(kilde ukjent)
Urgent: Eyewitness report from Ramallah
Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Ramallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American
student from the University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are
under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by both the Israeli
army and armed militia groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting outside
at anything that moves.
I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible to help save
lives here.
I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come back for a visit to the
Palestinian city where I had been previously living and studying. On
Thursday afternoon, the Israeli army began sealing off each entrance to
Ramallah and there were rumors that they planned to invade.
People were rushing back home from across checkpoints and also people were
trying to flee. People were not allowed to go out and many working people --
with homes and children to return to -- were not allowed in, everyone was
trying to take cover. Those traveling in began desperately searching for
alternative ways and traveling in groups, but the Israelis were firing upon
them and everyone was running and screaming.
Women carrying their children were trying desperately to flee from Ramallah,
carrying infants and toddlers, and their young children were running along
in the rain through the fields, slipping and falling on the rocks, trying to
reach safety. Israeli jeeps were speeding across the terrain pulling up from
every direction and shooting at the women and children, and also at me, as
we ran in opposite directions. They were chasing down people, hunting them
like that in the fields.
When I reached Ramallah, people were panicking and trying to buy bread, rice
and milk from corner stores, but most supplies were already gone. We bought
what we could and went inside to wait for what was coming.
When night fell, Israeli tanks began to invade and also we saw Israeli
troops coming on foot from the valley, and surrounding our house. I could
hear them calling to each other in Hebrew. They were against our door and
all around. They were firing everywhere a barrage of bullets and there was
tank fire. We had to lay on the floor and keep silent. We stayed there, on
the floor, for nearly four days in the darkness.
We knew that our circumstances were better than others because old people or
infants or people with medical emergency needs had no help. It was very
cold, with most families packed all in one room. Some people are without
life sustaining medicines like insulin, and they are altering their doses
dangerously if they have any medicine left to take. People are becoming
dangerously sick from lack of food and water and heat. The fear and terror
only makes things worse, but it cannot be avoided.
In the daytime, we heard them shooting people in the streets, and could hear
them screaming and screaming. No ambulance was allowed through. Then their
screams stopped and there was just silence.
We had a telephone and would receive calls from all over telling us what was
happening. Everyone is in grave danger and Israeli soldiers were killing
people everywhere. They are arresting medics and ambulance drivers,
including foreign volunteer medical workers.
They keep taking doctors and medics, just now another call. Again, this time
the wife of a doctor telling us her husband has been taken from the
ambulance.
Large groups of people have been found in rooms, shot dead, there are blood
marks where they have lined people up on their knees and shot them, with
their ID cards laying on top of them. They are taking people from their
homes, blindfolding them, removing their clothes, taking them away or lining
them up and shooting them against the wall.
People are making phone calls and saying that these soldiers and militia
have come in and are shooting people and then the line cuts off.
The numbers of these killings I fear are much greater than the numbers
confirmed in the press, because the human rights offices and the media
centers have been stormed, and everything is shut down. No one can move
without almost certain chance of being shot by the Isreali snipers, who are
everywhere.
The Israelis are demanding that all journalists leave Ramallah and today
another foreign journalist was shot. They do not want any more
internationals here and are deporting people. It seems quite clear that they
do not want eyewitnesses which is only heightening my own fears.
The hospitals have also been surrounded and invaded and Israeli troops are
taking the injured people and interrogating them. Today a woman, a patient,
tried to walk out from hospital. The Israelis shot her in the neck and
killed her.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health is saying that they fear the spread of
diseases because of the number of unburied corpses.
The numbers are only growing in reports of the mass killings here and
Israeli troops continue to round up people. People are calling frantically,
missing a relative and we do not know where they have been taken, including
children.
The numbers we have now exceed 600, and we are estimating between 700 and
800. All human rights groups and legal advocates are being denied any
information of where the detained are being held. From what we know
confirmed is that 10% of those taken so far have been children under age 18.
On the fourth day I decided to try to move. People were running out of
supplies and I also was so worried about people, and had to check to see if
they were okay. If I didn't, I feared panic would overtake me so badly that
I really had no other choice but to try and go.
It was not safe where I was in any case and at least if I left I would still
have my sanity. It was really terrifying as there are some internationals
here, usually traveling in groups, and the Israelis are saying on the radio
that they will arrest or shoot the internationals. They did shoot some
yesterday and regardless, it's not as if snipers differentiate and they are
everywhere.
My friends told me not to go, and were really scared for me, but I had to
go. When I went outside, there were cars all shot up and hit by multiple
bullets and shells in the middle of the road, unparked. There must have been
people in them but I don't know where their bodies are. There are no reports
of them, but they must exist.
I got to the corner trying to go to the bakery for bread and food for
people. Some people were calling and calling with only one cup of rice left.
I made it to the corner but they opened fire on my first try, and shot at
me, so I had to turn back.
After that I tried again and it took me one day to make it a block because I
had to start over again and again. I had to climb through the valley, and as
I passed house by house, people were warning me and pointing out what path
seemed safest for these two minutes. In the next two minutes, it would be
something different. They really helped to keep my path safe.
Today is Day Five and they are still rounding up people like this and we
hear them shooting all day long.
This afternoon the Israelis suddenly lifted the curfew, suddenly announcing
that everyone had two hours to go out to get food. However, the Israeli
soldiers also took food from many of the stores, looted, and there is no
bread or things. People went to get whatever they could.
Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the closure for two hours --
in which we still were not able to transfer medical supplies and still was
not long enough to everything that was badly needed -- the Israelis
continued shooting people in the streets indiscriminately on their way, so
people were running around trying to make it to the store or find a safe
route only to have to run back home again. It was an added cruelty and
terror tactic in this macabre situation, a sick joke: starve people and then
shoot them when they try to find food with your permission.
In an apartment building in Beitunia neighborhood where I used to live, they
took 60 people who were my neighbors, including several familes, and pushed
them into one room since last night. The Israelis told them that they are to
be used as "human shields", as the apartment building is across from a
building that they were invading.
One child needs to go to the hospital since last night and, initially, the
families were able to call outside. Now, the Israelis have taken their
phones.
There are reports that they are rounding up men between the ages of 14 and
45 in that neighborhood, and these civilians, from these same Palestinian
families trapped in that building, were just used to walk in front of an
Israeli tank as it invaded the Preventative Security Compound.
Reports also have alleged that the Israelis were saying that some could
leave but shot them when they attempted to leave. The buildings there are
burning, and people are trapped inside.
We keep calling to try to find people but there has been no electricity and
most people's phones are dead now. I do not know what is happening to many
people. The only solution to this is to try to brave the deadly streets in
order to check, but its almost impossible and terrifying to leave the house
at all.
Each place I come to, I am afraid to leave not only for myself but for
everyone else in this horrifying position. Israeli death squads have been
yanking people into the street. I also hear only shooting and shooting, with
no return fire. This suggest that unarmed civilians are being gunned down
mercilessly everywhere and I am so scared for everyone. I feel like maybe if
I leave one place, one area or neighborhood I will never see the people
again alive.
There are more explosions outside now and more shooting. Another explosion.
More firing, it just doesn't stop.
This is a massacre. The foreign delegations tried to get in but were turned
back, the International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to help but
they are being ignored. Please help.
I am not only scared for myself and for people here, but if this cannot be
stopped, I am truly scared for all of humanity, for a world in which we send
men to the moon but cannot stop ethnic cleansing.
On the news in America, we see hardly anything of demonstrations. What are
you doing over there?
There do not seem to be any reports of what is happening. In truth, its got
to stop. Please go out to the streets, please demand a response from your
representatives. Be loud, march up to the capitals, refuse to leave until
the Israelis withdraw. Act now! Tell them the Israelis are murdering
innocent people whose only crime is being born in their own homeland, a
Palestinian under a military occupation.
Demand international protection for the Palestinian people, scream that this
is an affront to humanity and that it is time that the US not only stop
supporting Israel, but that the US stop its abuse of human rights within its
own borders. This is about all of our struggles. For the love of God, please
stop this slaughter. Please help.
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