We came, we saw, we conquered
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- Written by Uri Blau Uri Blau
- Published: 02 February 2009 02 February 2009
- Hits: 3448 3448
The defense establishment, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, steadfastly refused to publicize the figures, arguing, for one thing, that doing so could endanger state security or harm Israel's foreign relations.
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Someone who is liable to be particularly interested in the data collected by Spiegel is George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, who arrived in Israel last week for his first visit since his appointment. It was Mitchell who authored the 2001 report that led to the formulation of the road map, which established a parallel between halting terror and cessation of construction in the settlements.
The information in the official database, the most comprehensive one ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.
The data, it should be stressed, does not refer only to the illegal outposts (information about which was included in the well-known report authored by attorney Talia Sasson and published in March 2005), but to the very heart of the settlement enterprise. It includes veteran ideological settlements like Alon Shvut (established in 1970 and currently home to 3,291 residents); Ofra (established in 1975, home to 2,708 residents, including former Yesha Council spokesman Yehoshua Mor Yosef and media personalities Uri Elitzur and Hagai Segal); and Beit El (established in 1977, population 5,308, including Hagai Ben-Artzi, brother of Sara Netanyahu). Also included are large settlements founded primarily due to economic motives, such as the city of Modi'in Ilit (established in 1990 and now home to 36,282 people), or Givat Ze'ev outside Jerusalem (founded in 1983, population 11,139), and smaller settlements such as Nokdim near Herodion (established in 1982, population 851, including MK Avigdor Lieberman).
The information contained in the database does not conform to the state's official position, as presented, for instance, on the Foreign Ministry Web site, which states: "Israel's actions relating to the use and allocation of land under its administration are all taken with strict consideration of the rules and norms of international law ... Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements."
Since in many of the settlements, it was the government itself, primarily through the Construction and Housing Ministry, that was responsible for construction, and since many of the building violations involve infrastructure, roads, public buildings and so on, the official data also shows government responsibility for the unrestrained planning and lack of enforcement of regulations in the territories. The extent of building violations also attests to the poor functioning of the Civil Administration, the body in charge of permits and supervision of construction in the territories.
According to the 2008 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 290,000 Jews live in the 120 official settlements and dozens of outposts established throughout the West Bank over the past 41 years.
"Nothing was done secretively," says Pinchas Wallerstein, director general of the Yesha Council of settlements and a leading figure in the settlement project. "I'm not familiar with any [building] plans that were not the initiative of the Israeli government." He notes that if the owners of private land upon which settlements are built were to complain and the court were to accept their complaint, then the structures would have to be moved somewhere else. "This has been the Yesha Council's position for the past years," he adds.
You would never know it from touring several of the settlements in which massive construction has taken place on private Palestinian land. Entire neighborhoods built without permits or on private property are inseparable parts of the settlements. The sense of dissonance only intensifies when you find that municipal offices, police and fire stations were also built upon and currently operate on lands that belong to Palestinians.
On Mishkenot Haro'im Street in the Kokhav Yaakov settlement, a young mother is carrying her two children home. "I've lived here for six years," she says, sounding surprised when informed that her entire neighborhood was built upon private Palestinian land. "I know there's some small area in the community that is disputed, but I never heard that this is private land." Would she have built her home on this land had she known this from the start? "No," she answers. "I wouldn't have kicked anyone out of his home."
Not far away, at the settlement's large and unkempt trailer site, which is also built on private land, a young newlywed couple is walking to the bus stop: 21-year-old Aharon and his 19-year-old wife, Elisheva. They speak nearly perfect Hebrew, despite having grown up in the United States and having settled permanently in Israel just a few months ago, after Aharon completed his army service in the ultra-Orthodox Nahal Brigade unit. Now he is studying computers at Machon Lev in Jerusalem. Asked why they chose to live here of all places, they list three reasons: It's close to Jerusalem, it's cheap and it's in the territories. In that order.
The couple pay their rent, NIS 550 a month, to the settlement secretariat. As new immigrants, they are still exempt from having to pay arnona (municipal tax). Aharon doesn't seem upset upon learning that his trailer sits on private land. It doesn't really interest him, he says: "I don't care what the state says - the Torah says that the entire Land of Israel is ours." And what will happen if they're told to move to non-private land? "We'll move," he says without hesitation.
Even today, more than two years after concluding his official role, Baruch Spiegel remains loyal to the establishment. In a conversation, he notes several times that he signed a confidentiality agreement and is thus unwilling to go into the details of the work for which he was responsible. He was appointed to handle several issues about which Israel had given a commitment to the United States, including improving conditions for Palestinians whose lives were adversely affected by the separation fence, and supervising Israel Defense Forces soldiers at the checkpoints.
Two years ago, Haaretz reporter Amos Harel revealed that Spiegel's main task was to establish and maintain an up-to-date database on the settlement enterprise. This was after it became apparent that the United States, as well as the settlement monitoring team of the Peace Now organization, was already in possession of much more precise information about settlement construction than the defense establishment.
Spiegel's database contains written documents backed up by aerial photos and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data that includes information on the status of the land and the official boundaries of each settlement.
"The work took two and a half years to complete," says Spiegel. "It was done in order to check the status of the settlements and the outposts, and to achieve the greatest possible accuracy in terms of the database - the status of the property, the legal status, the sector boundaries, municipal building plans, government decisions, lands whose ownership is unclear. It was full-time, professional work, carried out by a professional team of legal experts, planning people, GIS experts. And I hope this work continues, because it is very vital. One has to know what's going on there and make decisions accordingly."
Who is keeping track of all this now?
Spiegel: "I suppose it's the Civil Administration."
Why was there no database like this before your appointment?
"I don't know how much of a focus there was on it."
Why do you think the state is not publicizing the data?
"It's a sensitive and complex subject and there are all kinds of considerations, political and security-related. There were questions about the public's right to know, the freedom of information law. You should ask the officials in charge."
What are the sensitive matters?
"It's no secret that there are violations, that there are problems related to land. It's a complicated problem."
Is there also a problem for the country's image?
"I didn't concern myself with image. I was engaged in Sisyphean work to ensure that, first of all, they'll know what exists, what's legal and what's not, and what the extent of the illegality is - whether it involves the takeover of private Palestinian land or is in the process of obtaining proper building permits. Our job was to do the meticulous work of examining all the settlements and outposts that existed then ... We found what we found and passed it on."
Do you think this information should be published?
"I think they've already decided to publish the simpler part, concerning areas of jurisdiction. There are things that are more sensitive. It's no secret that there are problems, and it's impossible to do something illegal and say it's legal. I can't elaborate, because I'm still bound to maintain confidentiality."
Says Dror Etkes, formerly the coordinator of Peace Now's settlement-monitoring project and currently director of the Land Advocacy Project for the Yesh Din organization: "The government's ongoing refusal to reveal this material on the pretext of security reasons is yet another striking example of the way in which the state exploits its authority to reduce the information at the citizens' disposal, when they wish to formulate intelligent positions based on facts, rather than lies and half-truths."
Following the initial exposure of the material, the Movement for Freedom of Information and Peace Now requested that the Defense Ministry publish the database information, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Law. The ministry refused.
"This is a computerized database that includes detailed information, in different cross-sections, regarding the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria," the ministry said in response. "The material was collected by the defense establishment for its purposes and includes sensitive information. The ministry was asked to allow a review of the material in accordance with the Freedom of Information Law, and after consideration of the request, decided not to hand over the material. The matter is pending and is the subject of a petition before the Administrative Affairs Court in Tel Aviv."
The database provides an alphabetical survey of settlements. For each entry, it notes the source of the settlement's name and the form of settlement (urban community, local council, moshav, kibbutz, etc.); its organizational affiliation (Herut, Amana, Takam, etc.); the number of inhabitants; pertinent government decisions; the official bodies to which the land was given; the status of the land upon which the settlement was built (state land, private Palestinian or Jewish land, etc.); the illegal outposts built in proximity to the settlement; and the extent to which valid building plans have been executed. Beneath each entry, highlighted in red, is information on the extent of construction that has been carried out without permission and its exact location in the settlement.
Among all the revelations in the official data, it's quite fascinating to see what was written about Ofra, a veteran Gush Emunim settlement. According to a recent report by the B'Tselem human rights organization, most of that settlement's developed area sits on private Palestinian land and therefore falls into the category of an illegal outpost that is supposed to be evacuated. The Yesha Council responded to that report, saying that the "facts" in it are "completely baseless and designed to present a false picture. The inhabitants of Ofra are careful to respect the rights of the Arab landowners, with whom they reached an agreement regarding the construction of the neighborhoods, as well as an agreement that enables the private landowners to continue to work their lands."
But the information on Ofra contained in the database leaves no room for doubt: "The settlement does not conform to valid building plans. A majority of the construction in the community is on registered private lands, without any legal basis whatsoever and no possibility of [converting the land to non-private use]."
The database also gives a detailed description of where construction was carried out in Ofra without permits, "in the original part of the settlement - more than 200 permanent residential structures, agricultural structures, public structures, lots, roads and orchards (in regard to which Plan 221 was submitted, but not advanced due to a problem of ownership)."
Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan responds: "I am not familiar with that data."
Another place where the data reveals illegal construction is Elon Moreh, one of the most famous settlements in the territories. In June 1979, several residents of the village of Rujib, southeast of Nablus, petitioned the High Court, asking it to annul the appropriation order for 5,000 dunams (1,250 acres) of land in their possession, which had been designated for the construction of the settlement. In court, the government argued, as it did regularly at the time, that the construction of the settlement was required for military purposes, and therefore the appropriation orders were legal. But in a statement on behalf of the petitioners, former chief of staff Haim Bar-Lev asserted then that, "In my best professional judgment, Elon Moreh does not contribute to Israel's security."
The High Court of Justice, relying on this statement and information from the original core group of settlers of Elon Moreh - who also argued that a temporary settlement was not established for security purposes, and that a permanent one was built instead - instructed the IDF to evacuate it and return the lands to their owners. The immediate consequence of the ruling was to find an alternative site for the settlement, on property previously defined as "state lands." Following this ruling, Israel stopped officially using military injunctions in the territories for the purpose of establishing new settlements.
The lands that were originally appropriated for the purpose of building Elon Moreh were returned to their Palestinian owners, but according to the database, in Har Kabir, the settlement's new site, too, "most of the construction was carried out without approved, detailed plans, and some of the construction involved trespassing on private lands. As for the state lands in the settlement, a detailed plan, No. 107/1, was prepared and published on 16/7/99, but has yet to go into effect."
The Shomron Regional Council, which includes Elon Moreh, says in response: "All the neighborhoods in the settlement were planned, and some were also built, by the State of Israel through the Housing and Construction Ministry. The residents of Elon Moreh did not trespass at all and any allegation of this kind is also false. The State of Israel is tasked with promoting and approving the building plans in the settlement, as everywhere else in the country, and as for the plans that supposedly have yet to receive final validity, just like many other communities throughout Israel, where processes continue for decades, this does not delay the plans, even if the planning is not complete or carried out in tandem."
Beit El, another veteran settlement, was also, according to the database, established "on private lands seized for military purposes (in fact, the settlement was expanded onto private lands, by trespassing in the northern section of the settlement), on state lands that were appropriated during the Jordanian period (the Maoz Tzur neighborhood in the southern part of Beit El)."
According to the official data, in the absence of approved plans, construction in Beit El includes the local council's offices and the "northern neighborhood (Beit El Bet) that was built for the most part on private lands. The neighborhood comprises widespread construction, public buildings and new ring roads."
Moshe Rosenbaum, head of the Beit El local council, responds: "Unfortunately, you are cooperating with the worst of Israel's enemies and causing tremendous damage to the whole country."
Ron Nahman, mayor of Ariel, was re-elected to a sixth term in the last elections. Nahman is a long-time resident of the territories and runs a fascinating heterogeneous city. Between a visit to the trailer site where evacuees from Netzarim are housed, and a stop at a shop that sells pork and other non-kosher products - mostly to the city's large Russian population - he complains about the cessation of construction in his city and about his battles with the Civil Administration over every building permit.
Ariel College, Nahman's pride and joy, is also mentioned in the database: "The area upon which Ariel College was built was not regulated in terms of planning." It further explains that the institution sits on two separate plots, and the new plan has not yet been discussed.
Nahman confirms this, but notes that the planning issue was recently resolved. When told that dozens of settlements include areas that were constructed on private lands, he is not surprised. "That's possible," he says. The fact that in three-quarters of the settlements there has been construction that deviates from the approved plans doesn't surprise him either.
"All the complaints should be directed at the government, not at us," he explains. "As for the small and communal settlements, they were planned by the Housing Ministry's rural construction administration. The larger communities are planned by the ministry's district offices. It's all the government. Sometimes the Housing Ministry is responsible for budgetary construction, which is construction covered by the state budget. In the Build Your Own Home program, the state pays a share of the development costs and the rest is paid for by the individual. All these things are one giant bluff. Am I the one who planned the settlements? It was [Ariel] Sharon, [Shimon] Peres, [Yitzhak] Rabin, Golda [Meir], [Moshe] Dayan."
Most of the territories of the West Bank have not been annexed to Israel, and therefore regulations for the establishment and construction of communities there differ from those that apply within Israel proper. The Sasson report, which dealt with the illegal outposts, was based in part on data collected by Spiegel, and listed the criteria for the establishment of a new settlement in the territories:
1. The Israeli government has to issue a decision to establish the settlement.
2. The settlement has to have a defined jurisdictional area.
3. The settlement has to have a detailed, approved plan.
4. The settlement has to be located on state land or on land purchased by Israelis and registered under their name in the Land Registry.
According to the database, the state gave the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and/or the Housing Ministry authorization to plan and build on most of the lands on which the settlements were constructed. These bodies allocated the property to the people who eventually carried out the actual settlement construction: Sometimes it was WZO's Settlement Division; other times it was the Housing Ministry itself, sometimes through the Rural Building Administration. In several cases, settlements were built by Amana, the settlement arm of the Gush Emunim organization. Another body cited in the database as having received allocations and as being responsible for construction in some settlements is Gush Emunim's Settler National Fund.
Regular state schools and religious schools (Talmudei Torah) have also been built on Palestinian lands. According to the database, in the southern part of the Ateret settlement, for instance, "15 structures were built outside of state lands, which are used for the Kinor David yeshiva. There are also new ring roads and a special security area that is illegal." The sign at the entrance says the yeshiva was built by the Amana settlement movement, the Mateh Binyamin local council and the WZO settlement division.
In the Psagot settlement, where there has also been a lot of construction on private land, it's easy to discern the terraced design typical of Palestinian agriculture in the region. According to the database, in Psagot there are "agricultural structures (a winery and storehouses) to the east of the settlement, close to the grapevines cultivated by the settlement, via trespassing."
During a visit there, the winery was found to be abandoned. Its owner, Yaakov Berg, acquired land from the Israel Lands Administration near the Migron outpost and a new winery and regional visitors' center is currently under construction there.
"The vineyards are located in Psagot," says Berg, who is busy with preparing the new site. From the unfinished observation deck, one can see an enormous quarry in the mountains across the way.
"If I built a bathroom here without permission from the Civil Administration, within 15 minutes, a helicopter would be here and I'd be told that it was prohibited," Berg complains. "And right here there's an illegal Palestinian quarry that continues to operate."
'Phosphorus wounds' alarm Gazans
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- Written by Aleem Maqbool, BBC News, Gaza City Aleem Maqbool, BBC News, Gaza City
- Published: 02 February 2009 02 February 2009
- Hits: 3628 3628
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By Aleem Maqbool
BBC News, Gaza City |
Staring straight ahead and rocking steadily backwards and forwards in her hospital bed, Sabah Abu Halima lists the fate of each of her nine children.
"Abed, 14 years old, was decapitated," she says. "Shaheed, one year and three months, was in my arms when the fire took her…"
Sabah explains that her husband and four of her children died when their house in northern Gaza was shelled during the recent Israeli offensive.
Many of the rooms in that house now lay dark and empty - blackened by fire.
The light fittings and power sockets have melted down the walls.
A shaft of light coming from the ceiling of the corridor, and mangled steel, marks the entry point of one of the missiles.
Scrawled, in Arabic, on the wall of a bedroom is the statement: "From the Israeli Defence Forces, we are sorry."
But on the next wall, there is a patch of white where, Sabah's 20-year-old son Mahmoud tells us, had also been the words "nice underwear". He says he scrubbed them off in anger.
'Strange burns'
Hundreds were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive, but it is the manner in which Sabah's relatives lost their lives, and the weapon used, that has attracted attention.
Sabah herself has suffered terrible burns on her arms, legs and torso and is considerable pain.
"There was fire, and so much white smoke," she says. "The missile melted my children. My daughter-in-law melted in front of my eyes."
Dr Nafiz Abu Shabaan, the head of the unit in which Sabah is being treated, says he has seen many victims with what he described as "strange burns".
"These burns were very severe, very deep, and became deeper and wider over time," he says. "In some cases, smoke came out of the wound, even after hours."
The cause of these types of injuries is believed, by visiting medical officials, to be Israel's use of shells containing white phosphorus.
Incendiary weapon
In another part of the city, at a former security compound flattened by the Israeli bombardment, Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, points out evidence that white phosphorus had been used.
"We're standing here right next to an M825A1, which is the US designation for their white phosphorus shell," he says.
"Manufactured in the US and sold to Israel, the shell here is unexploded, although it's cracked and you can see the phosphorus pouring out in kind of this yellow-orange colour."
"Around the area there are also some white phosphorus felt pieces," he adds.
"As the weapon explodes in mid-air, 116 pieces of felt doused in white phosphorus fall on a large area. These pieces are littered around here. If you kicked them open, they would begin to smoke and potentially reignite."
Controversial as it is, white phosphorus is not illegal, at least in an open battlefield setting, where it is used to mask troop movements, or set on fire areas of high brush that need clearing.
But the international convention on the use of incendiary weapons says it should not be used where there is a possibility of hitting civilians.
The compound sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal.
United Nations officials say it was used in the shelling of a school in which hundreds of civilians were taking refuge from the fighting, and fired at the UN's main headquarters in Gaza.
Eyewitnesses and victims talk of it being used on many other occasions in built-up areas.
Internal investigation
After initially denying that white phosphorus shells were fired in Gaza, some Israeli military officials have now acknowledged its use.
The army says it has started an internal investigation, the insistence being until now that no weapons were used illegally.
Human rights groups have meanwhile started their own research.
"It's important that we investigate the use of white phosphorus, because it does appear that it was used incorrectly in a clear breach of Geneva Conventions, " says Mr Garlasco.
"But as grave as the injuries caused by white phosphorus are, there are a number of weapons that were used in Gaza that killed and injured an awful lot more people," he adds.
"We have to look at the full variety of weapons that were used here, how they were employed and how they impacted on the civilian population."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7848768.stm
Published: 2009/01/24 12:59:09 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Gaza Desperately Short of Food After Israel Destroys Farmland
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- Written by Peter Beaumont Peter Beaumont
- Published: 02 February 2009 02 February 2009
- Hits: 3917 3917
GAZA - Gaza's 1.5 million people are facing a food crisis as a result of the destruction of great areas of farmland during the Israeli invasion.
Sobhi al-Shaweesh (C) stands in front of his family farm in the village of Johr al-Deek in the Gaza Strip January 26, 2009. Hamas Islamists have started handing out cash to some families who lost homes in Israel's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, but the amounts have so far fallen far short of what was promised by the group. Al-Shaweesh, whose family farm was pulverised by Israeli bulldozers and tank fire, welcomed assistance but was dismissive of the $1,000 grant, estimating the cost of restoring his substantial home and surrounding family properties at a hefty $500,000. (Mohammed Salem - GAZA/Reuters)
According to the World Food Programme, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and Palestinian officials, between 35% and 60% of the agriculture industry has been wrecked by the three-week Israeli attack, which followed two years of economic siege.
Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, the World Food Programme's country director, said: "We are hearing that 60% of the land in the north - where the farming was most intensive - may not be exploitable again. It looks to me like a disaster. It is not just farmland, but poultry as well.
"When we have given a food ration in Gaza, it was never a full ration but to complement the diet. Now it is going to be almost impossible for Gaza to produce the food it needs for the next six to eight months, assuming that the agriculture can be rehabilitated. We will give people a full ration."
Read more: Gaza Desperately Short of Food After Israel Destroys Farmland
My terror as a human shield: The story of Majdi Abed Rabbo
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- Written by Donald Macintyre in Jabalya, Gaza Donald Macintyre in Jabalya, Gaza
- Published: 29 January 2009 29 January 2009
- Hits: 3923 3923
As battle raged in Gaza, Israeli soldiers forced Majdi Abed Rabbo to
risk his life as a go-between in the hunt for three Hamas fighters.
This is his story...
After yet another fierce, 45-minute gun battle, Majdi Abed Rabbo was ordered once again to negotiate his perilous way across the already badly-damaged roof of his house, through the jagged gap in the wall and slowly down the stairs towards the first-floor apartment in the rubble-strewn house next door. Not knowing if the men were dead or alive, he shouted for the second time that day: "I'm Majdi. Don't be afraid."
All three men – with Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, wearing camouflage and headbands bearing the insignia of the Izzedine el Qassam brigades – were still alive, though one was badly injured and persuaded Mr Abed Rabbo to tighten the improvised bandage round his right arm. The youngest – perhaps 21 – was taking cover behind fallen masonry from where he could see the Israeli troops who had sent the visitor. Nervously, Mr Abed Rabbo told them: "They sent me back so I can take your weapons. They told me you are dead." It was the youngest who replied defiantly: "Tell the officer, 'If you're a man come up here'."
When the soldiers had arrived at about 10am, Mr Abed Rabbo, 40, had no inkling that over the next 24 hours he would make four heart-stopping trips, shuttling across increasingly dangerous terrain between the Israeli forces and the three besieged but determined Hamas militants who had become his unwelcome next-door neighbours. He would recall every detail of an episode which, in the telling, resembles the more melodramatic kind of war movie, but which was all too real for a man who by the end had lost his house and thought (wrongly) that his wife and children were dead. He had also witnessed at too close quarters the last stand of the men from the Qassam brigades in the face of relentless Israeli ground attacks and Apache helicopter fire.
Civilians were not killed in this episode, as they were in all too many during Operation Cast Lead. Instead, it offers a rare and detailed glimpse of an actual engagement between the Israeli military and Hamas fighters. And while it helps to reinforce Israel's contention that Hamas operates in built-up civilian areas, it also suggests that its own commanders were prepared to use civilians as human shields to protect Israeli troops.
It is one man's version of what happened, of course. But as the soldiers would find out when they checked later, Mr Abed Rabbo is a former member of the Fatah-dominated intelligence, still being paid by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. He believes the Hamas gunmen had no right to be in the house next door. But he also strongly objects to the use made of him by the Israeli military. "I could have been killed," he explained.
The soldiers arrived on 5 January, the second day of their ground offensive, with a Palestinian he knew only by his family name of Daher. After telling him to remove his trousers and roll up his shirt to establish he had no weapons, the soldiers told him to bring out his wife, Wijdan, 39, and family. Then, with Mr Abed Rabbo escorted at gunpoint by three soldiers and his family still in the yard, the troops searched his house up to the roof. The Arabic-speaking soldier assigned to Mr Abed Rabbo then asked him about the house next door. He told them he thought there was no one in the property. Then, he said, one of the soldiers brought a sledgehammer with which Mr Abed Rabbo was told to smash a hole in the wall between the two roofs, each opening to the apartments below.
An officer arrived and ordered a search of the house next door. The officer went first, stepping cautiously sideways down the stairs with his M16 rifle pointing downwards, then Mr Abed Rabbo with the soldiers and their guns pointed at his back. Suddenly, the officer turned and started screaming at his men. "We went back upstairs. The soldiers were pulling me and I fell twice," Mr Abed Rabbo said. "We went back to the roof of my house." It became apparent what the officer had glimpsed when suddenly the soldiers, by now on high alert and outside the yard of Mr Abed Rabbo's house, came under fire. He was taken into a mosque, which was already full of soldiers, across the road, then handcuffed and told to sit. After a 15-minute silence, the Hamas militants opened fire again. "The soldiers took position at the windows of the mosque and started shooting back. I was screaming at the soldier who spoke Arabic, 'My wife and children are in danger'." Mr Abed Rabbo said he was then told "shut up or I'll shoot you". "I collapsed and started to cry," he added. "I felt my family was dead."
He remained in custody for the next two days, sometimes handcuffed, staying with the Israeli unit as it moved through the area, often amid heavy exchanges of fire. Once, he was told to open the doors of two cars at another house to check them, before summoning the female occupants of the house downstairs. Then, in the afternoon, he was ordered to visit the damaged building where the armed Hamas men were. "I said I will not go. Maybe they will shoot me. I have a wife. I have kids," he recalled. But, he added, the Israeli officer told him he had "fired 10 rockets and killed them". He was then told to go into the house and bring out the weapons, after being hit with a rifle butt and given a kicking to reinforce the order. "I went to my house and saw my family was not there. I looked to see if there was any blood but there was nothing. It was empty. As I went down the stairs I was calling 'I'm Majdi' so they would not think I was Israeli and shoot me." Approaching the apartment door, he saw one gunman, his AK-47 pointed out, standing guard in the hall with two others behind him. Staying at the doorway, he told them the Israelis believed they had been killed. "They asked me where the army was and I said, 'They're everywhere'," he added. "They asked me to leave."
The soldiers, concealed behind the wall of a house 100 metres away, told him to strip naked to show he had not concealed any weapons as he left the house. Later, he was asked to make a third trip – his second journey alone – to the gunmen's redoubt. Mr Abed Rabbo says the Israeli officer cursed and hit him when he heard his report. Shortly afterwards, an Apache helicopter fired three missiles which destroyed the house containing the gunmen,and badly damaged his own. Night had fallen when he set out yet again under orders from the troops, but Mr Abed Rabbo persuaded them that the route through the rubble on his roof was impassable in the dark. "I kept asking about my family and they kept saying 'they're OK, they're OK'." The gunmen, incredibly still alive, opened fire yet again.
Mr Abed Rabbo was then taken to another house and told to stay there, handcuffed, cold and "worried about my family, my house". The Israeli soldiers came to fetch him again at about 6.30am, assuring him "we killed them last night" and telling him to go and see. "I said, 'How can I go? My rooftop is destroyed. It is very dangerous'," Mr Abed Rabbo explained. But given no choice, he managed to reach the stairs and descending cautiously, calling out as he had done twice before. "I saw everything was destroyed. They were all injured but the one who had been bleeding was worst. He was holding his finger up and saying, 'There is no God but Allah'. One of them was lying under rubble but still alive. The one in better condition said there was no way they would surrender, they would become martyrs. One gave me his name and told me to give a message to his family."
Mr Abed Rabbo said the Israelis started shooting while he was there and he ran away. "I went back to the Army. I lied to them. I said, 'They said if I went back they would kill me'."
The Israeli troops now used a megaphone to tell the gunmen in Arabic: "You have families. Come out and we will take you to hospital and take care of you. [The] district is full of special forces. All the Hamas leaders are hiding underground."
According to Mr Abed Rabbo: "While they were talking like this the [Hamas men] opened fire again, the officer pushed me against a wall and said, 'You've been lying to me. There are more than three in there'."
The soldiers then ordered two other residents to take cameras into the house to photograph it and the Hamas fighters. Next, the army sent in a dog which returned injured and died soon afterwards. The gunmen were then told: "You have 15 minutes to come out with no clothes on and with your hands up. If you don't, we will bring the house down on you."
After 15 minutes, Mr Abed Rabbo said, a bulldozer moved into the area between the houses and the mosque, destroying large parts of his house before systematically demolishing the one the gunmen were hiding in. It was now Tuesday afternoon.
Before he was taken away, Mr Abed Rabbo had a clear view of his wrecked house, the pulverised property next door, and the bodies of the three Hamas gunmen lying in the rubble.
Dozens believed dead in reprisal attacks as Hamas retakes control
- Details
- Written by Rory McCarthy in Gaza City Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
- Published: 29 January 2009 29 January 2009
- Hits: 3448 3448
- Suspected collaborators shot during and after war
- Escaped criminals killed by relatives of their victims
Evidence is emerging of a wave of reprisal attacks and killings inside Gaza that have left dozens dead and more wounded in the wake of Israel's war.
Among the dead are Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israeli military. Others include criminals who were among the 600 prisoners to escape from Gaza City's main jail when it was bombed as the war began. Their attackers are thought to be their victims' relatives.
During and after the war, there have also been attacks on security officials from Fatah, the bitter rival of Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of the Gaza Strip. One witness told the Guardian how her brother, a Fatah military intelligence officer, was shot three times in the legs in an apparent punishment attack by gunmen from Hamas's armed wing.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported yesterday that several Palestinian agents working in Gaza for the Israeli security services during the war had been killed, and cited one source as saying that agents were "intercepted" by Hamas because their intelligence had been used "carelessly" by the military.
Palestinians in human rights organisations are reluctant to speak publicly about what is a sensitive issue, but one respected human rights worker in Gaza said he believed between 40 and 50 people had been killed in reprisal attacks since the start of the war. But there was not yet enough evidence to suggest this was an organised campaign by Hamas, he said.
"We don't know who's doing the killing," the worker said. "Some are individuals, some might be from Hamas. It's been happening over several days, all across Gaza. It's not all necessarily Hamas actions against Fatah." Another human rights worker put the figure at between 25 and 30 documented cases of reprisal.
A human rights group in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, and funded by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, has protested. "A number of citizens have been extra-judicially killed during and after the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip," the Independent Commission for Human Rights said in a statement.
"Fire was opened on affected citizens at a close distance. In addition, individuals in official uniform or masked persons opened fire on people's legs, severely beat others, imposed house arrests, and threatened to punish citizens along with their families if they would not comply."
Hamas dismissed the claims but said it had arrested suspected collaborators, apparently as part of an effort to reassert control over Gaza. "The internal security service was instructed to track collaborators and hit them hard," said Ehab al-Ghsain, a spokesman for the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza. "They arrested dozens of collaborators who attempted to strike the resistance by giving information to the occupation about the fighters."
One woman from near Zeitoun, south of Gaza City, described how masked men with ID cards showing they were members of the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed wing, shot her brother in the legs. The family had fled the house but returned on 18 January, the first day of the Israeli ceasefire. At 8pm several gunmen appeared at the gate asking for her brother, a 36-year-old Fatah military intelligence officer who had not been working since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The men searched the house for weapons, but found none and later left.
Early the next morning they returned. "They started firing in the air," said the 23-year-old sister, who declined to give her name for fear of further attacks.
"They asked him to put his hands up.They fired one shot into his left knee. He fell to the floor and started screaming and saying: 'I didn't do anything.'"
He was then shot in the right leg and again in the left. "They were holding us back and we were watching him bleeding," she said. The victim is now in a Cairo hospital after two operations on his legs.
She said several of his Fatah colleagues had been targeted: "It's a kind of revenge on Fatah. They thought they were responsible for what was going on in Gaza."
Separately, Hamas is believed to have stopped Palestinians reaching an Israeli field hospital on Israel's side of the border at Erez. "We don't care about it," said Hassan Khalaf, Hamas's deputy health minister. "They are just claiming they care about human beings but they don't."