Palestinian Blood Is Not Cheap

Palestinian Blood Is Not Cheap
By: Adwan May 15, 2004 Gaza

About 40 tanks and bulldozers invaded Hay Elzaiton at 1 am Tuesday morning with the help of the apaches in the sky. Israeli occupation soldiers took up positions on rooftops at El-Zaiton area, shooting at every moving object. The operation was going normally like all the invasions which happened in the past. The occupation army started moving after midnight. At the beginning of the invasion many houses were destroyed, four Palestinians were killed and about 40 others got injured . It was a normal operation for the occupation forces until one of their APCs was blown up by the Palestinian resistance .

After the APC was blown up, Gaza city came under the lights of the media because of the six soldiers who were killed inside the APC. Before that no one mentioned anything about what was going on in Gaza except for the local media .

Why do they consider the Israeli blood as holy blood while the Palestinians blood is cheap?

Didn't they take the direction to invade Gaza which is a Palestinian land, and don't we all have the right to defend ourselves?

As with every invasion, the reason behind the occupation forces' killing of the Palestinians people was the search for tunnels or workshops where the resistance manufactures weapons, they say. But, like every time, they found nothing. They kill us in the name of ensuring the security of Israelis, and all the world keeps silence when Palestinians die in such invasions, but when we try to defend ourselves and say to the world our blood isn't cheap we become terrorists and murderers .

Who is the murderer? The civilian who was sleeping when the tanks stopped under his window and woke him up, or the person who drives that tank and kills our people in the name of looking for tunnels and weapons?

Since the beginning of this Intefada the occupation forces are keeping tens of bodies of Palestinian martyrs and they don't allow their families to bury them.

Why do they have the right to keep our martyrs' bodies and bury them in secret graves?

Don't we have the right to take our martyrs' bodies back if we got the chance?

Why now they are talking about negotiations with the Red Cross?

The Red Cross was unable to serve the people who needed help in their houses. For three days the Palestinians haven't had power and water and food for children. Five of the martyrs died because the occupation tanks didn't allow the ambulances to reach them and help them.

A family of 50 members was stuck in a three-floor building. The old men and children and women were not able to leave the and go to a safe area because the tank was barking under their house, children were crying for three days because of the continuous shelling next to their house. This is how the situation was for all the families in Hay Elzaiton .

The invasion in Hay Elzaiton finally ended after sixteen were killed and more than 180 others got injured. The number of martyrs is expected to rise because of the serious casualties. Four of the martyrs were found under their destroyed houses after the invasion was over.

In the time that the army was talking about having a deal with the militants to hand over the remains of six Israeli soldiers who were killed when their armored vehicle was blown up , the occupation army was destroying some houses in Rafah in the O block, and like the first time the resistance succeeded to blow up another military vehicle .

Later after that when it became clear that five soldiers were killed in that APC, the army gave the people of Block O 2 hours to evacuate the houses. And a few minutes after that, 2 apaches and 2 F16 planes were flying in the sky of Rafah.

The power went off in the night and every one was expecting the anger of the apaches. It didn't take much time for the army to take revenge on the civilians as usual. One of the apaches fired two missiles at a crowd of people in Yebna refugee camp, Nine people died and another 10 got injured.

In the morning, when everyone thought that the army will stop the operation for a while, the apaches fired two missiles and hit a crowd of people who were going to see the area of the invasion. That killed another three people and wounded 20.

During the three days of the invasion the apaches fired more than 15 missiles which cuse the death of 12 people, and like in Gaza 3 of the matyers died when the bulldozers destroyed the house over their heads . More than 70 houses have been destroyed in three days, about 500 people became homeless when the occupation destroyed their dream to live in peace and have a house like every one in this world.

Palestinians wants peace, and they don't want any one to die, but if there must be some people who must die, they don't want to be the only people to die.

For more information, please call: Adwan: +972-59-304-628

END

PLEASE TAKE ACTION!!! Addresses of other Israeli embassies and consular offices are listed at http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/israel1.htm (It will be good when the foreign ministry will be alarmed by many of its embassies)

But send your letter ALSO by fax (the best) and/or email to:

Prime Minster Ariel Sharon - email pm_eng@pmo.gov.il; fax +972 2 6705475 Defence Minster Saul Mofaz - email sar@mod.gov.il; fax +972-3- 6916940 Foreign Minster Silvan Shalom - email sar@mofa.gov.il; fax +972-3-6916940

with copies to: President George W. Bush president@whitehouse.gov Fax: +1-202-456-2461 Secretary of State Colin Powell secretaryofstate@USA.gov Fax: +1-202-261-8577 Spokesperson of the Prime Minister dover@pmo.gov.il Spokesperson Defense Ministry info@mail.idf.il Spokesperson Foreign Ministry dover@mfa.gov.il UN Special Coordinator State Departement secretary@state.gov European Union mailto@delwbg.cec.eu.int

ALSO DON'T FORGET TO SEND MESSAGES BY SMS, PHONE, FAX AND EMAIL TO YOUR RELEVANT CONTACTS

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Rafah a "humanitarian catastrophe" says UN refugee agency Agence France Presse 14 May 2004

GAZA CITY, May 14-- The United Nations agency in charge of Palestinian refugees described the situation in Rafah as a "humanitarian catastrophe" Friday, after Israel announced that hundreds more homes would be destroyed in the southern Gaza Strip town.

Paul McCann, from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), condemned Israel's policy of demolishing entire neighbourhoods in the refugee camps along the border with Egypt and warned of a deepening crisis.

"The first houses to be destroyed will be empty buildings. Then inhabited houses will be demolished. Israel will be responsible for finding new accommodation for the evacuated people," the Israeli public radio said Thursday.

"It's impossible to believe that every one of these houses shelters militants or the entrance to a tunnel," McCann said in response to the government's argument that the demolitions are aimed at preventing the use of cross-border arms-smuggling tunnels.

He also pointed out that the "empty buildings" were only abandoned because of the constant danger of being killed or wounded and eventually expelled by the Israeli army.

"When the house on your left has been blown up and the house on your right has been blown up, you know you're next, so families don't always wait until the last moment to find other housing," he explained.

Israeli demolitions aimed at widening the so-called "Philadelphi route" buffer zone have already made 11,000 Palestinians homeless since the start of the intifada in September 2000, in policy UNRWA chief Peter Hansen as condemned as "collective punishment".

McCann said the agency had only managed to find new housing for 1,000 people over those three and half years and complained that an emergency appeal for larger donations this year had not been met.

An official from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office claimed, "This is a legitimate defensive measure, which is aimed at ensuring better protection for our soldiers who shouldn't remain as sitting ducks and at preventing the smuggling of weapons, mortars, rockets and tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip."

ENDS

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