JOINT APPEAL FROM AL MEZAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PALESTINIAN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION FOR CITIZEN’S RIGHTS.
Gaza City, 1 April 2002
Gaza City
1 April 2002
JOINT APPEAL FROM AL MEZAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PALESTINIAN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION FOR CITIZEN’S RIGHTS.
The Israeli Occupation Forces have devastated Ramallah, the “untouchable city”, invaded on Thursday night, 28 March 2002. when Arafat’s compound was surrounded and battered by tanks allegedly in response to a suicide bombing in Netanya, Israel . Since then, Arafat has been confined to one room of his office building in which electricity and water have been cut as well as all contact with the outside world. Despite assurances that Arafat would not be harmed, there are legitimate reasons to fear for his life and safety.
Israeli forces have placed Ramallah under total curfew continuing into today causing extreme hardship to the residents of the town. Israeli soldiers have surrounded the entrance to apartment buildings. People are prohibited from leaving their homes to buy basic supplies including food, water, and medicines. The electricity has been cut as have the mobile phone lines in certain cases making it nearly impossible to contact emergency medical services such as the Palestine Red Crescent Society or local hospitals and clinics. Ambulances and emergency medical personnel are prohibited from entering the city under any circumstances.
Although contact with people living inside the city has been severely limited, one person was able to get through by telephone and describe the situation as “miserable” and “inhuman”. “We have no food, no milk, no water; we cannot even move to the balconies of our homes to ask the soldiers for help without risking being shot.”
The city streets of Ramallah are empty and torn up. All schools and businesses are closed and in many cases the IDF forces have caused significant damage to them as well as to local banks. Cars have been crushed by bulldozers and tanks; In fact, not a single vacant car in Ramallah has been left undamaged. Garbage has been strewn about everywhere. A number of buildings have been burned including the Natshe Building , the Darqhmah Building , and the building hosting the former British Council. Israeli forces have occupied local TV and Radio stations including Amwaj and Watan and have, on two separate occasions, broadcast pornographic films to the surrounding community.
Local hospitals lack sufficient blood supplies, oxygen, medicines, and contact with the outside world. In some cases both electricity and water supplies to the hospitals have been cut. There are so many dead coming into the hospitals that the morgues are full causing hospital staff to have to set up rooms with fans run by electricity generators to keep the bodies from rotting completely. The risk of disease and contamination is serious and worsening.
IDF forces entered local hospitals and private clinics and rounded up injured men. In one instance 62 members of the International Solidarity Group threatened to lie down in front of the army jeeps and tanks to prevent soldiers from entering Ramallah’s central hospital. They have so far been successful in preventing similar actions in this hospital as a result.
As of Friday morning, 29 March 2002, approximately 500 men ranging from age 15 – 50 have been rounded up by the Israeli Occupation Forces and taken to a school in El-Bireh were they have faced continuous interrogation. They are tied up, blindfolded, handcuffed, kicked, and cursed. According to recent reports the situation has worsened since Sunday night.
A female journalist from Al-Jazeera has been subjected to repeated taunts by Israeli soldiers, mocking her voice and calling her to “come see what we’re doing” when they start shooting.
In a particularly ominous development, Joseph Pouvet of the French Farmer’s Union and a number of accompanying activists went in to see president Arafat. When they left the compound, IDF sources accused them of smuggling wanted persons along with them claiming that a larger number came out of the compound than went in. Pouvet and 12 others have been arrested.
We expect that every city and refugee camp in the West Bank will face similar treatment in the coming days, especially as Ariel Sharon has promised to extend his “war” into the rest of the West Bank and possibly the Gaza Strip, currently under complete lockdown.
We call upon the international community to take immediate action to halt these war crimes and to allow international monitors in to protect the Palestinian people. We believe that the global civil society is especially relevant in calling a halt to these actions by pressuring their governments and humanitarian organizations to intervene immediately. Silence in the face of these on-going crimes amounts to complicity. We cannot express the gravity and urgency of this situation strongly enough and appeal to all people of conscience to take action.
senden