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Posted by Lynette
4/30/2002 (11:47) |
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For the past month of 'Operation Defensive Shield' the Israeli army has wreaked untold damage in its explicitly offensive war in the West Bank. Despite some media and Israeli government reports to the contrary, the offensive continues with many areas of the West Bank still under 24 hour 'shoot-to-kill' curfew and new incursions occurring daily. In those areas where the curfew has been lifted Palestinians have begun the work of assessing damage, trying to trace missing friends and relatives who were detained without charge, identifying their dead, or in the case of Jenin, still trying to rescue their loved ones from the rubble where houses once stood, while the thousands whose homes were destroyed are seeking shelter.
According to initial estimations by the World Health Organization and the Palestinian Ministry of Health, around 600 houses were totally destroyed and 200 rendered uninhabitable in Jenin refugee camp. Director of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, Mohammed Shtayeh, says their initial assessment of the physical losses incurred in the West Bank as a result of the Israeli invasion amounts to at least $450 million, not including the damage done to Jenin Refugee Camp or the Qasbah quarter in Nablus.
One of GRI's partners in Ramallah, the Democracy and Workers Rights Center (DWRC), has just finished the arduous task of cleaning up their office which was entered, looted and heavily damaged by the Israeli army. They have assessed the damage to computers, equipment and furniture at around $35,000. And each trip to the office is still a risk to their lives, as the DWRC lies in an area of Ramallah still occupied and patrolled by the Israeli army. Three other GRI West Bank partners: Ibdaa Cultural Center in Deheishe refugee camp in Bethlehem, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) and the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) also suffered extensive damage to their offices during the Israeli incursions. UPMRC clinics, ambulances and medics were also attacked while trying to provide emergency medical care.
For the past month it has been impossible to make the short trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem or Ramallah to visit these partners as the areas have been designated as 'closed military zones.' Even phone and email contact has been difficult with electricity and phone lines often destroyed by the Israeli army.
In an article entitled 'Operation Destroy Data' Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who lives in Ramallah, describes the full-scale assault the Israeli army waged on governmental and non-governmental institutions: 'It's a scene that is repeating itself in hundreds of Palestinian offices taken over by IDF troops for a few hours or days in the West Bank: smashed, burned and broken computer terminals heaped in piles and thrown into yards; server cabling cut, hard disks missing, disks and diskettes scattered and broken, printers and scanners broken or missing, laptops gone, telephone exchanges that disappeared or were vandalized, and paper files burned, torn, scattered, or defaced - if not taken. And it's all in rooms full of smashed furniture, torn curtains, broken windows, smashed-in doors, walls full of holes, filthy floors and soiled bathrooms… The loss is immeasurable in shekels or dollars. Years of information built into knowledge, time spent thinking by thousands of people working to build their civil society and their future or trying to build a private sector that would bring a sense of economic stability to their country.'
Many of the Palestinian ministries were looted and extensive databanks stolen, leading some Palestinians to speculate that the Israelis are planning a return to 'Civil administration' or direct Israeli rule over the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Among the stolen files are agreements with donors on projects to be carried out and funding to be disbursed. Currently the donor countries are meeting in Oslo to determine their financial response to the crisis and the question is whether they will just pour money back into the OPT without even attempting to hold Israel accountable for the damage or receiving any guarantees that once rebuilt, the same infrastructure, homes and institutions will not be destroyed again in the next phase of Sharon's war.
Since the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993 donors have invested $5 billion in the OPT but much of this has merely subsidized the Israeli occupation, closure and destruction. United Nations Special Envoy to the Middle East Terje Larsen reports that after 18 months of the intifada, 75 percent of production in the West Bank is now at a standstill, while unemployment is at a similar level. Many Palestinians, including GRI partners, say that much more valuable than material aid would be donor country pressure on Israel to end the brutal occupation of the Occupied Territories, allow in international protection forces and adhere to international humanitarian and human rights law.
www.grassrootsonline.org/Palestine%20Now/pal_0426/wbank.html
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