Just sick over the death and destruction of a civilian society. Sharon's War on Terrorism has been a war on the entire Palestinian people. No other entries today. Everything else pales into insignifigance next to this atrocity.

In Israelis' wake, untold destruction

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent Israeli forces into the West Bank to "uproot the infrastructure of terror." Since then, the uprooting inflicted by his tanks, bulldozers, helicopters and sappers has created a landscape of devastation from Bethlehem to Jenin.

The images are indelible: piles of concrete and twisted metal in the ancient casbah of Nablus, husks of savaged computers littering ministries in Ramallah, rows of storefronts sheared by passing tanks in Tulkarm, broken pipes gushing precious water, flattened cars in fields of shattered glass and garbage, electricity poles snapped like twigs, tilting walls where homes used to stand, gaping holes where rockets pierced office buildings.

On Wednesday, the day after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed going house to house in the crowded refugee camp of Jenin, the D-9 bulldozer was sent in instead, erasing whole stretches of tightly packed concrete houses.

There is no way to assess the full extent of the latest damage to the cities and towns - Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarm,Qalqilya, Nablus and Jenin - while they remain under a tight siege, with patrols and snipers firing in the streets.

But it safe to say that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian state - roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines - has been devastated.
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thanks to Cursor

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Refugees flee camp with reports of Israeli abuses

An exodus was under way yesterday from the refugee camp that endured the bloodiest battle of Israel's military offensive, with Palestinians bearing horrifying accounts of a systematic campaign of destruction and abuse.

Hundreds of Palestinians fled the camp yesterday, an empty, smoking ruin resounding to bursts of Israeli machine gun fire. They left behind entire neighbourhoods flattened to make way for Israeli armour.

Some of the wrecking missions were launched while women and children were inside their homes. The operation began with rocketing from helicopter gunships and bulldozers moved in to finish the job.

They also told of the use of human shields for Israeli army patrols, and the random strafing of heavily populated civilian areas, killing elderly women and young boys and girls.

Those fleeing were dirty, exhausted and desperately hungry. Doctors in Jenin say 15 babies were sick after their mothers fed them powdered milk and sewage run-off from streets where bodies were left to rot for days.
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World finally gets glimpse of refugee camp devastation

The Palestinians wrested this from a battle in which those detained tell horrific tales of their treatment by the Israelis. One told us he was forced to strip naked and act as a human shield, standing with an Israeli soldier behind him resting his gun on his shoulder. Another told us when he asked for a drink the soldiers forced a stick into his mouth. Then, he said, they brought him water that tasted of urine.

The shots were still echoing over the camp yesterday, even as Israeli forces claimed the battle was all but over. A few pockets of Palestinian fighters were holding out, though they had no chance of winning.

Rashid Hassan said: "I don't believe this is a victory for Israel, because a victory would mean they had achieved their goals and solved their problem once and for all. But I think the problem is going to start again for Israel. If they killed so many people, the next generation will fight even harder."
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Jenin refugees tell of killings and destruction

Construction worker Mohammed Yousef, 40, was clearly a broken man, devastated like the rest of this Palestinian city.

He wandered yesterday into the Al-Razi Hospital, where he begged for food and blankets. Israeli troops blew up his house in the Jenin refugee camp after searching it and forcing his family out, he said.

When asked where his wife and seven children will live now, he could barely muster a flat, "God knows."
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Eight bullets, and a family is devastated

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Letter From Israel
Israel – A Suicide Bomber?
by Ran HaCohen

Palestinian suicide attacks have been singled out, overemphasised and isolated from their context in Israel's 35- year occupation of the Palestinian territories, the proper infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism. (...)

The Talmud reminds us that people often accuse others of their own faults. Is this the case with Israel as well? Can Israel be seen as a suicide bomber? Well, the latter part of the term obviously holds true: reports of Israeli bulldozers digging mass graves in Jenin have not been confirmed yet, but the enormous scale of Israeli bombing in occupied territories hardly needs this evidence. During the British Mandate in Palestine (1917-1948), the Royal Army considered bombing Jenin from the air, but dropped the idea for humanitarian reasons; the Israeli army has now used F-16 jets, helicopters and airborne missiles against this city, while destroying dozens of houses as well as the entire water, sewage and electricity infrastructure by tanks and bulldozers. (...)

Bombing Occupation Soldiers is LAWFUL

When acting against soldiers, the suicide bomber has international law on his side. Yes: international legislation acknowledges the right of occupied people to use force against their oppressors, both inside the occupied territories and outside them. Based upon the principles of the Hague International Convention of 1907 and confirmed in the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II, this determination was essential to forestall Nazi claims that partisans, Ghetto fighters, and other underground resistance forces in the territories occupied by Germany had allegedly been "terrorists". In the Nuremberg Tribunal it was unequivocally set down that resistance fighters, including those who had struggled within Germany itself, acted in accordance with the regulations of international law.

A fact actually unheard of in the media.
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