'Afaf 'Ali Hassan al-Desuqi During the military operations in Jenin refugee camp, as elsewhere, the IDF has frequently used explosives to open doors of homes and buildings, sometimes without waiting to allow residents to open them, resulting in the death or injury of a number of women and men. On 5 April 'Afaf al-Desuqi, 59, was killed when an explosive was used on the door of her home as she went to open it. She had been called to open the door by her neighbour, Ismahan Abu Murad, who was used as a "human shield" by the IDF to lead the way to the house. Ismahan Abu Murad confirmed the account given by 'Afaf's sister, 'Aisha 'Ali Hassan al-Desuqi, who told Amnesty International: "My family was at home on Friday 5 April. It was about 3 or 3.15 in the afternoon. We heard the knocking and calling for us to open the door. My sister 'Afaf said 'Just a moment'. She said this right away. At that time, we were in the salon, which faces the street. 'Afaf left to answer the door; we were following her. When she reached the door, she had just put her hand out to touch the handle of the door and it exploded. The door exploded in on her and the right side of her face was blown off. Her left hand was injured as well as the left part of her chest. I think she must have died instantly. We started shouting. The soldiers were just outside that door. The IDF began to shoot at the walls as if to try and scare us. We yelled at them to get an ambulance but they did not answer us. My brother then went and took 'Afaf's body. We did not have a telephone; it had been cut off since 10am that morning. The neighbours phoned the hospital and they were told that the ambulance had to wait to get clearance. We waited but no ambulance came. "On Friday and Saturday, I kept putting perfume on her. On Sunday, we changed her clothes as they were covered in blood, and we bandaged her injuries. Because I am a nurse, I knew what it would be like to keep the body in the house with us for this time, so we went to stay with my brother to sleep at night and returned to the house to be with my sister in the day. On Thursday [11 April], the curfew was lifted for a few hours and 'Afaf's body was carried in a neighbour's car to al- Razi hospital. We could not reach Jenin City Hospital, as it was a controlled military zone. We buried 'Afaf in a cemetery in the east part of the city. "After her killing, the IDF tried to say 'Afaf was a suicide bomber and that she blew herself up. That is not true. Look at the door: it was blown from the outside. My sister was not political; she was not involved in anything." Amnesty International visited the site and was able to examine the door, as well as the explosive device, which the family had kept. The impression on the door clearly indicates that the door had been blown in from an explosion outside; this evidence is consistent with the testimony cited above. Jamal al-Sabbagh On 6 April 2002, 33-year-old Jamal al-Sabbagh was shot by the IDF after he had been taken into their custody. According to a witness, at the time Jamal al-Sabbagh was shot, he was unarmed and had posed no threat to the soldiers who had detained him. The day before Jamal al-Sabbagh's killing, a missile had destroyed his house. On 6 April Jamal al-Sabbagh, along with other men aged between 16 and 45 years from the camp, were instructed by an IDF loudspeaker to come into the streets. This occurred at approximately 6pm. At this time, 16-year-old Muzaffar Jamal Zubaidi, from the Hawashin district of the camp, was at home. He heard the loudspeaker instructing men in the district to go out into the street but he was alone and afraid. Soldiers were moving around on foot and in tanks. He told Amnesty International delegates that he waited beside his house and was looking to see if he recognised anyone going out into the street. When he saw his neighbour, Jamal al-Sabbagh, he left his house to walk with him. It was getting dark by this time. He said that soldiers had each man strip to their underwear and provide their details, including name and ID number. Jamal al-Sabbagh was carrying a sack with him and he explained that the soldiers allowed him to carry his medicine, as he was diabetic, and to keep his clothes on. The soldiers had instructed the men to walk to a square near the health clinic. Muzaffar Zubaidi and Jamal al-Sabbagh walked there together: "We were ordered to lie on the ground, we did. Jamal was just a short distance, a few metres or so, away from me. Jamal lay on the ground but held on to his bag. Then the soldiers told us to stand up and told Jamal to put his bag on the ground away from him. He put it just to the side of him. The soldiers then said for us to take off our trousers. I had begun to take off my trousers and I heard some shots. One of the bullets came very close to me. I fell to the ground. Jamal was shot in the side of the head. I could hear Jamal praying and then nothing. I stayed silent on the ground. I think the shot came from a sniper in a third floor window. A short time after, I am not sure how long, another group of men came into the square. The soldiers ordered them to strip to their underwear. Together with these men, I went into a room and the soldiers tied most of our hands behind our backs. There were three men whose hands were not tied. They carried his body to the entrance of the door and the soldiers told them to search him. They searched him but they did not find anything. The IDF then put his body in a fridge - it was a dairy store that the IDF had taken over." Muzaffar Zubaidi returned to Jenin after two days in detention and 11 days in Rumaneh village. He contacted Jamal al-Sabbaghs relatives, but he could not find his body. The Director of Jenin City Hospital, Dr Mohammad Abu Ghali said: "At 5pm on 15 April we found the remains of a body, mutilated by a tank, by the dairy store - a finger, some pieces of flesh, a pair of trousers beside the traces of the body of a human being. I called the IDF over and said 'Where is the body?' They did not say anything." The remains of the body, which had been run over several times by a tank, are believed to be Jamal al-Sabbagh. 'Abd al-Karim Yusuf Sa'adi and Wadah Fathi Shalabi On 6 April 2002, 27-year-old 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi and 37-year-old Wadah Shalabi were shot dead by the IDF in an alleyway close to the Sa'adi home. The two men were neighbours who lived near the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp. At the time of their killing, the two men were with Wadah Shalabis father, Fathi Shalabi, who managed to escape uninjured. He described the events of that day: "My son Wadah has six children four boys and two girls. The oldest child is 10 years old and the youngest is four months. It was 6 April at about 6.30pm. The IDF had gone to the house of Yusuf 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi. He lives not far from my house, maybe 15 metres. Yusuf's son, 'Abd al-Karim was at my house at the time. The IDF then moved from this house to my neighbour's house. My son, Wadah, does not normally stay with us but because of the situation, he had come to stay here with his family. Myself, my wife, my son and his family and my daughter and her family were all here with me. The IDF ... saw my children playing in my backyard and told them to go to the basement of my house. We all went to the basement, there were 17 of us, and we were there for about five minutes. We were then told to go next door but instead of letting us pass through the main entry, they made us walk along the street and then approach my neighbour's house through an alley. When we reached the end of the alley, the soldiers separated the men from the women and children. Both my son and 'Abd al-Karim were holding children. They handed the children to the women and remained in the alley. The women and children went to a back garden of 'Abd al-Karim's house, which was located through a metal door off the alleyway. When the women and children were in the garden, the soldier closed the door. Some of the soldiers went with the women and three stayed with us; they were only two metres away in the narrow alley. Two were called Gabi and David. .... They told us to lift our shirts. "We did not have anything in our hands. When they told us to raise our shirts, we did. I heard Gaby say in Hebrew 'Kill them, kill them', then the other soldier took his gun and sprayed us with bullets. He shot from left to right, so 'Abd al-Karim was hit first and then Wadah. I don't know how I wasn't shot except that when I heard the shots, I fell to the ground. My son's body was resting on mine. I could feel something wet underneath and I could see it was blood. I could see that my son was shot. I kept very quiet and pretended to be dead". According to Fathi Shalabi, the soldiers remained there for over one hour. They checked the bodies from time to time and one had shone a light near his eyes. He tried to remain still. After he was sure that the soldiers were gone, he went and hid in his home. He knew both his son and 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi were dead. He stayed at home until later that morning and then left to the Sa'adi home where his family was sheltering. The bodies of the two men remained in the alley for nine days (the hospital record shows that they were brought in on 15 April). Amnesty International visited the site of the shooting. There was under two metres distance between the position of the soldiers and that of the victims. At the time the shootings would have occurred, it would have been early evening, but would not yet have been dark. It has been suggested that 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi was wearing a back-brace and the soldiers might have mistaken it for an explosive belt; however, the brother and father of 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi insisted that he did not wear a back-brace. Professor Derrick Pounder carried out an autopsy on the body of Wadah Shalabi and concluded that he died from a shot into the left back and out of the right front. Wadah Shalabi was also shot in the foot. Major-General Giora Eiland, the Head of the IDF Plans and Policy Directorate, described this case as one where IDF soldiers found three men hiding, one with a suicide bomb belt. He said: "There was one time when a company commander called on people to come out. Some women came out. The soldiers asked them if there were other people in the house. 'Some visitors', they replied. 'Tell them to get out'. Three men got out; one held a baby. The IDF officer told him to give the baby to the women, he refused, the officer insisted, eventually he did so. Then they told the men to come closer and take off their shirts. Two took off shirts, one refused. Eventually he did and had a belt. He was shot." This explanation of the case is difficult to reconcile with the location of the bodies, in such a narrow alley way that it would have been unlikely for a soldier, only 1.7 metres away, to order detainees to come any closer. This is a case which has been widely reported, and the first names of two of the soldiers involved in the shooting are known. It remains unclear why a full and public investigation to establish the circumstances of death has not been carried out ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~