Britons join 200 in human shield
Peter Beaumont in Ramallah and Martin Wainwright
The Guardian, Monday April 1, 2002
Britons join 200 in human shield
Peter Beaumont in Ramallah and Martin Wainwright
Monday April 1, 2002
The Guardian
More than 200 international volunteers, including some 50 Britons, deployed
themselves in Ramallah and two refugee camps at Bethlehem last night in
an attempt to form "human shields" for Palestinian families.
The British contingent, ranging from a retired nurse
from Kent to a group of students from Manchester, joined Americans and
Europeans dispersed among houses close to Yasser Arafat's headquarters
and Israeli army tank formations near Bethlehem's Azar and Aida refugee
camps.
Israel ordered all foreign volunteers and journalists
to leave Ramallah yesterday, as another media worker was shot and wounded
while covering the fighting in the city.
The warning came as Anthony Shadeed, an American
reporter for the Boston Globe, was wounded in the back and shoulder after
being shot near the city's main square. He said he was walking along one
of the main streets with his Palestinian "fixer" when he was hit from behind
by a single sniper shot. Israeli soldiers denied that he had been shot
by their forces.
Israel warned that any foreigners who chose to remain
in Ramallah did so at the risk of being mistaken for Palestinian gunmen
and shot.
But speaking above gunshots and the clatter of a
surveillance helicopter, Rory Macmillan, an international business lawyer
from Scotland, said he was at the Aida camp in Bethlehem to offer non-violent
resistance to any attempt by the Israelis to arrest Palestinians or threaten
families.
"I decided to use my Easter holidays to come out
with a group to dig up roadblocks and block tanks in the occupied territories,"
he said. "There are 15 or more tanks close by and there's a general expectation
that they'll move in.
"The soldiers don't use the streets - they move
from house to house, blasting holes in the wall to get through. We're here
in the hope they'll hold back if there's a foreign national."
In Ramallah, Osama Mutawa from Brighton said his
group of human shields asked the British consulate yesterday to evacuate
them but had been told there were no plans to do so. He said: "The British
public has no idea what is going on here. We decided we should come and
try and stay with families to protect them."
Sarah Irving, 26, a Manchester University MA student
in political economy, who is also staying at Azar, said: "You can't go
anywhere at the moment, it's too dangerous, but we are each staying with
a family. There are 38 tanks at the nearest checkpoint and we can hear
an Israeli Cobra helicopter overhead."
Dr Mortaza Sahibzada, another British volunteer,
said that despite the deteriorating situation, he planned to stay on at
Aida until the second week in April, when he had to get back to his work
as a research fellow in engineering at Imperial College, London.
Most of the British volunteers travelled to the
Middle East with the International Solidarity Movement, a coalition of
groups concerned about the plight of the Palestinians.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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