[GushShalomPress] Funeral turns into pogrom

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

-- Report + Gush Shalom press release about pogrom in Hebron
-- Internationals obstructed the army's efforts to demolish a house


Report + Gush Shalom press release about pogrom in Hebron

Today, settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron - always notorious for their fanatism 
and violent behaviour - made the funeral of one of their number, killed two days ago in a 
Palestinian ambush, into a pretext for a violent rampage and a wide-scale attack on 
the city's Palestinian inhabitants. Several houses were broken into and set on fire, 
fifteen Palestinians wounded, some of them severely, and a fourteen year old girl 
killed. 
Footage on the Israeli First Channel news showed exactly how it began: the funeral 
first proceeding quietly, then a bunch of settlers shouting: "Revenge! revenge! revenge!" 
whereupon the shooting started. 
Settler leader Moshe Ben-Zimra claimed that the settlers had acted "in self-defence" 
since the Palestinians had "intended to massacre them" - a bare-faced lie if ever there 
was one (some 4000 settlers armed to the teeth, protected by hundreds of soldiers in 
tanks and armoured cars, against Palestinians armed with stones only and held 
prisoners in their homes by a 24-hour curfew which was reintroduced for the 
occasion...). 
Neverthless, the settler version was broadcast for several minutes on the official Israeli 
TV , without the editors trying to give explicitly any other point of view.   

[The following is the translation of the Hebrew press release which we sent tonight.]

"The IDF command and the cabinet minsters bear the full responsibility for the pogrom 
and murder perpetrated by the settlers in Hebron, under cover of the curfew. The killing 
of settlers elsewhere provides no justification, nor even a reasonable pretext, for a 
murderous random assault on Palestinians in Hebron, just as the killing of Palestinian 
children by the Israeli Army does not provide any kind of  justification for suicide 
bombings aimed at random Israelis. 
It could have been easily predicted that the settler funeral will be followed by the 
assault of settlers upon the inhabitants of Hebron - but nothing was done,  either by 
the army or the police and other - to stop it from taking place. The Government of 
Israel, which allowed the settlers to invade the heart of Hebron and allotted 
considerable military forces to the task of closely guarding the settlers, is directly 
responsible for the settlers' acts. A chief part in the responsibilityu rests upon Defence 
Minister Ben-Eliezer, the leader of the Labour Party."   
																			***
Internationals obstructed the army's efforts to demolish a house

[The following amazing report was sent out by the ISM office. Actually, before we saw 
it, we heard on the Israeli radio at the 1.00 o'clock news that in the  Jenin area 
internationals had obstructed the army's efforts to demolish a house.
At about midnight, we made phone contact and it turns out that the stonethrowing was 
actually done not by soldiers, but by police (sic!) and that meanwhile calm had 
returned but they are staying also the night in Jenin.]

--------------forwarded mesages -----------------
Date:        Sun, 28 Jul 2002 04:15:28 -0700 (PDT)
From:       Huwaida Arraf <huwaidaa at yahoo.com>
 
 
International Solidarity Movement - http://www.palsolidarity.org

July 28, 2002

For immediate release

INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISTS TRYING TO STOP ISRAELI WAR CRIMES;        
PREPARING FOR IMMINENT ATTACK IN JENIN

[JENIN] Over 40 international activists have placed themselves in life
threatening situations to halt Israeli war crimes being carried out right now in Jenin.

Currently there are three situations:

1.      Internationally acclaimed author Starhawk and over a dozen other activists are 
trying to stop the demolition of several homes near Wadi Birkin. The international 
peace activists have been tear gassed repeatedly and are gravely concerned about the 
two Apache helicopters flying overhead firing sporadically. Caiomhe Butterly, Irish, 
approached a nearby house where she could see approximately 25 men being held 
and stoned by Israeli soldiers. The area commander began to stone her as well 
causing injuries to her legs and arms. Soldiers dragged ! her away. The women and 
children from the homes have been taken by the Israeli forces to an unknown location.

2.      The Israeli military has contacted the mayor of Jenin informing him of their 
intentions to blow up the Nadi Youth and Cultural Center. Internationals with ISM and 
the French Civil Mission for the Protection of the Palestinian People are planning to 
enter the center as well as surround it in a human chain.

3.      Two tanks and a jeep entered the city center and began
firing on Palestinian civilians this morning. Due to local resistance the Israeli army 
pulled out but are currently en route to the city center again with reinforcements. 
Activists are in the city center and plan to protect the Palestinian civilians by acting as 
human shields.

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, collective punishments are a war
crime. Article 33 of the Fourth Convention states: “No protected person may be 
punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” and “collective 
penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are
prohibited.”

International activists and Palestinian civilians call on the members of
the press to expose these vicious acts of violence and outrageous war crimes

      Please contact internationals in Jenin immediately:
      Caiomhe (Ireland) 972 (0) 55 975 374
      Starhawk (USA) 972 (0) 56 435 018
      Lisa (USA) Carol (UK), Nancy (UK), Fiona (Canadian) 972 (0) 67 387 892

      For more information on the International Solidarity Movement contact:
      Huwaida 972 (0) 67 473 308          ISM Office 972 (0) 2 626 4844

	----

    Palestinian life under occupation, reports and letters
      at: http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html 
		     		
    Why are the volunteer international observers important?
    Because the United Nations didn't send its protection force.
    Information about the International Solidarity Movement 
       - and how to support it in different ways -
            at http://www.palsolidarity.org/

									*   *                  
    Full transcript of the war crimes panel available on the Gush site
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    For English  http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum_eng.html
    French available at request 
           
Also on the site:
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    the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English 
    the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and English	
    (and a lot more) 
		http://www.gush-shalom.org

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