In a three-week occupation of the biggest Palestinian city the Israeli army has killed 19 people, wrecked buildings and confined tens of thousands to their homes in a futile search for the leader of ”the heart of the terror networks”.
Before Christmas soldiers flooded Nablus and the neighbouring refugee camp of Balata in pursuit of the leaders of al-Aqsa martyrs brigades responsible for organising dozens of suicide bombings. Top of their list was Naif Sharekh, the brigades commander in the city.
Soldiers brandished Sharekh’s picture and demanded to know his whereabouts. His wife was paraded in a jeep through the casbah and forced to call over a megaphone for her husband to surrender.
In Balata the search focused on three al-Aqsa brigades leaders. Soldiers again brandished pictures and threatened anyone hiding the men. None was found.
”They wound up killing all these people and they didn’t get any of the ones they were really looking for,” said Taysir Naserallah, head of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organisation in Nablus. ”Naif Sharekh is still out there. That has provided people with satisfaction for all their misery.”
The Israeli army commander in Nablus, who declines to be named, said the raid on the city was prompted by intelligence that three or four suicide bombers were preparing to leave to attack Israelis.
”Nablus is the hottest and most dangerous town. Most of the suicide bombers are in Nablus,” he said.
The army said the Christmas Day suicide bomb that killed four people near Tel Aviv proved its point. The Palestinians said that attack came after the raid on Nablus began. There had been no bombings for almost three months.
The Israelis have killed nearly 400 Palestinians in Nablus during the present intifada, many of them armed men. The latest include three teenagers who were shot stoning troops or dropping concrete from buildings, according to the army. Among them was Amjad al-Masri, (15) who was killed on Saturday.
One of Amjad’s cousins, Mohammed al-Masri (18) helped to carry the boy’s body at the funeral. As the procession went through town, an army sniper shot Mohammed in the head. He died in hospital. The army said he was killed while breaking the curfew.
Abdul al-Qassa is the most recent to die. Soldiers surrounded his house on Tuesday in search for Ibrahim Attari, a member of al-Aqsa, and ordered everyone out.
The army said it shot Attari dead as he stepped out of the house because he was seen to have had a gun. It said soldiers spotted Qassa behind a bush and killed him because they thought he might have a gun. He was not armed.
But witnesses say that after Attari was shot, Qassa was dragged forward by the soldiers and confronted with the wanted man.
”The soldiers kept asking him: ‘Who is that man? What is he doing in your house?”’ said one of Qassa’s neighbours, Amra Sadija. ”He kept saying: ‘I don’t know him.”’
Qassa’s brother Mustafa alleges that an Israeli soldier then shot him in cold blood.
”When my brother wouldn’t identify Ibrahim they shot him in the mouth. They left him there to bleed to death and arrested all of us,” he said.
Nablus is used to hardship. It endured more than six months of curfew in 2002. But its mayor, Ghassan Shakah, says the killing of unarmed people and the brutality of the searches only bolsters support for the likes of Naif Sharekh.
He suspects that Israel’s prime minister knows it. ”Sharon is deliberately trying to provoke attacks so he can tell the world: Look at the terrorism. But who does the terrorism benefit?”
The Israeli soldier arrested for shooting the British peace activist Tom Hurndall, who was left brain dead, had been charged two months ago with smoking cannabis while serving in Gaza.
The unnamed soldier admitted lying about the circumstances in which he shot Hurndall, who was trying to protect children. – Guardian Unlimited Â