. She said you must go, so I went. It is one of Ramallah‘s old buildings, a two storey red roofed beautiful house. From outside I saw a huge hole in the front wall. The door was closed but looked open because of all the bullets that went through it. I walked in; it was like a battle ground. The owner of the house, a pharmacist in his late 50s was talking to a representative of the Red Cross who came to inspect the damage. I heard him say that they were inside the house when the house started getting bullets from all sides. Then a huge bomb went through the front wall. Maybe they don‘t know there is a family here, the man thought and asked his youngest daughter (Abeer) to raise a while flag.

The soldiers stopped shooting and came inside, put the family in one room, and took up positions inside the house. They were shooting outside but through the walls. "For thirty nine hours and forty five minutes" I heard the man saying to the woman from ICRC. "It was horror, it was like a Hitchcock film." I left the man talking and went through the house. In what used to be the living room I saw Abeer picking some books from the rubble. I looked closely and spotted many titles from a classical Arabic book collection. They were completely ruined. The soldiers had burnt some and torn the rest.

I walked into the kitchen and found a large group of men and women gathered around a journalist who I realized was an Israeli journalist, Amira Hass. They were talking with a passion that I hadn‘t heard when people talk to other journalists. It was clear that for them she wasn‘t just a journalist, she was a messenger. They talked and talked and I was filming, and if there is one thing evident in the footage it is how much these people need to be heard by Israelis. They didn‘t let her go for hours, everyone who came into that kitchen would first be shocked upon hearing that she was Israeli, then would start his or her monologue.

Afif, the young son, is also a pharmacist. He was carrying bomb shells in his hands to show Amira. "Is this their idea of fighting terrorism? Attacking a family with bombs and heavy machine guns?" He didn‘t wait for an answer. "What if they had killed my sister and my family? Do you think that I can live with it? No, I‘ll wear the belt (the explosives belt suicide attackers use) and go to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. If they hurt my family, I will hurt their families. Sharon is not only hurting us, but he is hurting his own people as well, because by hurting us, he makes us want to hurt you more and more."

An older well-dressed lady walked in, and said, "Then he wants us to sit quiet for a week before he talks to us, is this sane? He destroys prisons and police and then he tells you and the world that Arafat is not doing enough. Arafat did a lot. A few months ago, as agreed during a cease-fire, Arafat put all militants in jail. For 24 days there was no shooting, no armed attacks nothing, until Sharon assassinated al-Karmi in Nablus. And that started the whole thing all over again."

"There is no intelligent occupation," Afif interrupted. "Occupation can be powerful and brutal but it can never be intelligent." "We want to live and not die, we love life and we want the chance to live a normal life." "You, Amira, must tell your people this, especially to those who rally after Sharon, your peace is our peace."

I was so taken by this encounter between Palestinians and an Israeli, especially at a moment like this and in such a location. For me this encounter defies the whole ideology that promotes segregation and separation. This encounter was minimal, but it proves that it is possible and very much needed. Both people need to hear each other, both people need to recognize each other‘s pains and fears, and that‘s what‘s needed for this encounter to happen.

I asked Amira, "Aren‘t you afraid to be here? Isn‘t it dangerous for you to be here?" "No," she answered. "I‘ve been living here for some years now, and nothing happened to me. It is not dangerous, the only danger is coming from there," and she pointed to the sky where the sound of a distant jet fighter was penetrating the skies of Ramallah.

Reproduced with author‘s permission; first published in the Swiss Weekly Wochenzeitung, March 20, 2002.

Windows, Palestinian-Israeli Friendship Center 35 Trumpeldor Street, Tel Aviv P.O. Box 56096, Tel Aviv 61560 Tel: 972-3-620-8324 Fax: 972-3-629-2570 http://www.win-peace.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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CPTnet April 2, 2002 HEBRON: Brief report on the current situation

CPTers in Hebron receive hourly updates from Palestinian, Israeli and international friends about ongoing crises in Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Ramallah. Greg Rollins was with a family in Beit Ummar today who received a phone call from friends in Ramallah. The friends said Ramallah now looks like Beirut at the height of the war in Lebanon.

Several international activists in Palestine have been shot, as well as several journalists. Other internationals have been rounded up at their hotels by the Israeli authorities and deported. Linda Livni, an Israeli woman with whom CPTer Kathleen Kern fasted last week was evacuated from her encampment by the Israeli military this morning.

In Hebron, the day has been quiet, cold and rainy. Schools and shops closed yesterday in anticipation of an invasion re-opened today. A journalist with JoAnne Lingle was told by soldiers that journalists are no longer allowed in the Old Market during curfew. CPTers are coordinating with local groups to be in a position to provide accompaniment for health care workers, journalists and other civilians when or if the invasion occurs.

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Violence as 2,000 peace activists try to bring food to Ramallah

By Anat Cygielman and Yossi Verter, Ha‘aretz Correspondents and Agencies

Police used tear gas and batons Wednesday to prevent a peace march of some 2,000 protesting Israeli Jews and Arabs from delivering truckloads of food and medicine to the besieged West Bank city of Ramallah.

The clashes erupted at the A Ram checkpoint north of Jerusalem. Demonstrators from Israeli peace groups, including Gush Shalom, Ta‘ayush, Physicians for Human Rights, Bat Shalom and Israeli Arabs, led by Arab MKs and members of the Arab National Monitoring Committee, arrived by buses from the center and north. They brought 20 vehicles full of donated food and medicines for the besieged town. They planned to enter Ramallah and distribute the supplies to residents of the town.

Chanting slogans against the Sharon government and the occupation, the demonstrators began marching toward police who responded with round after round of tear gas. When that did not stop the marchers, police used batons, and some demonstrators responded with rock-throwing.

By the end of the clashes, some 20 of the demonstrators were injured, and police said that seven policemen were lightly wounded. Among the wounded demonstrators were MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash), who said, "if they are ready to use the butt of a rifle on an MK, who knows what they are doing inside the territories."

More demonstrations are planned in the coming days inside Israel by more mainstream groups, including the Peace Coalition, which includes both liberal dovish parties like Meretz and Peace Now. "The government‘s decisions and actions are endangering life and not protecting it," says a decision issued by the coalition on Tuesday night. The decision also slams all those on the Palestinian side "directly or indirectly responsible for the terror that destroys every chance for coexistence."

According to the group, they plan to step up demonstrations and other street activity, to protest the government‘s military moves in the territories. Right wing MK Michael Kleiner (Herut), called the peace group "Oslo criminals who have long been a fifth column inside Israel."

Also on Tuesday, representatives from Arab National Monitoring Committee, the umbrella group for nonpartisan political activity in the Israeli Arab community, met with diplomatic representatives of Jordan and Egypt in Israel to lodge protests that those countries‘ leaders "are not taking action on behalf of the Palestinian people."

In a statement issued by the committee, they called the U.S. a "terrorist entity" and called for a boycott of American products. The committee attacked the Israeli media, calling it "draftees in the establishment campaign," and charging it ignored Israeli Arab public "expressions of protest and other demonstrations against the Israeli aggression in the territories."

In most Israeli Arab communities, there are now donation campaigns underway for food and medicines to be transferred to Palestinian residents of the territories.

=A9 Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved

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The Palestine Monitor, A PNGO Information Clearinghouse

URGENT UPDATE

Crisis Situation Continues as Israeli Army Expands Military Aggression Throughout the West Bank

2 April 2002

For the fifth consecutive day the Israeli army continues to assault the West Bank city of Ramallah, deepening the humanitarian crisis, attacking civilians, maintaining a 24-hour curfew and total siege on the city. No one can move in the city--no one can get in, or out.

Water, electricity and telephone lines have been cut, people are unable to get food, medical workers come under attack when attempting to gain access to the sick and wounded, hospitals report shortages of oxygen, blood, IV solutions, antibiotics, and blood spectrum antibiotics. The Ramallah hospital buried 25 bodies on their premises as they were forbidden from taking them to the cemetery; there are fears that many more bodies remain scattered around the town, inaccessible to medical personnel. A photojournalist was arrested and 10 Palestinian Red Crescent workers traveling in three ambulances were arrested on the way to treat people wounded in the Israeli attacks on Beitounia; forced out of the ambulances at gun point they were then made to strip and wait at the side of the street. The same treatment was meted out to a UPMRC ambulance driver, who was stopped, stripped in the rain and then had the final humiliation of soldiers throwing mud on him.

The army informed local human rights organizations that it was going to lift the curfew between 2-6 PM this evening, however when people were told this, and attempted to leave their homes, the soldiers in the city opened fire on a number of them. A 14-year-old boy, Kindi Amin Qutamey was shot in the leg in downtown Ramallah, a victim of another Israeli lie.

This situation is mirrored throughout the West Bank; the Israeli army now has re-occupied the cities of Qalqiliya, Tulkaram Beit Jala and Bethlehem. It is reported that tanks and other military vehicles are making their way to Jenin and Nablus.

Near Bethlehem, Mar Shaba monastery came under Israeli attack. When soldiers demanded the nuns and monks open the door to the church, they refused. The soldiers proceeded to open fire at the door wounding one sister in the attack.

In Bethlehem, a father of 3 children moved to his mothers‘ house in the old city as it was in an area less vulnerable to an Israeli attack, or so he thought. His 64-year-old mother, Sumaya, was shot dead with two bullets to her chest, when an Israeli tank invaded the area; at the same time shelling from the tank killed his brother, Khaled. The children in the house, eight in total, are cowering in the bathroom--the safest place, and away from the corpses that remain in their home as no ambulance or other vehicle can come to remove them.

Tanks in the grounds of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem surround over one hundred people inside. Some of the wounded have received medical treatment, but are unable to leave the church. At the time of writing the Israeli army is once again firing on the church and the surrounding areas.

The situation has gone beyond dire. With foreigners and journalists being forced to leave, and communication difficult from the besieged towns, Sharon ‘s army has carte blanche to act without restraint against the civilian Palestinian population.

For more information contact Juliana at the Palestine Monitor +972 (0)2 5834021 or +972 (0)2 5833510

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Direct Action for Justice in Palestine–International Solidarity Movement

Contact: Amanda (212) 541-4226, x241, Eric (917) 806-6452, Trish (212) 533-4702

April 3, 2002

For Immediate Release

ISM activists acting as human shields to deliver aid to Palestinians trapped in Bethlehem churches, 10am on April 4; appeal for international assistance

BETHLEHEM, PALESTINE–Members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), currently working in Bethlehem, Ramallah, and surrounding refugee camps in support of Palestinian human rights, will be carrying out an emergency action to deliver humanitarian aid tomorrow morning.

At 10:00 am (Israel time) on April 4, during an announced lifting of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) curfew, ISM members will go to Beit Jala Hospital and escort an ambulance to Manger Square in Bethlehem. Acting as human shields, they will surround the ambulance with their hands in the air, walking with it until it reaches its destination safely. Food and medical supplies will be delivered, and the injured transported back to the hospital, including one young girl in need of treatment for leukemia.

This action is intended to deliver aid to those desperately in need of help. It is expected to be highly risky, however, as IDF soldiers on Tuesday continued to fire at people in the streets of West Bank cities even during an announced lifting of the curfew.

Ongoing IDF attacks on Bethlehem have created a humanitarian crisis. Ambulances have come under heavy fire from the IDF, and many have been destroyed. When IDF forces bombed the Umar Ibn al-Khattab mosque in Manger Square on Tuesday night, approximately 200 Palestinian civilians fled, taking refuge in churches around the square.

They are currently unable to leave the churches due to the IDF‘s shoot-to-kill policy. Many of the trapped civilians are injured and require immediate emergency assistance. The Israeli military has claimed that the churches harbor Palestinian gunmen, but in reality, most are women and children.

Death toll continues from IDF attacks

On Tuesday, a group of international civilians attempting to deliver medical supplies and food to the injured had to stop when the group came under fire. Earlier in the day, an Israeli tank crushed an ambulance en route to Manger Square in Wadi Ma‘ali. Several journalists attempting to cover the situation from Manger Square were arrested in the Bethlehem municipality building this morning.

ISM members report that at least six Palestinians were killed by IDF in Manger Square on Tuesday, some during an announced lifting of the curfew. One, an 80-year-old man, was left dying in the street overnight; his body could not be retrieved due to continual IDF fire.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Palestinian American ISM member Huwaida Arraf begged the international community to come to the aid of those in the West Bank by contacting their representatives and elected officials: "We are witnessing war crimes and must work to stop this. We will continue our attempts to help the Palestinian people despite the danger on our lives. The United Nations and our respective governments must intervene now, decisively and unconditionally. We need help. Send help now, please!"

*****

Jose Bove, MST representative Mario Lill and other activists, mobilized in Palestine for Land Day are encircled by tanks in besieged Ramallah. See attached letter from Via Campesina.

Jos=E9 Bov=E9 and 77 militants are encircled in Ramallah by the Israeli forces.

A civil mission went on March 27 to Palestine to celebrate the Day of the Earth and to testify its solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people. 78 citizens, some of them French led by Jos=E9 Bov=E9, some of them from Switserland, and three representatives of Via Campesina (Mario Lill of the landless movement MST from Brazil, Doris Hernandez from Honduras and Paul Nicholson from Spain as well as hundreds of other citizens from Italie, Belgium, Spain and other countries, decided yesterday evening on March 28, to go voluntarily to Ramallah besieged and threatened by occupation. They demonstrated in front of the buildings of Palestinian Autority, and announced this morning that they decided to remain on the spot in Ramallah as long as the Israeli offensive continuous.

Disgusted by the cowardice of the European governments which close their eyes, these men and these women are returned in the occupied territories to denounce the policy of terror installation by the government of Ariel Sharon. Perfectly conscious of the danger, they are currently blocked in a hotel of Ramallah three hundred meters of the Head Quaters of Yasser Arafat, surrounded by Israeli tanks.

It is symptomatic that once more the civil society is forced to take disproportionate risks to challenge the politicians. The press releases emanating from the Quay of Orsay are in no way an answer adapted to the extreme gravity of the situation. The President and the government of the Republic, must intervene urgently to require:

- The sending of an international force for the protection of the Palestinian people.

- Total and unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli army from the occupied Palestinian territories.

- The resumption of negotiations between the Israeli State and the Palestinian Authority.

Contacts: Bernard Moser: +33-6.80.13.44.41