topic by
Robert W. Gee
5/1/2002 (14:16) |
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Rage at Israel smolders in Jenin
Militants vow, 'It's not over'
Robert W. Gee - Staff
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
Jenin refugee camp, West Bank --- High atop a mountain of rubble, in the twisted metal and concrete ruins of a Palestinian neighborhood, three flags flutter defiantly.
The black flag represents the militant group Islamic Jihad. The green flag is that of the fellow Islamic group Hamas. The third banner proclaims, in Arabic 'God is great.'
The symbolism is powerful. This is a Palestinian ground zero after Israel's monthlong military push through Palestinian-controlled territory in the West Bank.
Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and an unknown but larger number of Palestinians were killed last month in a 10-day siege of the camp. The Israeli army killed local militant leaders as well as civilians, while confiscating assault rifles and explosives and destroying more than 100 homes.
Through blunt force, Israel intended to quash a popular uprising of suicide bombings and shooting attacks.
But in Jenin, the claims of victory and calls for jihad indicate the opposite: The Israeli offensive appears to have deepened Palestinian rage and forged a new generation of fighters for the cause.
'It's not over,' said a 20-year-old fighter who only gave his first name, Mahmoud. 'Anybody whose brother was killed, anybody who has lost a house will join the revolution.'
On Tuesday, a United Nations fact-finding team assigned to investigate allegations of a massacre of Palestinians during the battle was put on hold indefinitely after the Israeli Security Cabinet voted to block the mission.
Israeli ministers call charges of a massacre 'blood libel,' but they fear that the team would be biased against Israel and say soldiers must be given immunity if they are called to testify.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he has done all he can to satisfy Israeli demands.
Also on Tuesday, 26 Palestinians emerged from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after spending a month inside its stone walls.
The development signaled that a breakthrough could be at hand in the standoff between the Israeli army and about 20 to 30 wanted Palestinians among about 200 people still holed up inside.
In Ramallah, Israeli tanks still surrounded the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but Arafat's freedom could come as early as today under a U.S.-brokered deal to end that standoff.
In the Jenin refugee camp, the fighters said they were victorious because the out-manned and outnumbered Palestinian gunmen resisted the Israeli army for 10 days. It took just six days, they point out, for Israel to defeat neighboring Arab nations in the 1967 war.
Abdul Rahman Saadi, a slight boy with braces who said he wanted to grow up to become an electrical engineer, proclaimed earnestly, 'This will not shake our morals.'
Abdul said his battle assignment was lobbing homemade pipe bombs into buildings occupied by Israeli soldiers. He said he and six other boys, ages 10 to 14, surrendered to Israeli troops on the last day of fighting after they were surrounded.
'The reaction to this destruction will be more violence,' he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and military leaders said the April offensive --- the biggest military operation in Palestinian territories since the lands were captured in 1967 --- significantly crippled 'the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure.'
'We have achieved very profound results, but the struggle against terrorism continues,' Sharon said last week after troops withdrew from Nablus and most of Ramallah.
Nearly three weeks have passed since the last suicide bombing inside Israel, and people in Jerusalem and other cities, once afraid to venture out of their homes, are returning to the streets. But their sense of security is fragile.
'You're talking about making explosives out of materials that are easy to buy,' said Joseph Alpher, a former senior official in the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. 'They certainly have enough materials to be suicide bombers. It's only a matter of time. It's just a question of how much time.'
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst, said the Israeli offensive heightened popular support for the militants.
'I think they gave reasons for these groups to continue and resume,' Khatib said, 'and gave more public support to violence.'
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