I saw the bodies, killed by a shot to the head
Israeli killings: Troops stormed Arafat's men's base - and Palestinians believe that what followed was an execution
Observer Worldview
Peter Beaumont in Ramallah
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer
I saw the bodies, killed by a shot to the head
Israeli killings: Troops stormed Arafat's men's base - and Palestinians believe that what followed was an execution
Observer Worldview
Peter Beaumont in Ramallah
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer
The ambulancemen were carrying the first body out of the Cairo-Amman
bank in the centre of Ramallah when I came across them.
His knees were doubled up in rigor mortis. One of
the legs of his green parachute jumpsuit had been burnt through to the
skin by a round fired at such close quarters that the muzzle flash had
ignited the fabric. A gaping wound was visible in his chest - also, apparently,
from a burst of fire from close range. What killed him, however, was the
gunshot to his temple.
A few minutes later, the paramedics brought the
second body, that of a young man, also in Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit,
Force 17.
Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue
socks. The wounds that he had obviously been clutching when he died were
also to his upper body. But what must have killed him, like his colleague,
was a shot fired at close range to his temple that had demolished the back
of his head.
The third body was of an older man, perhaps in his
forties, grey-haired and with a full moustache. Someone had pulled his
parachute suit up above his head to hide the wound. But when the stretcher-bearers
put him down, the covering was pulled back. The wound was also to the head.
What happened on the third floor of the Cairo-Amman
bank at midnight on Friday during Israel's occupation of the Palestinian
city of Ramallah can only be surmised. But in the few minutes after Israeli
soldiers stormed the Palestinian position, five men were wounded and five
men were put to death by the Israelis, each with a single coup de grace
to the head or throat.
Maher Shalabi, bureau chief of Abu Dhabi television
in Ramallah, was in his office in the same building when he heard several
bursts of heavy shooting on the floors below. 'I heard heavy shooting;
maybe it was an exchange of fire. But I believe this was an execution.
This is what I understand.'
Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator,
added: 'They were executed in cold blood. This is a clear example of the
collective execution policy adopted by the Israeli government against the
Palestinian people.'
According to local residents, the dead men were
part of a large group of Palestinian policemen who had taken shelter in
the building, which also houses the offices of the British Council, when
the Israeli army entered their area of Ramallah.
The men had taken shelter in the foyer area on the
third floor next to a dentist's surgery. Yesterday bullet holes spattered
the walls and the floor was flecked with blood. On one wall were large
splashes of blood. Several bloody trails had been marked along the floor
where someone had pulled the bodies towards the lift.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers entered
the building after Palestinians opened fire from inside and threw a grenade
at the force outside.
The coups de grace administered for these five men
is a metaphor for what the Israeli incursion is hoping to achieve inside
Ramallah. By isolating Arafat within his headquarters, Sharon hopes to
decapitate the Palestinian Authority.
Yesterday, inside Arafat's compound, it was clear
that, for all the claims of Ariel Sharon, Arafat was neither under threat
nor under arrest. Arafat, simply, was surrounded by the Israelis.
As we approached the compound we could see the tanks
and armoured personnel carriers ringing his sprawl of offices and barracks.
On every side soldiers were taking positions and aiming their weapons.
Here and there was evidence of the desperate fighting
that had taken place as Israeli forces stormed the wall and then the buildings.
External walls were pocked with gunfire, while scorch marks were visible
at third-floor windows.
Approaching closer, the Israeli army tried to prevent
us following a delegation from the Palestinian solidarity movement into
the compound, led by José Bové, the French farmers leader
and anti-globalisation protester.
In a surreal touch Bové and his colleagues
had marched through the ruins of the town, even as fighting continued in
some parts. With their hands above their heads, and some carrying palm
fronds as Easter symbols of peace, they approached Arafat's compound with
two columns of heavily armed Israeli infantry jogging the last few hundred
metres behind them.
Seeing Bové, who had marched through the
town with a small group of fellow protestors bearing a tray of medicines
for those injured inside Arafat's compound, the soldiers relented and let
us enter with him and approach the offices where Arafat was holed up.
Crossing a large car park we could see a three-storey
block, its walls splattered with tank fire, two windows blackened by fire
with sheets hanging where the occupants had tried to escape the flames.
I followed Bové to the entrance to the offices
where Arafat was hiding but was grabbed from behind by an Israeli soldier
and pulled away. Arafat may not be a prisoner but it is the Israelis who
choose who goes to see the Palestinian chairman.
On every corner yesterday stood Israeli tanks. The
devastation that these tanks have wrought inside the Palestinians' most
attractive city has to be seen to be believed. Roads have been dynamited
or torn up. Buildings are burnt and shattered. Everywhere there is rubble,
spent ammunition and broken glass.
A little later, I met Hossam Sharkawi and Mohamed
Awad, two senior officials in the Palestinian Red Crescent whom I had met
before.
Standing by a convoy of ambulances the clearly exhausted
Sharkawi, a co-ordinator for emergency services, told me the Israelis had
arrested five of his drivers.
'They have them blindfolded and handcuffed. I cannot
understand what the Israelis are thinking. They also used one of our ambulances
today as a human shield. They sandwiched it inside a convoy.'
Sharkawi and his colleagues were able to reveal
something of life inside Arafat's compound. 'We know there are injured
inside,' he said. 'But they have been blocking ambulances entering to give
treatment.
'All that we hear is that there may be between 50
and 100 people trapped with Arafat inside the building, without food, or
water or any electricity and no telephone communication.' He shook his
head and walked away.
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