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Although the Image that Israel
distributes about herself is that of an oppressed nation, it is with heavy
hearts that we present these crimes that stand for themselves for the brutality
of the Israeli Army and the heartlessness of its soldiers who seem to have
a thirst for blood. It is for the hope that the world may see a clearer
picture that we present these painful facts. It is interesting to notice
that today's media does not dwell on these crimes as they do on the Holocaust.
Some of the brutal acts may be lightly covered in the news for a week or
two and then swept into the sea of oblivion. Those who attempt to revive
the true history of Israel are charged with being anti-Semitic. So with
the hope to keep those memories in mind we present this shameful history
of Israel that seems to have found that the role of Goliath is more
interesting than that of David.
The following list of massacres
is by no means exclusive, but they reflect the nature of the Zionist occupation
of Palestine and Lebanon and show that massacres and expulsions were not
aberrations that happen in any war, but organized atrocities with only
one aim, that is to have a Zionist state which is 'goyim rein'.
The King David Hotel explosion
of July 22, 1946 (Palestine), which resulted in the deaths of 92 Britons,
Arabs and Jews, and in the wounding of 58, was not just an act of “Jewish
extremists,” but a premeditated massacre conducted by the Irgun in agreement
with the highest Jewish political authorities in Palestine-- the Jewish
Agency and its head David-Ben-Gurion.
According to Yitshaq Ben-Ami,
a Palestinian Jew who spent 30 years in exile after the establishment of
Israel investigating the crimes of the “ruthless clique heading the internal
Zionist movement,”
The Irgun had conceived a
plan for the King David attack early in 1946, but the green light was given
only on July first. According to Dr. Sneh, the operation was personally
approved by Ben-Gurion, from his self-exile in Europe. Sadeh, the operations
officer of the Haganah, and Giddy Paglin, the head of the Irgun operation
under Menachem Begin agreed that thirty-five minutes advance notice would
give the British time enough to evacuate the wing, without enabling them
to disarm the explosion.
The Jewish Agency’s motive
was to destroy all evidence the British had gathered proving that the terrorist
crime waves in Palestine were not merely the actions of “fringe” groups
such as the Irgun and Stern Gang, but were committed in collusion with
the Haganah and Palmach groups and under the direction of the highest political
body of the Zionist establishment itself, namely the Jewish Agency.
That so many innocent civilian
lives were lost in the King David massacre is a normal part of the pattern
of the history of Zionist outrages: A criminal act is committed, allegedly
by an isolated group, but actually under the direct authorization of the
highest Zionist authorities, whether of the Jewish Agency during the Palestine
Mandate or of the Government of Israel thereafter.
The following is a statement made in the House of Commons by then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee:
On July 22, 1946, one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We refer to the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealthy attack, 45 were injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used as an office housing the Secretariat of the Palestine Government and British Army Headquarters. The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock noon when offices are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as milkmen, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement of the Hotel and ran away.
The Chief Secretary for the
Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, declared in a broadcast: “As head
of the Secretariat, the majority of the dead and wounded were my own staff,
many of whom I have known personally for eleven years. They are more than
official colleagues. British, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians; senior officers,
police, my orderly, my chauffeur, messengers, guards, men and
women-- young and old-- they
were my friends.
“No man could wish to be served by a more industrious, loyal and honest group of ordinary decent people. Their only crime was their devoted, unselfish and impartial service to Palestine and its people. For this they have been rewarded by cold-blooded mass murder.”
Although members of the Irgun Z’vai Leumi took responsibility for this crime, yet they also made it public later that they obtained the consent and approval of the Haganah Command, and it follows, that of the Jewish Agency.
The King David Hotel massacre shocked
the conscience of the civilized world. On July 23, Anthony Eden, leader
of the British opposition Conservative Party, posed a question in the House
of Commons to Prime Minister Atlee of the Labor Party, asking “the Prime
Minister whether he has any statement to make on the bomb outrage at the
British Headquarters in Jerusalem.” The Prime Minister responded:
“…It appears that, after
exploding a small bomb in the street, presumably as a diversionary measure--
this did virtually no damage-- a lorry drove up to the tradesmen’s entrance
of the King David Hotel and the occupants, after holding up the staff at
pistol point, entered the kitchen premises carrying a number of milk cans.
At some stage of the proceedings, they shot and seriously wounded a British
soldier who attempted to interfere with them. All available information
so far is to the effect that they were Jews. Somewhere in the basement
of the hotel they planted bombs which went off shortly afterwards. They
appear to have made good their escape.
“Every effort is being made
to identify and arrest the perpetrators of this outrage. The work of rescue
in the debris, which was immediately organized, still continues. The next-of-kin
of casualties are being notified by telegram as soon as accurate information
is available. The House will wish to express their profound sympathy
with the relatives of the killed and with those injured in this dastardly
outrage.”
The Massacre at Baldat al-Shaikh:
January 30-31, 1947 (Palestine)
: This massacre took place following an argument which broke out between
Palestinian workers and Zionists in the Haifa Petroleum Refinery, leading
to the deaths of a number of Palestinians and wounding and killing approximately
sixty Zionists. A large number of the Palestinian Arab workers were living
in Baldat al-Shaikh and Hawasa, located in the southeast of Haifa. Consequently,
the Zionists planned to take revenge on behalf of fellow Zionists who had
been killed in the refinery by attacking Baldat al-Shaikh and Hawasa.1
On the night of January 30-31, 1947, a mixed force composed of the First
Battalion of Palmakh and the Carmelie brigade (estimated at approximately
150 to 200
Zionist terrorists) launched
a raid against the two towns under the leadership of Hayim Afinu'am.]2
They focused their attack on the outskirts of Baldat al-Shaikh and Hawasa.
Taking the outlying homes by surprise as their inhabitants slept, they
pelted
them with hand grenades,
then went inside, firing their machine guns.3 The terrorist
attack led to the deaths of approximately sixty citizens inside their homes,
most of them women, elderly and children.4 The attack lasted
for an hour, after which the Zionists withdrew at 2:00 a.m., having attacked
a large number of noncombatant homes.5 According to a report written
by the leader of the terrorist operation, "the attacking units slipped
into the town and began working on the houses. And due to the fact that
gunfire was directed inside the rooms, it was not possible to avoid injuring
women and children."6
5/7/1948 (Palestine): The Jewish
Agency escalated their terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs.
They decided to perpetrate
a wholesale massacre by bombing the Semiramis Hotel in the Katamon section
of Jerusalem, in order to drive out the Palestinians from Jerusalem. The
massacre of the Semiramis Hotel on January 5, 1948, was the direct responsibility
of Jewish Agency leader David Ben-Gurion and Haganah leaders Moshe Sneh
and Yisrael Galili. If this massacre had taken place in World War II, they
would have been sentenced to death for their criminal responsibility along
with the terrorists who placed the explosives.
A description of the massacre
of the Semiramis Hotel from the United Nations Documents follows, as well
as the Palestinian Police report on the crime sent to the Colonial Office
in London:
January 5, 1948. Haganah
terrorists made a most barbarous attack at one o’clock in the early morning
of Monday…at the Semiramis Hotel in the Katamon section of Jerusalem, killing
innocent people and wounding many. The Jewish Agency terrorist forces blasted
the entrance to the hotel by a small bomb and then placed bombs in the
basement of the building. As a result of the explosion the whole building
collapsed with its residents. As the terrorists withdrew, they started
shooting at the houses in the neighborhood. Those killed were: Subhi El-Taher,
Moslem; Mary Masoud, Christian; Georgette Khoury, Christian; Abbas Awadin,
Moslem; Nazira Lorenzo, Christian; Mary Lorenzo, Christian; Mohammed
Saleh Ahmed, Moslem; Ashur
Abed El Razik Juma, Moslem; Ismail Abed El Aziz, Moslem; Ambeer Lorenzo,
Christian; Raof Lorenzo, Christian; Abu Suwan Christian family, seven members,
husband, wife, and five children.
Besides those killed, 16
more were wounded, among them women and children. The following is a text
of a cable by the High Commissioner for Palestine to the Colonial Office
about the massacre:
Jerusalem. 0117 hours, Urban.
At approximately 0117 hours, a grenade was thrown into the Semiramis Hotel,
Katamon Quarter, causing superficial damage but no casualties. During the
ensuing confusion, a charge was placed in the building and it exploded
about one minute later, completely demolishing half the hotel. Witnesses
have stated that the perpetrators arrived by way of the Upper Katamon Road
in two taxis. Four persons are reported to have alighted from the first
taxi, and one person, who apparently covered the main party, from the second.
All were wearing European clothes…
9/4/1948(Palestine): The forces
of the Zionist gangs Tsel, Irgun and Hagana, fitted out with the Zionist
terrorist strategy of killing civilians in order to achieve their aspirations,
began stealing into the village on the night of April 9, 1948. Their
purpose was to uproot the Palestinian people from their land by coming
upon the inhabitants of the village
unawares, destroying their homes
and burning them down on top of those inside, thereby
making clear to the entire world to what depths of barbarism Zionist hadsunk.
The attack began as the children were asleep in their mothers' and fathers'arms.
In the words of Menachim Begin as he described events, "the Arabs foughttenaciously
in defense of their homes, their women and their children." The fightingproceeded
from house to house, and whenever the Jews occupied a house, they
would blow it up, then direct a
call to the inhabitants to flee or face death. Believingthe threat, the
people left in terror in hopes of saving their children and women. Butwhat
should the Stern and Irgun gangs do but rush to mow down whoever fell withinrange
of their weapons. Then, in a picture of barbarism the likes of which humanityhas
rarely witnessed except on the part of the most depraved, the terrorists
began throwing bombs
inside the houses in order to bring them down on whoever was inside. The
orders they had received were for them to destroy every house. Behindthe
explosives there marched the Stern and Irgun terrorists, who killed whoever
they found alive. The
explosions continued in the same barbaric fashion until theafternoon of
April 10, 1948.7 Then they gathered together the civilians who were stillalive,
stood them up beside the walls and in corners, then fired on them.8 Abouttwenty-five
men were brought out of the houses, loaded onto a truck and led on a
"victory tour" in the neighborhood
of Judah Mahayina and Zakhroun Yousif. At the end
of the tour, the men were brought to a stone quarry located between Tahawwu'atShawul
and Dair Yasin, where they were shot in cold blood. Then the Etsel and
Layhi "fighters" brought
the women and the children who had managed to survive up to atruck and
took them to the Mendelbaum Gate.8 Finally, a Hagana unit came and duga
mass grave in which it buried 250 Arab corpses, most of them women, children
and the elderly.9
A woman who survived the massacre
by the name of Halima Id describes what happened
to her sister. She says, "I saw a soldier grabbing my sister, Salihaal-Halabi,
who was nine months pregnant. He pointed a machine gun at her neck,then
emptied its contents into her body. Then he turned into a butcher, and
grabbed a knife and ripped
open her stomach to take out the slaughtered child with his
iniquitous Nazi knife."10 In another
location in the village, Hanna Khalil, a girl at the time,
saw a man unsheathing a large knife and ripping open the body her neighborJamila
Habash from head to toe. Then he murdered their neighbor Fathi in the sameway
at the entranceway to the house.11 A 40-year-old woman named Safiyadescribes
how she was come upon by a man who suddenly opened up his trousers
and pounced on her. "I began screaming and wailing. But the women around
me were all meeting
the same fate. After that they tore off our clothes so that they could
fondle our breasts and our bodies with gestures too horrible to describe."12
Some of the soldiers
cut off women's ears in order to get at a few small earrings.13
Once news of the massacre had gotten out, a delegation from the Red Cross
tried to visit
the village. However, they weren't allowed to visit the site until a day
after the
time they had requested.
Meanwhile the Zionists tried to cover up the evidence of
their crime. They gathered up as much as they could of the victims' dismembered
corpses, threw them in the village well, then closed it up. And they tried
to change the landmarks
in the area so that the Red Cross representative wouldn't be able to find
his way there. However, he did find his way to the well, where he found
150 maimed corpses
belonging to women, children and the elderly. And in addition to the bodies
which were found in the well, scores of others had been buried in mass
graves while
still others remained strewn
over street corners and in the ruins of houses.14
Afterwards, the head of the
terrorist Hagana gang which had taken part in burying the
Palestinian civilians wrote saying that his group had not undertaken a
military operation
against armed men, the reason being that they wanted to plant fear in the
Arabs' hearts. This was the reason they chose a peaceable, unarmed village,
since in this way
they could spread terror among the Arabs and force them to flee.15
May 15, 1948 (Palestine): "From testimonies and information I got from Jewish and Arab witnesses and from soldiers who were there, at least 200 people from the village of Tantura were killed by Israeli troops...
"From the numbers, this is definitely one of the biggest massacres," Teddy Katz an Israeli historian said Tantura, near Haifa in northern Palestine, had 1,500 residents at the time. It was later demolished to make way for a parking lot for a nearby beach and the Nahsholim kibbutz, or cooperative farm.
Fawzi Tanji, now 73 and a refugee at a camp in the West Bank, is from Tantura he said:
I was 21 years old then.They took a group of 10 men,lined them up against the cemetery wall and killed them.Then they brought another group, killed them, threw away the bodies and so on, Tanji said. I was waiting for my turn to die in cold blood as I saw the men drop in front of me.
Katz said other Palestinians were killed inside their homes and in other parts of the village. At one point, he said, soldiers shot at anything that moved.
BEIT DARAS
MASSACRE:
21 May 1948(Palestine): after
a number of failed attempts to occupy this village, the Zionists mobilized
a large contingent and surrounded the village. The people of Beit Daras
decided that women and children should leave. As women and children left
the village they were met by the Zionist army who massacred them despite
the fact that they could see they were women and children fleeing the fighting.
About 35 families had been hiding
in caves outside Dawayma, according to the
mukhtar, and when the Israeli forces
discovered them they were told to come out, line up, and begin walking.
“And as they started to walk, they were shot by machine guns from two sides…we
sent people there that night, who collected the bodies, put them into a
cistern, and buried them,” the mukhtar told the Israeli daily.
26/10/1948 (Lebanon) :Houla is located in southern Lebanon, only a few kilometers from the Israeli border. When Arab volunteers gathered to liberate Palestine from "Israeli" occupation, they established their headquarters in Houla, on hills overlooking Palestine. The force was successful in fending off major attacks on Lebanese villages, but the fighters suddenly withdrew on October 26, 1948." "Jewish militants attacked the town to avenge the residents' support of Arab resistance forces. On October 31, Jewish militants dressed in traditional Arab attire entered the border village. Residents gathered to cheer the men, thinking Arab volunteer fighters had returned. They were wrong. The militants rounded up 85 people and detained them in a number of houses, firing live ammunition at the civilians and killing all but three. That was not enough. Jewish militants blew up the houses with dead corpses inside. They confiscated property and livestock. The three who survived the massacre, of whom one is still alive, and other town residents fled to Beirut. Following the armistice agreement between Lebanon and "Israel" in 1949, village residents returned to find their houses in rubbles and their farms burnt. Houla remains under Israeli occupation today, and has suffered the brunt of "Israeli" animosity towards Lebanon. Only 1,200 out of 12,000 people remain in the village. The Houla massacre was one of a series of massacres committed by "Israel" against Lebanese civilians.
14-15/10/1953 (Palestine): On the
night of October 14-15, 1953 , this village was the object of a brutal
"Israeli" attack which was carried out by units from the regular army as
part of a pre-meditated plan and in which a variety of weapon types
were used. On the evening of October 14, an Israeli military force estimated
at about 600 soldiers moved toward the village. Upon arrival, it surrounded
it and cordoned it off from all of the other Arab villages. The attack
began with concentrated, indiscriminate artillery fire on the homes in
the village. This continued until the main force reached the outskirts
of the village. Meanwhile, other forces headed for nearby Arab towns such
as Shuqba, Badrus and Na'lin in order to distract them and prevent any
aid from reaching the people in Qibya. They also planted mines on various
roads so as to isolate the village completely. As units of the Israeli
infantry were attacking the village residents, units of military engineers
were placing explosives around some of the houses in the village and blowing
them up with everyone in them under the protection
of the infantrymen, who fired
on everyone who tried to flee. These acts of brutality continued until
4:00 a.m., October 15, 1953, at which time the enemy forces withdrew to
the bases from which they had begun.16 There was a particular
sight the
memory of which remained
in the minds of all who saw it: an Arab woman sitting on a pile of debris
and casting a forlorn look into the sky. From beneath the rubble one could
see small legs and hands which were the remains of her six children, while
the bullet-maimed body of her husband lay in the road before her.17
This vicious terrorist attack resulted in the destruction of 56 houses,
the village mosque, the village school and the water tank which supplied
it with water. Moreover,
67 citizens lost their lives,
both men and women, with many others wounded.18 Terrorist Ariel
Sharon, the commander of the "101" unit which undertook the terrorist aggression,
stated that his leaders' orders had been clear with regard to how the
residents of the village
were to be dealt with. He says, "The orders were utterly clear: Qibya
was to be an example to everyone."19
Meanwhile, the officers positioned
themselves at the village entrance. At about 4.55 PM, unaware of
the ambush awaiting them, the innocent farmers started flocking in after
a hard day of work. The Israeli soldiers started stepping out of their
military trucks and ordered the villagers to line up. Then the officer
in charge screamed "REAP THEM," and the soldiers
riddled the bodies of the Palestinian
villagers with bullets in cold blood. With the massacre practically over,
the soldiers moved around finishing off whoever still had a pulse in him.
The government of Israel took great
pains to hide the truth, but after the investigation was concluded, Ben
Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister, announced that some people in the Triangle
had been injured by thefrontier guards. The press also was part of the
conspiracy to cover up the incident. The Hebrew press wrote about a "mistake?"
and a "misfortune" , when it mentioned the victims, and it was difficult
to tell whom it meant.
More absurd than the trial of accomplices
was their light sentences. The court found Major Meilinki and Lt. Daham
guilty of killing 43 people and sentenced the former to 17 years and the
latter to 15 years. What was remarkable about the Israeli official attitude
was that various authorities competed to lighten the killer's sentences.
Finally, the committee for the release of prisoners ordered the remission
of a third of the prison sentence of all those who were convicted. In September
1960, Daham was appointed in the municipality of the city of Ramle as officer
for the Arab Affairs.
3/11/1956 (Palestine): Another massacre is committed
on November 3, 1956 when the Israelis occupy the town of Khan Yunis and
the adjacent refugee camp. The Israelis claim that there was
resistance, but the refugees state that all resistance
had ceased when the Israelis arrived and that all of the victims were unarmed
civilians. Many homes in Khan Yunis are raided at random.
Corpses lie everywhere and because of the curfew no one could go out to
bury them. (An UNRWA investigation later found that the Israelis at Khan
Yunis and therefugee camp had murdered 275 civilians that day ).
After the Israelis withdrew from Gaza under American
pressure, a mass grave was unearthed at Khan Yunis in March 1957.
The grave contained the bodies of forty Arabs who had been shot in the
back of the head after their hands
had been tied. ("IMPERIAL ISRAEL", Michael
Palumbo; London; Bloomsbury Publishing; 1990 pp. 30 - 32, citing
UN General Assembly: Official Record, 11th session supplement, nop.)
5/4/1956 (Palestine): On
the evening of Thursday, April 5, 1956, Zionist occupation forces fired
20-mm mortar artillery on the city of Gaza. The shelling was concentrated
against
the city center, which was teaming with civilians going about their
day-to-day affairs.29 Most of the shelling was directed against Mukhtar
Street, Palestine Square and nearby streets, as well as the Shuja'iyya
district.30 As a result of this terrorist massacre carried out by gangs
belonging to the Zionist Army against the Palestinian people, 56 people
were killed and 103 were injured, the victims including men, women and
children. Some of the wounded died subsequently, bringing the death toll
to 60,
including 27 women, 29 men
and 4 children.31
1975 (Lebanon) :The 1sraelis perpetrated this massacre starting with a booby-trapped bomb. Then Israeli's detained three brothers, and killed them. They threw Their bodies on the road. 9 cicvlians were killed, 23 were wounded.
15/10/1975(Lebanon): An Israeli tank deliberately ran over a car carrying
16
people, and none of them escaped death.
16/10/1976(Lebanon): After a two- month siege and hours of shelling, the occupation forces stormed the village and turned it into a bloodbath. 20 perosn were mrtyred.
21/10/1976(Lebanon):The crowded market was the target of a sudden barrage of Israeli bombs, slaughtering a lot of people. 23 were killed, 30 were wonded.
17/3/1978 (Lebanon): During the invasion of 1978, the Israeli warplanes
destroyed the
mosque of the town on the heads of the women, children
and the elderly who used the holy place as a shelter from the
heavy Israeli shelling.80 perosn were martyred.
17/3/1978 (Lebanon): At Adloun on march 17, two cars carrying 8 passengers came under Israeli fire while they were on their way to Beirut. One passenger only escaped death.
4/4/1981 (Lebanon) : One of Saida’s residential areas was targeted by the Israeli artillery which resulted in killing of many civilians and damaging to many buildings.20 perosn were kiled, 30 were wounded.
17/7/1981 (Lebanon): A horrible massacre took place when Israeli warplanes raided a crowded residential area using the most developed weapons killing and wounding many citizens. 150 perosn were killed, 600 were wounded.
17/7/1981 (Lebanon)Israeli warplanes staged several raids on many parts
of Beirut, Ouzai, Ramlet Al baida, fakhani, chatila and the area of the
Arab University, killing many citizens. 150 person were killed, 600
were wounded
.
A number of events led to
the decision of an extremist terrorist group of the Lebanese kata'ib forces
and forces belonging to the Zionist Army to carry out massacres against
the Palestinians. From the beginning of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon,
the Zionists and their agents were working toward being able to extirpate
the Palestinian presence in Lebanon. This may be seen from a number of
massacres of which the world heard only little, carried out by Israeli
forces and militias under their command in the Palestinian camps in south
Lebanon (al-Rushaidiya, 'Ayn al-Hilu, al-Miya Miya, and others).32
This massacre was thus the outcome of a long mathematical calculation.
It was carried out by groups of
Lebanese forces under the
leadership of Ilyas Haqiba, head of the kata'ib intelligence apparatus
and with the approval of the Zionist Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon
and the Commander of the Northern District, General Amir Dawri. High-level
Israeli officers had been planning for some time to enable the Lebanese
forces to go into the Palestinian camps once West Beirut had been surrounded.33
Two days before the massacre began
- on the evening of September 14 - planning and coordination meetings were
held between terrorist Sharon and his companion, Eitan. Plans were laid
to have the kata'ib forces storm the camps, and at dawn, September 15,
Israel stormed West Beirut and cordoned off the camps. A high-level meeting
was held on Thursday morning, September 16, 1982 in which Israel was represented
by General Amir Dawri, Supreme Commander of the Northern Forces.
The job of carrying out the
operation was assigned to Eli Haqiba, a major security official in the
Lebanese forces. The meeting was also attended by Fadi Afram, Commander
of the Lebanese Forces.34
The process of storming the camps
began before sunset on Thursday, September 16,35 and continued for approximately
36 hours.
The Israeli Army surrounded the
camps, providing the murderers with all the support, aid and facilities
necessary for them to carry out their appalling crime. They supplied them
with bulldozers and with the necessary pictures and maps. In addition,
they set off incandescent bombs in the air in order to turn night into
day so that none of the Palestinians would be able to escape death's grip.
And those who did flee - women, children and the elderly - were brought
back inside the camps by Israeli soldiers to face their destiny.36 At noon
on Friday, the second day of the terrorist massacre, and with the approval
of the Israeli Army, the kata'ib forces began receiving more ammunition,
while the forces which had been in the camps were replaced by other, "fresh"
forces.37 On Saturday morning, September 18, 1982, the massacre had
reached its peak, and thousands of Sabra and Shatila camp residents had
been annihilated.
Information about the massacre
began to leak out after a number of children and women fled to the Gaza
Hospital in the Shatila camp, where they told doctors what was happening.
News of the massacre also began to reach some foreign journalists on Friday
morning, September 17.38
One of the journalists who
went into the camps after the massacre reports what he saw, saying, "The
corpses of the Palestinians had been thrown among the rubble that remained
of the Shatila camp. It was impossible to know exactly how many victims
there were, but there had to be more than 1,000 dead. Some of the men who
had been executed had been lined up in front of a wall, and bulldozers
had been
used in an attempt to bury
the bodies and cover up the aftermath of the massacre.
But the hands and feet of the victims
protruded from the debris."
Hasan Salama (57 years old),
whose 80-year-old brother was killed in the massacre, says, "They came
from the mountains in thirty huge trucks. At first they started killing
people with knives so that they wouldn't make any noise. Then on Friday
there were snipers in the Shatila camp killing anybody who crossed the
street. On Friday afternoon, armed men began going into the houses and
firing on men, women and children. Then they started blowing up the houses
and turning them into piles of
rubble."40
Author Amnoun Kabliyouk [p.
10] writes in his book about the tragedy of a young Palestinian girl who,
like the rest of the children in the camp, faced this horrific massacre.
Thirteen years old, she was the only survivor out of her entire family
(her father, her mother, her grandfather and all her brothers and sisters
were killed). She related to a Lebanese officer, saying, "We stayed in
the shelter until really late on Thursday night, but then I decided to
leave with my girl friend because we couldn't breathe anymore. Then all
of a sudden we saw people raising white flags and handkerchiefs and coming
toward the kata'ib saying, 'We're for peace and harmony.'
And they killed them right
then and there. The women were screaming, moaning and begging [for mercy].
As for me, I ran back to our house and got into the bathtub. I saw them
leading our neighbors away and shooting them. I tried to stand up at the
window to look outside, but one of the kata'ib fighters saw me and shot
at me. So I went back to the bathtub and stayed there for five hours. When
I came out, they grabbed me and threw me down with everybody else. One
of them asked me if I was Palestinian, and I said yes. My nine-month-old
nephew was beside me, and he was crying and screaming so much that one
of the men got angry, so he shot him. I burst into tears and told him that
this baby had been all the family I had left. That made him all the more
angry, and he took the baby and tore him in two."41
The massacre continued until
noon on Saturday, September 18, leaving between 3,000 and 3,500 Palestinian
and Lebanese civilians dead, most of them women, children and elderly people.42
27/3/1984 (Lebanon): The occupation forcers’ tanks and helicopters fired at a crowded people killing many civilians. 7 perosns were martyred, 10 were wounded.
19/9/1984 (Lebanon): The occupation forces stormed the town with tanks,
and military
vehicles and ordered the inhabitants to congregate at the town's mosque
where they fired at them. 13 martyrs, 12 wounded.
23/3/1985 (Lebanon): The massacre took place at Al- Husseinieh building where people took shelter from the shelling of the Israeli soldiers who stormed the town with a huge number of military vehicles.7 persons were martyred.
5/3/1985(Lebanon): The occupation forces planted an explosive device in the Husseinieh building of the town .It was detonated during the distribution of aid to the citizens who lost their lives. 15 perosns were killed.
11/3/1985 (Lebanon): Following heavy shelling the occupation forces stormed the town with about 100 vehicles and perpetrated a butchery, killing children, women and the elderly. 22 civlians were slaughtred.
21/3/1985 (Lebanon): After attacking the village with 140 army vehicles, the occupation forces ordered the inhabitants to gather at the school of the village. They then destroyed it over their heads. 20 incoent person were martyred.
30/3/1985 (Lebanon): A huge enemy force attacked the town and put it under siege, .When some people tried to escape the siege, the enemy soldiers fired at them, killing and wounding a lot of them. 5 perosn were killed, 5 were wounded.
Tiri massacre :
17/8/1986 (Lebanon): Merciless crimes against civilians increased in
the town with the occupation forces cutting the hands and ears from the
head. 4 persons were killed, 79 were crippled and wounded.
20 May 1990, an Israeli soldier lined up Palestinian labors and murdered seven of them with a sub-machine gun. 13 Palesinians were killed by Israeli forces in subsequent demonstrations at the massacre.
Siddiqine Massacre:
25/7/1990(Lebanon): The Israeli warplanes bombed a house, among the
3 killed a four years old child.
AL-AQSA MOSQUE MASSACRE:
October 8, 1990:
As an extension of the Zionist
policy based upon exercising control over the city of
Jerusalem and emptying it of its [Arab] residents by various and sundry
means, such as
Zionist terrorism and shedding the blood of the Palestinian people - a
policy which Zionists
have acted upon on numerous occasions - Zionist authorities
undertook on Monday, October 8, 1990 to carry out this heinous massacre
against Palestinian
worshippers.
Several days before the events
of the massacre began, the "Temple Trustees" group
distributed a statement to the media on the occasion of a religious festival
of theirs which
they call "the Throne Festival". In the statement the organization announced
that it intended to stage a march to the Temple Mount (or so they call
it). The statement
called upon Jews to participate in this march since, according to the
statement, it would involve the decisive act of placing the foundation
stone for what is
called "the Third Temple."
In addition, the founder of the organization, Ghershoun
Salmoun, announced that "the Arab-Islamic occupation of the temple area
must come to an
end, and the Jews must renew their profound ties to the sacred area."
The march, in which 200,000 Jews took part, headed toward al-Aqsa Mosque
in order for "the
foundation stone" of the so-called "Third Temple" to be put in place.43
At the same time, that is, at 10:00 a.m. and a half-hour before the beginning
of the
massacre, Israeli occupation
forces began placing military barriers along various
roads leading to Jerusalem in order to prevent Palestinians from getting
to the city.
They also closed the doors of the mosque itself and forbid Jerusalem residents to go in. However, thousands had already gathered inside the mosque before this time in response to calls from the imam of the mosque and the Islamic movement to protect the mosque and to prevent the "Temple Trustees" from storming it and perhaps even imposing Jewish control over it.44 When the Muslim worshippers began resisting the Zionist group to prevent them from placing the "foundation stone" for their so-called temple, Zionist occupation forces began carrying out the massacre, using all the weapons at their disposal: poison gas bombs, automatic weapons, military helicopters, etc. The soldiers,
[Israeli] intelligence men
and Jewish settlers resorted to firing live ammunition in the
form of a continuous spray of machine-gun fire which came from all directions
and in a well planned
and coordinated fashion. The result was that thousands of Palestinian
worshippers of various ages and nationalities found themselves in a mass
death trap. Twenty-three
Palestinians were killed, and 850 others were wounded to varying
degrees.45 The Israeli soldiers began firing at 10:30 a.m. and stopped
35 minutes later.
They opened fire on the Palestinian worshippers randomly and in cold blood.
Then they pursued them with
clubs and rifles [outside the mosque].46 Nurse Fatima
Abu Khadir, who was wounded by a bullet which fractured her wrist, states,
"We went into the
mosque precincts in an ambulance. I saw a large number of injured who had
fallen on the ground. Then I saw lots of soldiers, hundreds of soldiers.
They were about
30 meters from the ambulance and kneeling on one knee the way snipers do,
and their weapons were aimed inside the ambulance. After that I couldn't
see anything."47
News agencies described the
blessed precincts of al-Aqsa Mosque saying that
blood had covered "the entire two hundred meters between the Dome of the
Rock and al-Aqsa
Mosque. Blood was flowing everywhere, all over the wide steps, and
had stained the white tile the length of the broad courtyard, as well as
the doors of both
mosques. The walls of the two mosques had long, crimson lines etched onto
them by bleeding hands, and blood had stained the white uniforms of the
woman
first-aid workers. Everyone
- the wounded and the more fortunate, first-aid workers,
journalists, and Israeli soldiers - all of them looked as though they were
swimming in blood.48
Physician Muhammad Abu 'Ayila
relates what happened to him and to a wounded
man to whom he had been trying to administer first aid, and how the Zionists'
glee at the sight
of Palestinian blood spilled in the precincts of the holy mosque had blinded
their eyes so much that they couldn't distinguish between a young child
and an old man,
between a man and a woman, between a wounded man and one seeking to
treat him. He says, "I got out of the ambulance carrying a first-aid kit.
I was wearing a
white uniform. The soldiers
saw me and knew I was a doctor. But when I got to the
wounded person nearest me and bent down to treat him, I got three bullets
in my back in the
region of the kidney. At that very moment, the wounded man near me
died. But he could have been saved if I hadn't been hit."49 Most
of the wounds, in
fact, were in the head and in the heart.50
Then, in a farce designed
to justify the crime which had been committed by Zionists'
hands now stained with Palestinian blood, terrorist Yitzhaq Shamir, Prime
Minister of the
Zionist entity at that time, hastened to form a fact-finding committee
which he called
the "Zamir Committee" after its head, Tu'fi Zamir, former head of the Israeli
Mossad. As for the outcome of the committee's investigation, it was announced
by Moshe Almert,
head of the Media Office of the occupation government, who said,
"The report confirms clearly
that the responsibility and fault for escalating [the conflict]
lies on the side of the thousands of Muslim extremists, who were attacking
the holy place
of the Jews."51
On 13 April 1996, at about 1:30 P.M., an IDF helicopter fired rockets at a vehicle carrying thirteen civilians fleeing the village of al-Mansuri, killing two women and four young girls. The vehicle was a Volvo station wagon with a blue flooding light, a red crescent painted on the hood and the word “ambulance” written in Arabic. Reporters at the scene filmed the incident. The film footage shows, and testimony of UN soldiers who arrived immediately after the car was hit corroborate, that there were no weapons or any other type of military equipment in the car, only some food and clothes. Amnesty’s investigation revealed that none of the passengers were connected to Hizbullah.
18 April 1996, Eleven persons were killed and ten injured in an IDF air attack on a house in Nabatiyya al-Faqwah, some three kilometers north of Nabatiyya, in South Lebanon. Eight of those killed were from one family: a mother and her seven children, including a four-day-old baby. Around 6:30 a.m., IDF helicopters fired rockets at three buildings in the village, demolishing one totally and severely damaging the other two. Lebanese families were living in the buildings. The IDF Spokesperson claimed that the helicopters fired at the building in which the eleven were killed because Hizbullah was hiding there after firing the mortars. Investigations conducted by Amnesty and HRW did not confirm this contention The IDF's statement ignored the fact that the IDF fired at two other buildings during the same attack. Back to top
Trqumia
Massacr:
March 10 1998 :Israeli Occupied
West Bank, March 10--Israeli soldiers opened fire with automatic
weapons on a van full of unarmed
Palestinian workers, killing Adnan Abu Zneid, 34, and two other Palestinians.
Two more laborers were wounded as the group returned from helping to construct
a building near Tel Aviv. Eyewitnesses described the Israeli gunfire as
"indiscriminate."
Israeli Army Maj. Uzi Dayan said
that the soldiers acted "according to regulations" in opening fire on the
van with automatic weapons at a checkpoint outside Hebron.
Ali Abu Zneid, 37, a cousin of
the deceased, was in the van and fell uninjured under the others' bodies.
He said that the Jewish soldiers, "shot to kill."
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak
Mordechai described the killings as an "accident"
24/6/1999 (Lebanon)
Martyrs: 8
Injures: 84
Target: Under
Building in
Beirut
In an interview with the "kolhaer" magazine, five Israeli soldiers said
that the artillery commander had said to his soldiers "We are skilled marksmen.
Anyhow, there are millions of Arabs... It's their problem. Whether Arabs
become one more or less is just the same...We have accomplished our duty.
The whole issue is not about more than a group of "Arabosheem"
(a racist term hostile to Arabs used by the Israelis). We should have launched
more shells to kill more Arabs.
None of this should be a great surprise to anyone. Afterall, Jews have never shown love or concern for anyone but themselves. They have never had peace with any people.
References:
1. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part I, op. cit., p. 413, paraphrased.
2. Ghazi al-Sa'di, Massacres and Practices, 1936-1983, Amman, Dar al-Jalil
lil-Nashr wal-Dirasat [The Galilee House for Publication and Research]
, June
1985, p. 43.
3. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, op. cit., p. 413.
4. al-Sa'di, op. cit., p. 43.
5. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, op. cit., p. 414.
6. al-Sa'di, op. cit., p. 43.
7. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part II, op. cit., p. 434.
8. Dr. Hamdan Badr, The Role of the Hagana Organization in the
Establishment of Israel, Amman: Dar al-Jalil lil-Nashr wal-Dirasat, 1985,
p. 303.
9. Ibid.
10. Arafat Hijazi, Dair Yasin: The Roots and Dimensions of the Crime in
Zionist
Thought, p. 63.
11. Roget Delurme [sp?], trans. by Nakhla Kallas, I Accuse, no place of
publication:
Dar al-Jurmuq lil-Tiba'a wal-Nashr [The Jurmuq House for Printing
and Publication], no date, pp. 52-53.
12. Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, O' Jerusalem, 1972, p. 275.
13. Hijazi, op. cit., p. 63.
14. al-Sa'di, op. cit., p. 60.
15. Salih al-Shar', op. cit., p. 201.
16. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part III, p. 502.
17. Jawad al-Hamad, The Palestinian People: Victim of Zionist Massacres
and Terrorism, Markaz Dirasat al-Sharq al-Awsat [Center for Middle East
Studies], 1995, p.24.
18. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part III, op. cit., pp. 502-503.
19. The Memoirs of Ariel Sharon, trans. by Antoine Abir, Beirut, Maktabat
Bisan, 1991, p. 110.
20. Emile Habiby, Kufr Qasim: the Political Massacre, Haifa: Manshourat
Arabask [Arabask Publications], 1976, p. 82.
21. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part III, op. cit., p. 653.
22. Habiby, op. cit., p. 17.
23. al-Sa'di, op. cit., pp. 85-86.
24. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, Part III. op. cit., p. 653.
25. Habiby, op. cit., p. 37.
26. al-Hamd, op. cit., p. 29.
27. al-Sa'di, op. cit., p. 87.
28. Among the Most Important Terrorists, Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Dirasat
al-Filistiniya [The Foundation for Palestinian Studies], 1973, pp. 37-38.
29. Husayn Abu al-Naml, The Gaza Strip, 1948-1967: Economic, Political,
Social and Military Developments, Beirut: Center for Research, PLO, 1979,
p.
121.
30. Ghazi al-Sourani, The Gaza Strip, 1948-1993, Beirut: Dar al-Mubtada',
1993, p. 27.
31. Abu al-Naml, op. cit., p. 121.
32. Abd al-Hafiz Muhammad, The Massacre: Beirut, Sabra and Shatila, the
Invasion of Lebanon, Amman, the Akhbar al-Usbu' [Weekly News] newspaper,
1982, p. 111.
33. The Qatar News Agency, The Invasion, the Massacre: Crime of the
Twentieth Century, no date of publication, 1982, p. . . . [?].
34. al-Hamad, op. cit., p. 36.
35. Amnoun Kabliyouk [sp?], trans. by the Arab Translation Center, Sabra
and
Shatila: The Investigation of a Massacre, Paris: Manshourat al-Maktab al-Arabi
[Arab Office Publications], 1983, p. 34.
36. Muhammad, op. cit., p. 89.
37. al-Sa'di, A Document of Crime and Condemnation, Amman: Dar al-Jalil
lil-Nashr, 1983, p. 262.
38. Kabliyouk, op. cit., p. 79.
39. The Qatar News Agency, op. cit., p. 134.
40. Muhammad, op. cit., pp. 119-120.
41. Kabliyouk, op. cit., pp. 51-52.
42. al-Hamad, op. cit., p. 38.
43. Sahifat al-Muslimun al-Sa'udiya (the Saudi newspaper, The Muslims),
March 5, 1993.
44. al-Hamad, op. cit., p. 55.
45. Nawaf al-Zaru, Jerusalem: Between Zionist Judaization Plans and the
Palestinian Struggle and Resistance, Amman: Dar al-Khawaja lil-Nashr
wal-Tawzi' [Khawaja House for Publication and Distribution], 1991, p. 115.
46. The Jordanian newspaper, Al-Dustour, October 9, 1990.
47. al-Zaru, op. cit., p. 129.
48. Al-Dustour, op. cit.
49. al-Zaru, op. cit., p. 129.
50. Ibid., p. 128.
51. Al-Muslimun newspaper, op. cit.
52. The Jordanian newspaper, Al-Ra'y [Opinion], February 26, 1994.
53. Usama Mustafa, "Goldstein: Settler, Soldier, or the Forbidden Fruit
of
Peace?" the Filastin al-Muslima [Muslim Palestine] magazine (London), April
1994, p. 9.
54. Al-Ra'y, op. cit.
55. Mustafa, op. cit., p. 9.
56. Al-Dustour, op. cit., Feb. 26, 1994.
57. The Jordanian newspaper, Al-Aswaq [Markets], February 27, 1994.
58. Mustafa, op. cit., p. 9.
59. A team of analysts, "The Israeli Campaign Against the Hamas Movement
and the Hizbollah Organization: Programs, Goals, Outcomes and Implications",
the periodical Qadaya Sharq Awsatiya [Middle East Issues], No. 2, Amman,
Markaz Dirasat al-Sharq al-Awsat [Center for Middle East Studies], pp.
84-85.
60. Ibid., p. 84.
61. Filastin al-Muslima (London), May 1996 issue, p. 9.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
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