Israeli Army Continues Killing Spree
by
Kristen Ess
Dissident Voice
March 10, 2003
At 8
this morning Gaza City shook. One man just told me, "I was coming up the
stairs to work. I thought the whole building was going down." Neighbors
stuck their heads from windows to see what was happening. Four US donated
Apache helicopters hung in the sky, two on each side above our heads, firing
missiles directly into a car. The explosions were terrifying to an already
targeted and terrorized people.
This was a targeted
assassination. One of the people they murdered was a dentist working in a
clinic in Gaza City's Islamic University. He was a leader in the political wing
of Hamas, Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad al-Maqadmeh.
After the Israeli military
finished firing its missiles, the helicopter gun-ships hung arrogantly in the
sky for 15 more minutes. No one knew if they would keep shooting. A man here
tells me that they wanted to make sure they killed the people inside the car.
"They waited to see if anyone would get out alive." No one did.
Those murdered by the
Israeli military this morning are, in addition to the Dr., are: Abdul Rahman
Zuheer al-Amudi, a 29 year old from the ash-Shati Refugee Camp, Khalid Jum'a, a
30 year-old man from Jabalia, and Ala' Udeh al-Shukri, also 30 years-old, from
Gaza City. Two other people are injured. Several houses and another car were
also damaged.
The night before last, the
Israeli military murdered ten more people, 8 from el-Bureij Refugee Camp and
two from the Namsawi area of Khan Younis. Now its about 100 Palestinians
murdered by the Israeli military in just over a week in the Gaza Strip alone.
Gaza City's Shifa Hospital
is over-flowing. There is controversy internationally as the Israeli military
government denies using flechettes, made in the US and illegal under
international law, packed inside its tank shells while perpetrating its
massacre in the Jabalia Refugee Camp two days ago. I've just been speaking with
Dr. Mu'awiya Hassanain, Director General of Casualty and Emergency, Palestinian
Authority Ministry of Health, Chief Surgeon of Casualty and Trauma, Vascular Surgeon
in Shifa Hospital (Gaza City's main hospital).
"I would like to say,
and I would like to present, that the Israeli army is using the tank shell
which is full of flechettes. Those flechettes penetrate the human body causing
death by penetrating on the head, neck, chest, abdomen, and arriving to two big
vessels, the aorta and femoral and its causing this due to hemeologic shock an
due to hemolytic shock and other causes.
"I am the responsible
and medical/legal doctor for all of the Intifada. I am in the position of 'Dr.
of Intifada.' I am the first one who sees and examines victims of Israelis
killing and shooting of Palestinians. What I saw and what I received on the
crime day, the bloody day, which was what happened in Jabalia Refugee Camp due
to the using of tank shell, which is full of flechettes from the Israeli army,
which caused in a few minutes death for eight Palestinian persons and injured
more than 60 by the flechette and tank shell. What I would like to mention is
that the flechette penetrating on the head, arriving in the brain, causing
death. Its penetrating of big vessels causing severe hemorrhaging and its
penetrating of the chest, localizing on the heart causing explosion for the
heart and explosion for the lungs and explosion for the abdomen. All the
Palestinians [in this attack] are dead due to using those flechettes."
I visited a boy in the
hospital who was injured in this attack, one standing near the firefighters as
they worked in Jabalia. Both of his thighs are wrapped in thick bandages. His
nose is smashed and caked with blood, trying to heal. It is difficult for
families to move through the hospital because there are so many injured, the
rooms and hallways are stuffed with people. I ask the doctor to show me a
flechette. He holds one in his hand for me to see and says,
"I remove it from the
cadaver, the body, and other shrapnel. We suffer a lot from the Israeli
army."
Kristen Ess is a political activist and freelance
journalist from New York City, who has lived in the West Bank and Gaza since
March 2002, where she does solidarity work and reports for Free Speech Radio news and Left Turn magazine.