Issue No 4 15 – 31 October 2001 FOCUS: SAYAFA OVERVIEW The reporting period witnessed a grave escalation Military zone in the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with scenes of conflict in Sayafa Palestinian cities unprecedented since the 1967 Settlements Arab-Israeli war, according to many local Beit Lahya observers. Following the assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Beit Hanun Israeli forces re-occupied the towns of Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, El Bireh, Ramallah, Beit-Jala and Bethlehem between October 18 and 28. A stringent siege was imposed GAZA on the remaining West Bank towns of Hebron, Nablus, and Jericho, in addition to numerous villages in Zone A, which remained under full Palestinian security and civilian control. 70-m security zone The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) also launched a raid on the West Bank town of Beit Rima, resulting in casualties, and the policy of assassinations of activists wanted by Israel Located between two Israeli settlements and surrounded by continued. There were also a number of shooting incidents by an Israeli military zone, Sayafa has two access points, a Palestinians within Israel, resulting in a number of civilian coastal road and a secondary road linking it to the rest of the fatalities. In view of the serious humanitarian aftermath of Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the present Intifada the these events, especially the toll on innocent civilians and the coastal road has become off-limits to residents and the destruction to civic property, the current issue of the secondary road has been destroyed. Villagers have Humanitarian Update is mainly devoted to chronicling these improvised by building a bypass road through a permanent developments. Israeli military zone area to export their produce and reach their traditional markets. However, movement of persons hile most humanitarian concerns in the past and goods across the checkpoint is restricted to three weeks have focussed on the West Bank, crossing a day: from 06:30 to 8:30, from 12:00 to 3:30, and W the Gaza Strip has not escaped unscathed. from 16:00 to 17:00. The curfew is still maintained after Following a Hamas attack on the Eli-Sinai 17:00. At all times , vehicles are prevented from entering or settlement in northern Gaza in early October, leaving the area. which left two Israelis and the assailants dead, the IDF launched an indiscriminate retaliation campaign against civilians residing in the vicinity of the settlement and the 70-meter security zone. The agricultural economy of two nearby Palestinian villages - Beit Lahya and Beit Hanun, and the tiny community of Sayafa has been badly affected. Hundreds of dunums of cultivated land and groves were destroyed in all three locations, which along with the ensuing curfews have all but ruined the already devastated economy of these communities. IDF levelled groves in Beit-Lahya October 2001. Photo UNSCO INSIDE Overview……...………………………………………..……. 1 In contrast to other areas with similar security regimes, the Focus: Sayafa.…………..………………..…..……………...1 back-to-back technique of loading and unloading trucks is Reoccupation of the West Bank Cities….……………….2 unfeasible in Sayafa because of the narrowness of the Curfews…………………………………….………………….3 bypass road. Farmers, therefore, are forced to carry produce UNRWA COMGEN on Access…..……….…...…………....5 a considerable distance across checkpoints, a cumbersome Humanitarian Coordination…………..…….….…………..5 1- practice which has become a routine for the area's residents. Even this practice was severely disrupted in early October following the Hamas attack on the Eli-Sinai settlement. The IDF imposed an 11-day total closure on Sayafa, destroy ing over 1000 dunums of plantations and groves. The curfew is 4 still maintained after 6 PM. No medical care is available locally. 7 REOCCUPATION OF WEST BANK CITIES Rehavam Ze’evi, the Israeli Minister for Tourism was assassinated in Jerusalem on 17 October by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of 1 Palestine. The following day, the Israeli Defence 1 Forces commenced reoccupation of major West Bank cities, accompanied by extensive use of heavy weaponry, including tanks, helicopters and Beit Rima artillery. The IDF met fierce resistance in a n umber 5 of areas, especially Bethlehem and Tulkarm, which in turn led to violent combats in densely 6 populated areas. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 88 Palestinians were killed in October – the highest monthly number in 2001, the majority non-combatants including a number of children. 19 According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) figures, a total of 227 Palestinians were injured during the reoccupation, two thirds of them civilians. This is an extremely high figure for such a brief period, compared with the number of casualties during previous months, and taking into consideration that most casualties occurred in a small number of locations. Since the beginning of the current Intifada, approximately 20% of Palestinian casualties have been injured by live ammunition. However, during the first two weeks Map indicates occupied and besieged Palestinian towns, of the current reoccupation, this figure reached and number of Palestinian fatalities in each of the 54% of the total number of casualties. A similar hostility affected areas. Courtesy of Solidaridad increase took place in the case of shrapnel injuries Internacinal. while the number of those injured by rubber- In Bethlehem, an UNRWA doctor and ambulance covered bullets and tear gas was insignificant in driver were injured on their way to Azzeh refugee the same period. camp to provide medical aid to wounded persons on 20 October. On the same day tanks shelled Numerous cases were also reported of Beit Jala Hospital killing Issa Fawzi Abu Ikhlayel ambulances and emergency medical teams (28) and wounding another person. In addition, prevented from crossing Israeli military the upper floor of the Health Work Committees checkpoints in the affected areas. On 18 October, (HWC) clinic in Beit Sahur was partially when a ten-year-old girl was killed and four other evacuated because of the risk posed by recurrent girls and three adults injured in Jenin, an shelling from the nearby Har Homa settlement. ambulance dispatched to assist the wounded was As both the Beit Jala and Bethlehem hospitals unable to reach the school for an hour. There were were difficult to reach during the attacks, the also cases of injuries to medical personnel. HWC clinic in Beit Sahur was one of the focal points for assistance during the period of reoccupation. 2- The declared goal of this military campaign was to packages to some 150 households in Bethlehem/Beit Jala, capture those suspected of attacks against Israel, through the PRCS. and to prevent those planning acts of violence from leaving the cities. The IDF subsequently claimed that the reoccupation of Palestinian areas had prevented attacks planned inside Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. The Israeli human rights organization "B'Tselem" states however, that "the timing of the operation, its character and its results, strongly suggest that this was an act of vengeance while applying pressure to the entire Palestinian population. Moreover, security justifications cannot excuse a wide-scale assault on hundreds of thousands of civilians. An indiscriminate assault on this scale constitutes collective punishment..." To date, the IDF has withdrawn from Bethlehem and Qalqilya and t in the coming days is expected to withdraw from additional cities. According to the directive of the Defence Minister, the withdrawal from the Palestinian cities will be carried out in coordination with Palestinian security elements, which will take upon themselves responsibility to prevent terror attacks from the areas to be withdrawn from. FOCUS : B ETHLEHEM Some 19 Palestinians were killed in the Bethlehem area. Between 19 and 20 October alone, more than 35 Palestinians Scenes of devastation in Bethlehem; Photo courtesy UNRWA were wounded, some in critical condition. Bethlehem The extent of the damage in the other re- University, the Patriarchal Seminary, the Pontifical School for occupied towns is not known, pending an Israeli the Deaf and the Holy Family Hospital all suffered shell withdrawal. Approximately 60% of Tulkarm damage as did numerous houses in the town and nearby Beit remains occupied, with damage sustained to the Jala. Especially affected were the neighbouring refugee town and the surrounding Tulkarm and Nur camps of Aida and Azzeh (Beit Jibrin) . In Aida Camp (900 Shams refugee camps. Jenin, Qalqilia and families; 4,000 inhabitants) approximately 150 shelters Ramallah-El Bireh also sustained damage. suffered some degree of damage and two were completely UNRWA emergency teams produced daily destroyed. In Azzeh (400 families, 1800 inhabitants), the damage assessments and provided necessary smallest refugee camp in the OPT, 260 shelters were assistance to households, including distributions damaged, with some 15 totally destroyed by fire or tank of tents, kitchen equipment and emergency food shells . UNRWA is offering in addition to emergency food parcels specifically designed for long and tight parcels to some 70 % of the population, cash and in-kind occupations. Volunteer teams from the PRCS assistance of essential items, including tents, blankets and delivered essential food and medical items to kitchen kits to the large number of refugees whose shelters families living in residential areas of Ramallah have been damaged. Within three days after the IDF and Al-Bireh. In Jenin extensive trenches are withdrawal over 250 families received direct assistance from being dug at access points around the city, UNRWA in the Bethlehem region worth $145,000. The ICRC reportedly causing damage to drainage pipes and also donated tents and essential supplies to those whose electricity cables. The IDF also carried out raids shelters were destroyed in Azzeh Camp. HWC sent three on the villages of Beit Rima (see below) and large packages of medical aid to Aida and Azzeh refugee Arrabeh in which seven residents were arrested camps, including emergency health equipment donated by and two injured.