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CounterPunch
January
24, 2003
Murder in Zawatta
A US-Financed
Death Squad
by ANNE GWYNNE
Today was an even worse day than its predecessors.
Everyone asks, "Is 'worse' possible?" Mrs Sou'ad Godola,
aged 54 and Mr Aiman Hanlawi, aged 22, became two more murder
victims of the Israeli terrorist army, in this terrible war of
attrition which it is waging against an unarmed civilian population
with ever-increasing ferocity. We do not yet have the name of
the third seriously injured and unconscious man.
At 10.00 am, in response to an emergency
call, our Ambulance left the Center for the village of Zawatta
where it was reported that a car had been attacked by a helicopter
gunship--two persons had been killed and another seriously injured.
On board were Jarere and Ahmed Kanadiloe (Driver and Volunteer
Paramedic) and Abed Shahin, a UPMRC Volunteer.
At the very dangerous and difficult Beit
Iba 'Checkpoint' the Ambulance was held for one and a half hours,
during which the crew was continually verbally abused by very
aggressive soldiers. Ahmed, a tall, well-built, good-looking
22 year old was singled out for particular hostility. Whilst
awaiting 'permission' to pass, the crew were witness to three
cases of human rights abuse--these happen all the time but are
not always documented. In the first, Ahmed was told by a 21-year-old
nurse, manacled and sitting on the ground, that she had been
on her way to work when her ID was taken away without explanation--she
had sat there for four hours. Later, he saw her again--her ID
was only returned to her after six hours. They also saw a man
who was forced to strip naked and crawl a half-mile through the
mud.
The third incident was very violent and
was actually witnessed in full by the crew. A man from the village
of Beit Imrin was on his way to work at 10.30 am. When he handed
them his ID, all four soldiers surrounded him and beat him very
severely with their rifle butts, fracturing several ribs which
were pushed through the chest wall, when one of the soldiers
then squeezed his handiwork together. He had extensive internal
and external bleeding and, after first aid to keep him breathing,
he was transferred by another ambulance coming into Nablus, to
Hospital. Had our Ambulance not been there he would have almost
certainly died, as he was unable to breathe by himself and his
blood pressure was dangerously low.
At Shaffi Shamran 'checkpoint' there
was another one-and-a-half hour wait. The crew were interrogated
harshly (these 'soldiers' do not ask polite questions--everyone
barks or screams). They wanted to know why there were three crew
in the ambulance. Ahmed explained that the walk to the bombed
car was a kilometer down the mountain and they would then have
to carry two bodies back a kilometer uphill. The soldier says
that he does not see three every time and tries to hold Abed
at the checkpoint. Eventually even his demented brain can see
that two men cannot carry two dead people up a kilometer of mountainside,
and lets him go. Another ambulance comes for the injured person--from
The Red Crescent, similarly crewed. Their Paramedic is held hostage
at the 'checkpoint'.
Horrific injuries awaited them at the
scene of the murders. Sou'ad Godola's stomach and lungs were
hanging out and she had a huge, large-caliber wound to the thigh.
Not content with this, soldiers on the ground had taken some
parting shots--one hand-gun shot between the eyes, which had
taken off the back of her skull, and two shots in her chest below
each collar bone. Aiman Hanlawi's lower ribs and abdomen had
been blasted to smithereens and he had a huge wound to the groin
from a large-caliber shot. His guts were hanging out in pieces.
He also was given a few parting shots in the head, arms and legs.
Back at Shaffi Shamran with these two
murdered corpses--the soldiers laughing and jeering and dancing
around with their rifles over their heads--Ahmed asked, 'why
shoot a woman?" The deluded soldier said that she was carrying
an M16 machine-gun, a hand-gun, a bomb under her coat and a bomb
in a black plastic bag. When Ahmed asked, "WHERE ARE THEY?",
the soldier said that the ambulance crew had hidden them!
There are now seven checkpoints between
Zawatta and the Hospital in Nablus--most of them impromptu jeep-
or tank-points. Three of these are manned by Druze Police, surely
the most evil, murdering group of terrorists to hit the Near
East--remember Sabra and Shattila for example. I can personally
testify to their brutality (since I was knocked down by a blow
to the back delivered by one), and to their eyes which really
do have the look of people 'high' on something very nasty--their
hysterical laughter and crazy screaming rings in my ears like
the stereotypical sound of the insane.
At every checkpoint the bodies were examined
by many soldiers with the same laughing, singing and dancing.
Each time our crew had to look again at the horror beneath as
they were instructed time and time again to remove all covering
from the dead. At Beit Iba the Ambulance was held again for one-and-a-half
hours--the smell of blood, feces, urine, stomach contents and
gore was really getting to the crew. Ahmed pointed this out to
the soldiers, who thought it hysterically funny and did the same
maniacal jig. No 22 year-old should have to spend a day like
this--ever. At one of the Druze checkpoints the men poked and
made obscene gestures at the bodies. Screaming, shrieking and
laughing, they demanded that Ahmed tell them why these people
were killed. He said that THEY should know--he did not. More
maniacal laughter.
Finally, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon,
the bodies were brought to the Mortuary at the Hospital. The
same hospital where we had brought our patient, Targreed Doughlas,
heavily in labour last night--her first ambulance had been taken
by the Israelis and she was thrown onto the roadside, left to
die. She waited there now to go home with her baby girl a few
hours old--this next trip for the Ambulance was to be through
all these nightmare road-blocks yet again as she lives beyond
Shaffi Shamran. But, at Beit Iba, there was a very critically-ill
patient in an ambulance coming in to Nablus which was being held
the other side of the 'checkpoint'. Since the UPMRC Ambulance
was also prevented from moving through, patients were exchanged
and both ambulances drove off in a satisfactory conclusion to
a terrible day.
Ahmed poured out the details of all this
in a continuous stream of horrific memories--a torrent of shock
and grief and anger. Initially in Arabic, but later on to me
in such English that I think he did not know he had! And he was
very precise on all the details. Now, it is 9.30 pm in Nablus
and Abed has just come in very upset; he has written all the
events of the day down on a sheet of paper, kept with his ID.
He has also written down all the details of the attack on Feras
earlier this week (which Feras cannot bring himself to tell me).
At this moment I am awaiting the return
of Feras and Jarere from a very dangerous trip through Huwarra
'checkpoint'--Feras, as always, does not want to put me in any
danger, so he took Jarere who has been on duty since 5 o'clock
on Thursday afternoon. But he does not know how very much I want
to ride with them--to help them to move around and to keep them
safe. Isn't it outrageous that someone my age and of no significance
can get an ambulance through when its driver cannot--are there
stronger words? I can't find any. I must go now--I think I hear
the Ambulance. What will the rest of the night bring? Maybe it
will be quiet--who knows?
Anne Gwynne,
Independent International, is currently working with the Union
of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees in Nablus. She can be
reached at: gwynne_anne@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
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N.D. Jayaprakash
India's Nuclear War Plans
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