Palestine: Human chain stops air attack on leaders’ homes
By
Leslie Feinberg
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.
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