>>Urgent: Eyewitness Report From Ramallah
>>
>>ZNet Top
>>Mideast Watch Home
>>
>>by Tzaporah Ryter
>>April 02, 2002
>>
>>MIDEAST WATCH
>>
>>Ramallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an
>>American
>>student from the University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We
>>are
>>under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by both the Israeli
>>army and armed militia groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting
>>outside
>>at anything that moves.
>>
>>I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible to help save
>>lives here.
>>
>>I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come back for a visit to the
>>Palestinian city where I had been previously living and studying. On
>>Thursday afternoon, the Israeli army began sealing off each entrance to
>>Ramallah and there were rumors that they planned to invade.
>>
>>People were rushing back home from across checkpoints and also people were
>>trying to flee. People were not allowed to go out and many working people
>>--
>>with homes and children to return to -- were not allowed in, everyone was
>>trying to take cover. Those traveling in began desperately searching for
>>alternative ways and traveling in groups, but the Israelis were firing
>>upon
>>them and everyone was running and screaming.
>>
>>Women carrying their children were trying desperately to flee from
>>Ramallah,
>>carrying infants and toddlers, and their young children were running along
>>in the rain through the fields, slipping and falling on the rocks, trying
>>to
>>reach safety. Israeli jeeps were speeding across the terrain pulling up
>>from
>>every direction and shooting at the women and children, and also at me, as
>>we ran in opposite directions. They were chasing down people, hunting them
>>like that in the fields.
>>
>>When I reached Ramallah, people were panicking and trying to buy bread,
>>rice
>>and milk from corner stores, but most supplies were already gone. We
>>bought
>>what we could and went inside to wait for what was coming.
>>
>>When night fell, Israeli tanks began to invade and also we saw Israeli
>>troops coming on foot from the valley, and surrounding our house. I could
>>hear them calling to each other in Hebrew. They were against our door and
>>all around. They were firing everywhere a barrage of bullets and there was
>>tank fire. We had to lay on the floor and keep silent. We stayed there, on
>>the floor, for nearly four days in the darkness.
>>
>>We knew that our circumstances were better than others because old people
>>or
>>infants or people with medical emergency needs had no help. It was very
>>cold, with most families packed all in one room. Some people are without
>>life sustaining medicines like insulin, and they are altering their doses
>>dangerously if they have any medicine left to take. People are becoming
>>dangerously sick from lack of food and water and heat. The fear and terror
>>only makes things worse, but it cannot be avoided.
>>
>>In the daytime, we heard them shooting people in the streets, and could
>>hear
>>them screaming and screaming. No ambulance was allowed through. Then their
>>screams stopped and there was just silence.
>>
>>We had a telephone and would receive calls from all over telling us what
>>was
>>happening. Everyone is in grave danger and Israeli soldiers were killing
>>people everywhere. They are arresting medics and ambulance drivers,
>>including foreign volunteer medical workers.
>>
>>They keep taking doctors and medics, just now another call. Again, this
>>time
>>the wife of a doctor telling us her husband has been taken from the
>>ambulance.
>>
>>Large groups of people have been found in rooms, shot dead, there are
>>blood
>>marks where they have lined people up on their knees and shot them, with
>>their ID cards laying on top of them. They are taking people from their
>>homes, blindfolding them, removing their clothes, taking them away or
>>lining
>>them up and shooting them against the wall.
>>
>>People are making phone calls and saying that these soldiers and militia
>>have come in and are shooting people and then the line cuts off.
>>
>>The numbers of these killings I fear are much greater than the numbers
>>confirmed in the press, because the human rights offices and the media
>>centers have been stormed, and everything is shut down. No one can move
>>without almost certain chance of being shot by the Isreali snipers, who
>>are
>>everywhere.
>>
>>The Israelis are demanding that all journalists leave Ramallah and today
>>another foreign journalist was shot. They do not want any more
>>internationals here and are deporting people. It seems quite clear that
>>they
>>do not want eyewitnesses which is only heightening my own fears.
>>
>>The hospitals have also been surrounded and invaded and Israeli troops are
>>taking the injured people and interrogating them. Today a woman, a
>>patient,
>>tried to walk out from hospital. The Israelis shot her in the neck and
>>killed her.
>>
>>The Palestinian Ministry of Health is saying that they fear the spread of
>>diseases because of the number of unburied corpses.
>>
>>The numbers are only growing in reports of the mass killings here and
>>Israeli troops continue to round up people. People are calling
>>frantically,
>>missing a relative and we do not know where they have been taken,
>>including
>>children.
>>
>>The numbers we have now exceed 600, and we are estimating between 700 and
>>800. All human rights groups and legal advocates are being denied any
>>information of where the detained are being held. From what we know
>>confirmed is that 10% of those taken so far have been children under age
>>18.
>>
>>On the fourth day I decided to try to move. People were running out of
>>supplies and I also was so worried about people, and had to check to see
>>if
>>they were okay. If I didn't, I feared panic would overtake me so badly
>>that
>>I really had no other choice but to try and go.
>>
>>It was not safe where I was in any case and at least if I left I would
>>still
>>have my sanity. It was really terrifying as there are some internationals
>>here, usually traveling in groups, and the Israelis are saying on the
>>radio
>>that they will arrest or shoot the internationals. They did shoot some
>>yesterday and regardless, it's not as if snipers differentiate and they
>>are
>>everywhere.
>>
>>My friends told me not to go, and were really scared for me, but I had to
>>go. When I went outside, there were cars all shot up and hit by multiple
>>bullets and shells in the middle of the road, unparked. There must have
>>been
>>people in them but I don't know where their bodies are. There are no
>>reports
>>of them, but they must exist.
>>
>>I got to the corner trying to go to the bakery for bread and food for
>>people. Some people were calling and calling with only one cup of rice
>>left.
>>I made it to the corner but they opened fire on my first try, and shot at
>>me, so I had to turn back.
>>
>>After that I tried again and it took me one day to make it a block because
>>I
>>had to start over again and again. I had to climb through the valley, and
>>as
>>I passed house by house, people were warning me and pointing out what path
>>seemed safest for these two minutes. In the next two minutes, it would be
>>something different. They really helped to keep my path safe.
>>
>>Today is Day Five and they are still rounding up people like this and we
>>hear them shooting all day long.
>>
>>This afternoon the Israelis suddenly lifted the curfew, suddenly
>>announcing
>>that everyone had two hours to go out to get food. However, the Israeli
>>soldiers also took food from many of the stores, looted, and there is no
>>bread or things. People went to get whatever they could.
>>
>>Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the closure for two hours
>>--
>>in which we still were not able to transfer medical supplies and still was
>>not long enough to everything that was badly needed -- the Israelis
>>continued shooting people in the streets indiscriminately on their way, so
>>people were running around trying to make it to the store or find a safe
>>route only to have to run back home again. It was an added cruelty and
>>terror tactic in this macabre situation, a sick joke: starve people and
>>then
>>shoot them when they try to find food with your permission.
>>
>>In an apartment building in Beitunia neighborhood where I used to live,
>>they
>>took 60 people who were my neighbors, including several families, and
>>pushed
>>them into one room since last night. The Israelis told them that they are
>>to
>>be used as 'human shields', as the apartment building is across from a
>>building that they were invading.
>>
>>One child needs to go to the hospital since last night and, initially, the
>>families were able to call outside. Now, the Israelis have taken their
>>phones.
>>
>>There are reports that they are rounding up men between the ages of 14 and
>>45 in that neighborhood, and these civilians, from these same Palestinian
>>families trapped in that building, were just used to walk in front of an
>>Israeli tank as it invaded the Preventative Security Compound.
>>
>>Reports also have alleged that the Israelis were saying that some could
>>leave but shot them when they attempted to leave. The buildings there are
>>burning, and people are trapped inside.
>>
>>We keep calling to try to find people but there has been no electricity
>>and
>>most people's phones are dead now. I do not know what is happening to many
>>people. The only solution to this is to try to brave the deadly streets in
>>order to check, but its almost impossible and terrifying to leave the
>>house
>>at all.
>>
>>Each place I come to, I am afraid to leave not only for myself but for
>>everyone else in this horrifying position. Israeli death squads have been
>>yanking people into the street. I also hear only shooting and shooting,
>>with
>>no return fire. This suggest that unarmed civilians are being gunned down
>>mercilessly everywhere and I am so scared for everyone. I feel like maybe
>>if
>>I leave one place, one area or neighborhood I will never see the people
>>again alive.
>>
>>There are more explosions outside now and more shooting. Another
>>explosion.
>>More firing, it just doesn't stop.
>>
>>This is a massacre. The foreign delegations tried to get in but were
>>turned
>>back, the International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to help but
>>they are being ignored. Please help.
>>
>>I am not only scared for myself and for people here, but if this cannot be
>>stopped, I am truly scared for all of humanity, for a world in which we
>>send
>>men to the moon but cannot stop ethnic cleansing.
>>
>>On the news in America, we see hardly anything of demonstrations. What are
>>you doing over there?
>>
>>There do not seem to be any reports of what is happening. In truth, its
>>got
>>to stop. Please go out to the streets, please demand a response from your
>>representatives. Be loud, march up to the capitals, refuse to leave until
>>the Israelis withdraw. Act now! Tell them the Israelis are murdering
>>innocent people whose only crime is being born in their own homeland, a
>>Palestinian under a military occupation.
>>
>>Demand international protection for the Palestinian people, scream that
>>this
>>is an affront to humanity and that it is time that the US not only stop
>>supporting Israel, but that the US stop its abuse of human rights within
>>its
>>own borders. This is about all of our struggles.
>>
>>For the love of God, please stop this slaughter. Please help.
>>
>>**************



Dr. David Storey
Geography Department &
Centre for Rural Research
University College Worcester
Henwick Grove
Worcester WR2 6AJ
England

Tel: 01905 855189
Fax: 01905 855132