The fourth ZGram on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is titled "Tanks, Gunships, Rockets Used To Attack Palestinians" - again, as this write-up was featured in MER:
Tanks, helicopter gunships and rockets are now being used against the Palestinians by the Israeli army. Prime Minister Barak has publicly threatened to further unleash the Israel army and surround the Palestinian enclaves with tanks. The Israeli Foreign Minister has blamed the Palestinians for daring to "riot" against their occupiers and complimented the Army for doing its job. Now Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who has professed such concern for the Palestinians has not been heard from, nor has he taken any action against Israeli army snipers and soldiers who are purposefully targeting and killing totally defensely Palestinian children and aid workers.
The Arab League has once again shown how powerless and compromised the Arab regimes are. After meeting in "emergency session" over the weekend, the Arab League has "appealed" to the United Nations to "investigate" what is happening and condemn Israel.
The last time the U.N. attempted to investigate an Israeli massacre it was at its own safe-haven of Qana in Lebanon. The Israelis refused to even allow the investigators to visit Israel, the U.S. threatened to veto any contrary resolution against Israel, and Secretary-General Boutros Ghali was told that even his support for the investigation meant the U.S. was going to replace him as Secretary-General.
Meanwhile, those Arab regimes with diplomatic relations with Israel have not even recalled their Ambassadors, not to mention broken relations with Israel. The Arab regimes are simply afraid of the United States and cowered into protecting their "client" status. An Arab civilization of over 200 million remains impotent and despondent.
For perspective, if what is happening to the Palestinians were happening in a country the size of the U.S., an occupation army would have shot more than one hundred thousand Americans in just the past few days.
The following just in from The Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees in Jerusalem and from Robert Fisk, the courageous journalist writing in The Independent:
ISRAELI FORCES ATTACK CHILDREN AND MEDICAL TEAMS
MOSTLY CIVILIANS CASUALTIES CONTINUE TO MOUNT
Oct 2, 3:00 PM Jerusalem:
As attacks on Palestinian civilians continue for the fifth day, at least 35 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,000 injured by Israeli forces in locations throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, as well as in Arab towns inside the Green Line. Among those killed by Israeli bullets are at least seven children under the age of seventeen.
12-year-old Muhammad Rami Al-Dura died in the arms of his father Jamal at the Natzarim junction in Gaza on Saturday. As seen on television screens across the world, Israeli soldiers continued firing live ammunition directly at the two despite Jamal's efforts to shield his son and signal the soldiers to stop shooting. Jamal remains in the hospital, recovering from four bullet wounds.
10-year-old Muhammad Jabar Raafi was also killed in the Gaza Strip, shot in the head with an explosive, high velocity bullet. Like the "dum-dum" bullet used widely by Israeli forces during the Intifada, this type of bullet shatters upon impact to inflict the greatest possible damage and is outlawed by international conventions.
16-year-old Muhammad Al-Hams, shot in the head, and 16-year-old Muhammad al-'Utleh have also been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
In Nablus, Sara Abdel-Azeem, a one-and-a-half-year-old baby girl, was killed when Israeli settlers shot at her father's car. In the same town, 10-year-old Samir Tabanja was killed by machine-gun fire from an Israeli helicopter gunship that strafed crowds of Palestinian civilians yesterday.
In the West Bank town of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, 16-year-old Muhammad Nabil Daoud died after Israeli soldiers shot him in the head. In the same location, three UPMRC first-aid volunteers were wounded by shrapnel from exploding high velocity bullets. Shrapnel grazed the head of Suheila Abdel-Rahman, the ear of Ashraf Bisht, and the face of Bashir Barghouthi, barely missing his eye. Bashir remains hospitalized. All three were wounded at the entrance of the building where the UPMRC had established a mobile emergency care site. Israeli forces kept them trapped in a small corridor of this building for two-and-a-half hours before ambulances managed to make it through to the wounded volunteers.
Today, Dr. Hanna Rashmawi, UPMRC District Manager for Bethlehem, was shot in the chest by a rubber-coated metal bullet.
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Thought for the Day:
"Were not all gods once devils, only rechristened and become holy?"
(Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil)
Back to Table of Contents of the Oct. 2000 ZGrams