The Palestinian people appear to realize at this point that if they are ever to achieve independence and a State worth having they must do so now; that the Intifada cannot be ended on any other terms, that the Mitchell report is one more subterfuge, that the Arafat regime can never again be trusted, that the American government is hopelessly aligned with the Israelis, that the Arab regimes are despicable in their weakness and servitude.

[The Independent - 15 May 2001]

Versions of exactly how and why Israeli soldiers shot dead five Palestinian security men at one of the quietest and least defended checkpoints in the West Bank differed wildly yesterday, but one incriminating fact was clear. As 50mm machine-gun bullets tore into the outpost ­ which is nothing more than a corrugated iron shack ­ one victim was making a late supper.

A half-cooked bowl of tomatoes and peppers was still sitting on the top of the stove, a few hours after the bodies had been cleared away. A jar of olive oil lay shattered on the ground. On a shelf there was a blood-spattered plastic bag, containing pitta bread. Some of the bread, drenched in gore, had spilt out in the mêlée.

Why is this incriminating? Because Palestinian security guards, no matter how young and inexperienced, do not usually cook when their paramilitary colleagues are ­ as one senior Israeli official initially alleged yesterday ­ shooting at Israeli soldiers.

They do not cook because they know that when their colleagues shoot at Israeli soldiers, as they sometimes do, the Israelis shoot back with heavy machine-guns, or with tank shells, or rocket-propelled grenades or sometimes even missiles fired from helicopters.

And they especially do not cook inside a half-built tin shack, a squalid wreck of a building whose roof is held on by rocks, and which is generally no more equipped to withstand a military assault than a potting shed in an English allotment.

When they hear shots in the vicinity from either side, the Palestinian guards rapidly take cover. They may also begin to shoot. But the young man who died in the squalid shed behind the equally squalid Palestinian police post at Beituniya near Ramallah at 2am yesterday did not have time to do either. Nor, claimed the Palestinians who had gathered at the scene, did the two policemen who were shot inside the shed as they were eating their suppers, or the two others who were outside the post, apparently keeping guard.

Attempts to extract an explanation from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) yesterday about this incident, the most deadly assault in the past three months, drew a blank.

At first, IDF officials told reporters their soldiers were engaged in an operation in the area, which is where West Bank territory under total Israeli military control ­ Area C, as it is known ­ meets territory under Palestinian control, Area A. The Israeli troops had fired at "suspicious figures", the army said.

But yesterday afternoon, even this sparse and inadequate explanation had evaporated. A spokeswoman said the IDF had no comment at all. We are left only with suspicion ­ the alarming possibility that it was a planned, ruthlessly executed extra-judicial mass killing. The position of the bullet holes in the walls of the shack suggested that most of the shots were fired from a tall, empty building that overlooks the outpost, about 250 yards away.

Yasser Arafat denounced the killing of the men ­ who were all from Gaza and aged between 18 and 32 ­ as "dirty ... assassinations". His Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said the killings constituted "pre-meditated cold-blooded murder by the Israeli army".

The Palestinian guard post had been set up through co-ordination with the Israeli security forces, Mr Abed Rabbo said. "This post has never been engaged in attacks or exchange of fire with the Israelis."

Much importance was being attached yesterday to the timing of the killings. They came on the eve of Nakba Day ­ a highly volatile event in which Palestinians in the occupied territories and Israel hold marches and demonstrations to mourn the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Bloodshed seems certain. They also happened just before the deadline for both sides to submit their responses to the Mitchell committee report.

There was no suggestion that the dead men were from Force 17 ­ the bodyguard of Mr Arafat or Fatah. It appears that they were simply guards from the Palestinian National Forces. By hitting them, Israel may be trying to pressure the Palestinian Authority, by sowing panic in its ranks. But it would be hard to find a policy more likely to backfire.

EXCERPTS from recent press reports about Israeli targetting of journalists:

"....we remain deeply concerned about the IDF's record of harassing, intimidating, and attacking journalists, despite the Israeli government's stated commitment to press freedom. Since the current unrest began last September, CPJ has documented nearly two dozen cases in which journalists were wounded by Israeli gunfire, beaten by security forces, or otherwise prevented from doing their work. Meanwhile, physical attacks by Jewish settlers against journalists continue with impunity."

"These incidents appear to match a pttern of similar abuses documented by CPJ over the years. On March 8, for example, an IDF soldier in an armored carrier opened fire in the direction of three Reuters journalists at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza. According to Reuters, reporter Christine Hauser, cameraman Ahmed Bahadou, and free-lance photographer Suhaib Salem were about 50 meters (160 feet) from the armored carrier when the soldier started firing a heavy machine gun in their direction. The journalists quickly took cover."

". Recently, our organization sent a letter of inquiry to the IDF requesting information about the wounding of French photographer Laurent Van der Stock, 36, a veteran photographer working with the Gamma photo agency and Newsweek. On February 9, Van der Stock was seriously wounded by live gunfire near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Based on CPJ's investigation into the case, it appears likely that he was hit by IDF gunfire"

31.10.2000 23:09:00 AP "Ben Wedeman, 41, the CNN bureau chief in Cairo, was in stable condition after a bullet entered his back and came out his side, officials at the Shifa hospital inGaza said."

11.11.2000 Israeli troops confronting stone-throwing Palestinians shot and wounded a U.S. news photographer outside Bethlehem on Saturday, Palestinian hospital officials said. They said Yola Monakhov, 26, was hit by a so-called "dumdum" bullet, which fragments inside the body. She suffered a ruptured bladder and fractured pelvis.

21.4.2001 "A Palestinian journalist was wounded in the Gaza Strip on Friday in what she said was an unprovoked shooting by Israeli troops... Laila Odeh, 33, a reporter for Abu Dhabi Television, said she was shot in the back of her right thigh as she tried to evade fire from Israeli soldiers manning a tower about 40 yards away on the Israeli-Egyptian border. "There were no clashes while I was there. The Israelis fired without any warning," Odeh said in a telephone interview."

16.5.2001 (yesterday) "RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- A flak jacket may well have saved the life of a French TV reporter shot Tuesday while covering violence in the West Bank. Bertrand Aguirre, a correspondent for the French TV network TF1, was hit in the midsection by a bullet, apparently fired by an Israeli. The protective vest stopped it. Aguirre was standing among TV cameramen near Ramallah in the West Bank. An Associated Press Television News photographer's video shows an Israeli border policeman, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, jump out of a dark green jeep, aim his M-16 rifle in the direction of the reporters and fire a single shot. He charged that the Israeli paramilitary policeman targeted him. "It was clear that I am a journalist and the camera was proof," Aguirre said.