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Palestine: Human chain stops air attack on leaders’ homes

Published Nov 22, 2006 12:18 AM

Israeli troop and tank fire, helicopter gunship and warplane attacks, raining death and destruction on Gaza and the West Bank, are galvanizing Palestinian resistance.

In a dramatic new tactic, Palestinians in Gaza successfully blocked the Israeli military from carrying out its now all too familiar terror campaign of aerial bombardment of homes. Hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip united across the political spectrum in two mobilizations that forced the Israeli Air Force to suspend air strikes on homes in the early hours of Nov. 19.

The Israeli military had ordered occupants of two homes in Gaza to evacuate as Air Force planes headed toward the residences to fire missiles at the houses. One was the home of Mohammedweil Baroud, described as a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, located in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. The other was the home of Mohammed Nawajah, described as a Hamas leader, in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza.

Local mosques, Palestinian radio and television stations broadcast a call to defend the homes. Many hundreds responded. They barricaded themselves inside the homes, ringed the buildings in a human chain, climbed atop the roofs and scaled the balconies.

The mobilizations reportedly brought together members of Hamas, Fatah and the Popular Resistance Committees. Witnesses described large crowds ringing the homes chanting together, in one voice, against the United States and Israel, vowing to die rather than surrender.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, went to Jabalya refugee camp on Nov. 19 to help protect Nawajah’s home. As the prime minister climbed to the roof, he told reporters: “We are so proud of this national stand. It’s the first step toward protecting our homes, the homes of our children.”

He characterized the protest as a message to the United Nations Security Council. There, on Nov. 11, U.S. imperialism had exercised its veto power to torpedo an Arab-backed resolution condemning Israel’s middle-of-the-night massacre of residents of a Beit Hanoun neighborhood three days earlier.

The popular response to defend homes against air attack on Nov. 19 recalls the 1,500 unarmed Palestinian women who took serious casualties on Nov. 3 as they answered a broadcast call to march on Zionist troops in order to free Palestinian men militarily surrounded in a mosque in Beit Hanoun. In doing so, they led resistance to Tel Aviv’s high-tech military offensive in Gaza.

Resistance burns like fire

Spokespeople for militant Palestinian groups who took responsibility for rocket volleys into a Zionist settlement of Sderot on Nov. 15 stated that the salvos—which claimed the first Israeli casualty from a Qassam rocket in a year—were to avenge the Nov. 8 slaughter in Beit Hanoun. One of the rockets seriously injured the security officer guarding Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s house.

Palestinians defied heightened Israeli military repression and poured into the streets of Ramallah on Nov. 15, the second anniversary of the death of President Yasser Arafat and the 18th anniversary of Palestinian Independence Day.

And on Nov. 17, hundreds of Palestinians and their Israeli and international supporters tried to tear down part of the Apartheid Wall, erected by the Israeli military, which cuts across villagers’ land in the West Bank village of Bil’in, west of Ramallah. Troops fired concussion grenades and rubber bullets, which hit five Palestinian protesters taking part in the weekly demonstrations against the annexation wall.

Israeli members of the group Anarchists Against the Fence surprised occupation troops on Nov. 18 and took over their tanks and bulldozers at military checkpoints in the Gaza Strip. The activists climbed atop the tanks and unfurled banners. They said their aim was to “[s]top the war machine, as citizens in whose name the army operates.” (Haaretz.com, Nov. 19)

‘Break the economic blockade!’

As Palestinian resistance burns, it is igniting the call for solidarity among Arab and Islamic populations in the Middle East and around the world.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar reported of his Nov. 16 meeting with Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council: “Until now Iran has given more than $120 million to the Palestinian government. They have said that they will provide us with more financial aid.”

This aid challenges the economic boycott against the popularly elected government of Hamas led by U.S. finance capital. The U.S. and European imperialists have blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority and Israel has refused to release millions more in collected tax revenues, as a weapon to punish the population for electing Hamas and to engineer a “regime change.”

Twenty-six of the 57 members of the pan-Islamic Organization of the Islamic Conference voted on Nov. 18 in the Saudi city of Jeddah to “break the blockade.”

The day after Washington shot down the UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israel, as rage at U.S. imperialism’s blatant role as the power behind Tel Aviv spread throughout the Arab and Islamic world, the Arab League met in Cairo, Egypt, and voted to rescind the financial blockade.

Washington behind Tel Aviv

In the days after the United States provided political cover by blocking any censure of Tel Aviv in the Security Council, Tel Aviv continued to ratchet up its five-month-long military siege in Gaza. Israeli military war planes bombed the Gaza Strip in a Nov. 15-17 blitzkrieg, lighting up the night sky as missiles detonated on homes below. (Prensa Latina, Nov. 18)

On Nov. 18, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly—156 to seven, with six abstentions—to accuse Israel of using “indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force” in Gaza. The United States, Australia and Israel voted against the measure.

The resolution—softened in tone from the one Washington shot down in the Security Council—“deeply deplored” the Israeli military offensive, and called for an immediate end to the operation and a pullout of Tel Aviv’s troops. It was a symbolic vote since it is a non-binding resolution. Unfortunately it also called on Palestine to stop fighting back.

The Arab League brought the non-binding resolution to the General Assembly a week after international anger built—particularly in the Arab and Islamic world—against Washington’s strong-arm backing of Israel, underscored by the UN Security Council veto.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour characterized Washington’s veto after the massacre in Beit Hanoun as sending Tel Aviv the message “that it can continue to commit crimes and acts of outright aggression with impunity.” And that’s just what Israel did—from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

Reign of state terror

These are just some of the actions of the Israeli military, the boot heel of occupation on historic Palestine.

Israelis stormed into the West Bank town of Betonia, west of Ramallah, on Nov. 14 and imposed a military curfew on the city of Tulkatem. Witnesses saw Palestinians suffocated by gas canisters that troops fired at houses. (WAFA, Palestine News Agency, Nov. 16)

The next day, troops invaded the village of Doura and Al-Fawwar Refugee Camp in the southern Hebron District and kidnapped two women. Both were bound, blindfolded and taken away. Their whereabouts are unknown. They leave behind 13 children, collectively.

The two women are now among the more than 10,500 Palestinian women and men, children and youth abducted and held by the Israelis.

Hundreds of Zionist troops invaded the northern part of Tulkarem city in the northern West Bank on Nov. 16 with more than 30 military vehicles. They reportedly opened heavy fire inside the campus of the city’s Open University, forcing some students to leave and detaining other youth and school workers.

Israeli occupation forces there also stormed houses, assaulted civilians and laid siege to the home of Muhammad Zaitawi, who is described as the deputy leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades. Zaitawi, who held out for seven hours, was then abducted by troops. Palestinian journalists on the scene reported being attacked by troops, who confiscated notes from their coverage. (Ma’an News Agency, Nov. 16)

The next day, Israeli troops kidnapped 22 Palestinian women, men and youths from the West Bank cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Qalqilya.

On Nov. 19, Israeli military aircraft fired on a car on a crowded Gaza City street, killing an elderly passerby and wounding nine people, including four teenagers.

Israeli troops guarded Israeli settlers as they attacked Palestinian children and adults in Hebron with rifles, clubs and rocks. The fascists also damaged the fresh water tanks and power transmitter. Palestinians say the settlers want to expand their land base.

The same day, two Palestinian children, aged 7 and 12, were wounded by Israeli gunfire as they sat at their desks in an elementary school in the northern Gaza Strip, according to UN officials.