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| Sunday, 28 April 2002 |
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'We heard them shooting people in the street...'
An eyewitness report by an American student trapped in the City of Ramallah during the Israeli siege. Ramallah, Occupied Palestine (April 2, 2002) - My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American student from the University of Minnesota. I am currently 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 a certain chance of being shot by the Israeli 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, about missing relatives, including children, and we do not know where they may have been taken. The numbers we have now exceed 600, and we are estimating between 700 and 800. On the fourth day I decided to try to move. People were running out of supplies and I also was so worried about people I knew, 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 and search. 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 bullets and shells lying in the middle of the road. There must have been people originally 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. 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 a few minutes. In the next few minutes, it would be different route. They really helped to keep me on a safe path. 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, announcing that everyone had two hours to go out to get food. However, the Israeli soldiers also took food from many of the stores, looting, and there is no bread or many other things. Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the curfew for two hours, it still was not long enough to find everything that was badly needed, especially medical supplies. And 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. In an apartment building in Beitunia neighbourhood where I used to live, they took 60 people who were my neighbours, 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 targetting. 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 neighbourhood, 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. 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. 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. Courtesy: Jewish Peace News/San Fransisco, USA |
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