Twilight Zone, Fighting the Fence - Israelis kill more protesters

[Violet_Crumble]

by Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz
March 07, 2004


These were not rubber bullets. You don't have to be a ballistics expert to know that bullets that slice through a car, enter its flank, penetrate the upholstery and exit via the door are not rubber bullets. This is the red and white Ford Transit with which the driver, Nidal Rian, tried to evacuate a demonstrator, Mohammed Rian, who lay dying on the floor of the vehicle after being shot in the back during the demonstration on February 26. The vehicle is riddled with bullet holes. At least three in the chassis; the front and back windshields are shattered, as are the lights; the tires have already been changed.

The driver, Nidal, still stunned by the events, recalls that the soldiers (or Border Policemen) fired at him while he was trying to evacuate his relative, Mohammed. Because the troops did not allow an ambulance to approach the scene, Nidal had to evacuate the wounded man himself. The soldiers also threw a smoke grenade at the Transit, as witnessed by burn marks on the front seat. Nidal says he lost consciousness because of the smoke. Mohammed was apparently killed by a live bullet, exactly like the one that hit Zakhriya Eid, from the neighboring village - but what difference would it make even if it had been a rubber-coated metal bullet?

The demonstration against the building of the fence on village land included stone throwing at soldiers and policemen. It ended with two villagers shot dead. A third, Abed Ibrahim Salem, about 60, died either of gas inhalation or a heart attack. A young man, Mohammed Badwan, 22, was wounded and is clinically dead. And several dozen more people were wounded moderately or lightly, among them 75-year-old Mohammed Hamidan, who lost an eye.

Channel 10 News showed snipers on rooftops, and an eye-witness, Yonatan Pollack, said he saw them shooting at the demonstrators, but the commander of the Jerusalem District Police, Mickey Levy, did not hesitate to go on television the next day and say that maybe the whole thing was a "hamulot feud." This is how the Israel Defense Forces, the Border Police and the Israel Police disperse demonstrations, and this is how their chiefs scatter falsehoods.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=5101

[Resistance]

1. well if I ever need some protestors murdered

I know who to call