'Ali Na'el Salim Muqasqas

Professor Derrick Pounder conducted an autopsy on the body of a 52-year-old
man, later identified as 'Ali Na'el Salim Muqasqas, in Jenin City Hospital on
17 April 2002. The autopsy disclosed a single fatal gunshot wound to the
right chest and heart which would have caused rapid death.

Hassan, the son of 'Ali Muqasqas, said:

"It was Saturday 6 April. We were all in a bedroom. There were nine persons
four children, one young woman and four men, including my father and myself.
There was shooting coming from the Israelis. I knew it was from the IDF, as
it sounds different than from the resistance. On the first day of the
invasion, a sniper had hit our water tank, so we stored some water under the
stairs just outside. At about 12.30pm on that day, my father went out to get
some water for the family. My father knew where he could walk, as we had seen
the sniper before and had been shot at before. We knew the sniper's range and
so my father knew to stay in certain areas or hurry through certain areas or
he would be shot.

On that day, my father ran through the first zone, the first area of danger.
I then heard 2 shots. I heard my father's voice saying that he was injured. I
went outside to try and reach my father but there was shooting towards me. I
could not reach him. I tried to speak with him, but he did not reply. The
stairs were about 20 metres from the room we were staying in. I tried to call
my neighbour to see if he could get to my father by a different way, maybe to
climb over the wall. My neighbour, Abu Khaled, told me that he could not go
over the wall, he was too old. He then came and was pounding on the door. He
was pounding so hard, that I just ran to open the door. At that time there
was a helicopter flying overhead and sniper fire. Shooting began and Abu
Khaled was shot in the chest. It wasn't a deep wound; it was as if the bullet
had scratched him. I now had two problems.

"I brought my neighbour into the back room and we tried to give him first
aid. After Abu Khaled was shot, I realised that the sniper was not in the
usual place. I looked out of the back window from the room we were in and saw
movement in the house across the way. I knew then that the IDF were in that
house, as most of our neighbours had left the area. I am the eldest son and
it was my decision then and I decided to take my family out of the house, it
was too dangerous.

At the time we left, we still had hope that my father was alive. We kept
calling to him, 'Father, father,' but there was no reply. We broke a window
in the backroom and climbed through. This led to an alleyway and to my
uncle's house, which is just close by. We stayed in this house until after
the invasion. From this window we would call out to our father. It was too
dangerous to go back, but we would try to speak with him and to see if there
was any sign of life. We were unable to reach him until the Red Cross and
some doctors came and retrieved his body on 15 April. He was dead."
The autopsy findings are consistent with the family's account of his killing.


Jamal Fayed

It is clear that people were not always given sufficient time to evacuate
homes before the IDF began bulldozing them. In one such case, Jamal Fayed, a
38-year-old man, was killed when the bulldozing of his home caused a wall of
his house to collapse on him.

Jamal Fayed's mother, Fathiya Muhammad Sulayman Shalabi, told Amnesty
International delegates that her son was disabled from birth. He was unable
to move on his own accord and he could not speak. The family's home is in the
Jurrat al-Dahab area of the camp, close to the Hawashin district. She
described heavy fighting in and around her area on 10 April, roughly one week
after the first incursion to the camp. She said that on the following day, a
missile hit their house and the upper floors of the house had begun to burn.
When they tried to leave the house, her aunt Fawziya Muhammad was hurt. The
family then climbed out through a side window but was unable to carry Jamal
Fayed with them. When they left the house, they informed the IDF, who had
taken up position in a house nearby, that Jamal Fayed was in the house and
they should hold their fire. An IDF medic was there and treated Fawziya
Muhammad's wound. The family then sought shelter in an uncle's house where
they remained for the evening.

The following day, Jamal's mother and sister went back to their home to check
on Jamal. At that point Jamal was alive and had not been injured. His mother
says:
"We left the house and went to the soldiers to tell them that Jamal was in
the house and that he was paralyzed. I took his ID card with me as proof. We
asked them to let us have some help to get him moved. At this time, all of
the younger men had been arrested but there were some elderly men there and
we asked the soldiers if they could help us. They said no. But we kept asking
and then found some other soldiers in another house and asked them the same
question. They finally let us enter our home, but only the women. There were
five of us - my daughter, sister, two neighbours, and myself.

Soon after we entered the house, I heard the sound of a bulldozer. It was
coming towards the house. It began to destroy the house and so we went out to
the street and yelled at him [the driver] to stop. We were yelling, 'There
are women inside' and that Jamal was inside and could not move. Even the IDF
were yelling at him to stop. He did not listen. We could see the eastern wall
of the house coming down. We ran out of the house. What could we do?"
When Amnesty International delegates first visited the site three weeks after
the incident, Jamal Fayed's mother was sitting in despair on the rubble of
her demolished house.

Ahmad and Jamil Yusuf Ghazawi

On 21 June 2002, two months after Operation Defensive Shield, during the
first days of Operation Determined Path and the IDF reoccupation of the West
Bank, the IDF shot from a tank at Dr Samer al-Ahmad, and killed two brothers,
six-year-old Ahmad and 12-year-old Jamil Yusuf Ghazawi, seriously wounding
their brother, Tareq, and Dr al-Ahmad.

Following an IDF announcement that the curfew was lifted, six-year-old Ahmad
Ghazawi took a shekel from his father to buy candy. He went with his brothers
Jamil, aged 12, and Tareq, aged 11. The area where the family lives is a
residential area on the edge of Jenin city, in Area C (under full Israeli
control). Part of the incident was caught on video by a neighbour on a
rooftop. The film showed Dr Samer al-Ahmad's car and seven children (aged
between six and 12) four of them riding about on bicycles. There was no sound
of firing, but suddenly there was a red flash and a blast. Ahmad was dead
with one leg severed and the other almost severed, Jamil was covered in cuts
and blood and Tareq lay near an electricity pole with a hole in his side and
stomach.

Dr Samer al-Ahmad, aged 40, a veterinary doctor and Director of the
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees for the Jenin district, said that
after the IDF announced the lifting the curfew from 10am to 2pm, he went by
car to his office to collect faxes and then went to a local shop, where he
was told that the army was about and he should go home. The shop was 200
metres from his home. As he drove into the main road he saw a tank moving
down the road which fired at him, wounding him through the back windscreen.
He quickly turned off the road down the first side-street where he saw a
group of children playing, some on bicycles. The tank shot again, a tank
round which apparently fragmented off the wall.

One of the boys, Rami, aged 12, said:

"I heard that the curfew had been lifted. When I heard this, I went out and
joined my friends, Jamil, Tareq, Ahmad, Muhammad, Wa'el and Wissam. We all
headed off to the main street. Jamil, Tareq, Ahmad and Wa'el were on their
bikes and the rest of us were on foot. When we reached the intersection with
the main street, we saw IDF jeeps by the square and became afraid. We headed
back toward home, and stopped and stood to the side of a building on our
street when we heard the sound of a tank go by. We then saw another tank
about 300 metres from us, so we left the building and began to hurry back
home. Jamil was telling Ahmad and Tareq to leave quickly as there were tanks.


The tank was now at the end of the street and then I saw Dr. Samer's car
coming toward us. He was blowing the horn to warn us to get out of the way.
The next thing I remember is a red light and then an explosion.

"I moved toward the side when I heard the bomb. After that I came back
towards the street and first saw Ahmad. He did not have a left leg and his
stomach was on the road. I saw Jamil: he was injured in his back and was
shaking his hands. He opened his eyes for a minute and then closed them.
Tareq was near an electric pole, we found him last. One of his legs had a
hole in it and pieces of the bomb were in his stomach, his ear and his back.

"Dr. Samer stopped his car in front of our house and was walking towards our
garage. When he got out of the car, the neighbours told him to come inside,
he then collapsed. Our neighbour Yazid carried him. Dr. Samer had no shoes
and he was dressed in a T-shirt and trousers."

Ahmad died in the road, Jamil died in hospital. The tank moved on, not
waiting to see the destruction. People in the neighbourhood say that they
were informed that the curfew had been lifted. The IDF dispute this and say
the curfew at the time of the shooting was still in place. Amnesty
International delegates interviewed witnesses of the shooting and reviewed
the videotape which captured the incident: it is clear that the IDF did not
meet two primary obligations - to protect the civilian population and to use
force that is proportional to the perceived threat. The IDF said that it
would investigate the killings, but the results of the investigation are not
yet known; none of the witnesses have been summoned to provide their
testimonies, including Dr Samer al-Ahmad, who stayed nine days in an Israeli
hospital.

On the same day as Jamil and Ahmad were killed a girl, Sujud Fahmawi, was
killed, apparently also after she had left the house believing that the
curfew was lifted. On 26 June, the day Amnesty International interviewed the
Ghazawi family in Jenin, IDF soldiers shot and killed a seven-year-old child
in Jenin, apparently in similar circumstances.

TO BE CONTINUED

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