Without mercy: Israelis execute Arafat's elite guards
Observer Worldview
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor Ramallah
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer
The ambulancemen were carrying the first body out of the
Cairo-Amman bank in the centre of Ramallah when I came
across them.
His knees were doubled up in rigor mortis. One of the legs of his
green parachute jumpsuit had been burned through to the skin
by a round fired at such close quarters that the muzzle flash had
ignited the fabric. A gaping wound was visible in his chest - also
apparently from a burst of fire from close range. What killed him,
however, was the gunshot to his temple.
A few minutes later, the paramedics brought the second body,
that of a young man, also in Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit,
Force 17.
Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue socks. The
wounds that he had obviously been clutching when he died were
also to his upper body. But what must have killed him, like his
colleague, was a shot fired at close range to his temple that had
demolished the back of his head.
The third body was of an older man, in his forties, grey-haired
with a moustache. Someone had pulled his parachute suit above
his head to hide the wound. When the stretcher-bearers put him
down, the covering was pulled back. The wound was to the
head.
What happened on the third floor of the Cairo-Amman bank at
midnight on Friday during Israel's occupation of the Palestinian
city of Ramallah can only be surmised. But in the few minutes
after Israeli soldiers stormed the Palestinian position, five men
were wounded and five men were put to death by the Israelis,
each with a single coup de grace administered to the head or
throat.
Maher Shalabi, bureau chief of Abu Dhabi television in Ramallah,
was in his office in the same building when he heard several
bursts of heavy shooting on the floors below. 'I heard heavy
shooting; maybe it was an exchange of fire. But I believe this
was an execution.'
Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator, added: 'They
were executed in cold blood. This is a clear example of the
collective execution policy adopted by the Israeli government
against the Palestinian people.'
According to local residents, the dead men were part of a large
group of Palestinian policemen who had taken shelter in the
building, which also houses the offices of the British council,
when the Israeli army entered Ramallah.
The men had taken shelter in the foyer area on the third floor
next to a dentist's surgery. Yesterday bullet holes spattered the
walls and the floor was flecked with blood. On one wall were
large splashes of blood. Elsewhere several bloody trails had
been marked along the floor where someone had pulled the
bodies towards the lift.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers entered the building
after Palestinians opened fire from inside and threw a grenade at
the force outside.
The coups des graces administered for these five men are a
metaphor for what the Israeli incursion is hoping to achieve
inside Ramallah. By isolating Arafat within his headquarters,
Sharon hopes to decapitate the Palestinian Authority.
Yesterday, inside Arafat's compound, it was clear that, for all
the claims of Ariel Sharon, Arafat was neither under threat nor
under arrest. Arafat, simply, was surrounded by the Israelis.
As we approached the compound we could see the tanks and
armoured personnel carriers ringing his sprawl of offices and
barracks. On every side were soldiers taking positions and
aiming their weapons.
Approaching closer the Israeli army tried to prevent us following
a delegation from the Palestinian solidarity movement into the
compound, led by José Bové, the French farmers leader and
anti-globalisation protester.
In a surreal touch Bové and his colleagues had marched through
the ruins of the town, even as fighting continued. With hands
above their heads, and carrying palm fronds as Easter symbols
of peace, they approached Arafat's compound with two columns
of heavily armed Israeli infantry jogging the last few hundred
metres behind.
Seeing Bové, who had marched through the town with a small
group of fellow protesters bearing a tray of medicines for those
still injured inside Arafat's compound, the soldiers relented and
let us enter with him and approach the offices where Arafat was
holed up.
Crossing a large car park we could see a three-storey block, its
walls splattered with tank fire, two windows blackened by fire
with sheets hanging where the occupants had tried to escape
the flames.
I followed Bové to the entrance to the offices where Arafat was
hiding but was grabbed from behind by an Israeli soldier and
pulled away. Arafat may not be a prisoner but it is the Israelis
who choose who goes to see the Palestinian chairman.
On every corner yesterday stood Israeli tanks. The devastation
that these tanks have wrought inside the Palestinians' most
attractive city has to be seen to be believed.
Roads have been dynamited or torn up by tanks. Buildings are
burned and shattered. Everywhere there is rubble, spent
ammunition and broken glass.
A little later, I met Hossam Sharkawi and Mohamed Awad, two
senior officials in the Palestinian Red Crescent who I had met
before.
Sharkawi, a co-ordinator for emergency services, told me the
Israelis had arrested five of his drivers.
'They have them blindfolded and handcuffed. I cannot understand
what the Israelis are thinking. They also used one of our
ambulances today as a human shield. They sandwiched it
inside a convoy.'
Sharkawi was able to reveal something of life inside Arafat's
compound. 'We know there are injured inside,' he said. 'But they
have been blocking ambulances entering to give treatment.' How
many injured he could not say.
'All that we hear is that there may be between 50 and 100
people trapped with Arafat inside the building, without food, or
water or any electricity and no telephone communication.' He
shook his head and walked away.
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