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Aftermath of the Beit Hanoun Siege and Massacre
Dr. Bill Dienst writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 26 November 2006

This narrative and photostory by Dr. Bill Dienst are based on an interview with Dr. Mona El-Farra, from the Union of Health Workers Committee in Gaza City and a visit to Beit Hanoun with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) on 16 November 2006.

We saw widespread devastation as we drove into Beit Hanoun. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Introduction

Between the 2nd and 8th of November 2006, the town of Beit Hanoun (population 28,000) was under a siege and blockade by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Beit Hanoun is located in the northern Gaza Strip, immediately south of the Apartheid Wall around Gaza and Erez Crossing with Israel.

The besieged residents of Beit Hanoun suffered widespread collective punishment, such as a cut off of electricity and water. House to house searches were conducted, and males over the age of 16 years were summarily rounded up, imprisoned and interrogated. Many families were forced to huddle into rooms away from windows because Israeli snipers were on the rooftops killing people.

A group of 150 unarmed women performed a nonviolent protest in an effort to free their men, who were imprisoned inside the mosque. Two of these women were shot dead, and 20 were injured.

The adverse health effects on the people of Beit Hanoun were numerous. Chronic conditions, like diabetes and asthma, had to be left without treatment during the siege. Casualties were not permitted to be evacuated to Al Awda hospital in the nearby larger town of Jabalya, except with careful coordination with the IOF. Several trauma victims who could have been saved died due to delays in evacuation.

Mr. Hamad, for example, bled to death after waiting two hours to evacuate. Medical rescue workers were also under fire.

Mass casualties arrived at Al Awda hospital in Jabalya (population 50,000). Doctors there have witnessed unusual traumas that do not fit previous patterns. For example, extensive internal burns, amputated limps with cauterized stubs, unusual shrapnel traumas, lacerations with contracted skin not amendable to suturing, etc. There were also cases of patients who initially seemed to have minor injuries, which subsequently failed to heal, and some of these patients died later.

The Israeli military has admitted it is using a new type of weapon, but will not specify the nature of the agent. It is probably some sort of chemical weapon. Sophisticated international forensic investigation is needed to clarify the nature of this agent that is being used.

On 8 November 2006, the IOF ended the siege as a result of mounting international and UN pressure and pulled out. People throughout Beit Hanoun went to bed that night thinking they would finally be able to rest after six days of a horrible siege.

Unfortunately, on the morning of 9 November 2006 at approximately 0430, an apartment building, which housed about 120 people, was directly shelled multiple times by the Israeli military.

According to Majdi El-Athamina, a surviving member of the family who is in his forties, 20 have now died as a result of this shelling. Sixteen died in the apartment ruins where we are standing, and four died out in the street. Four of these were his immediate relatives, his three brothers and one of his sons. The deaths include 14 more extended relatives and two of his neighbors.

Forty-five have been injured, and 32 are still hospitalized as of 16 November 2006. These injuries are a direct result of physical trauma sustained during the shelling of this apartment.

Mr. El-Athamina was asleep in his bedroom when the shelling started. He says the apartment was shelled directly about 13 to 15 times continuously over a period of less than 10 minutes. He states that the first shell hit the stairwell to make it difficult for people to evacuate the building. He tells me that three of his brothers were killed, his nine-year-old son, Sa'ad, was killed, and his wife and another son were seriously injured. By the will of God, he says, he was left unharmed.

The Israeli military is claiming that the attack on this Beit Hanoun apartment was accidental; that it somehow had to do with a malfunction of one of the computer chips that was setting the coordinates for the attack. Majdi El-Athamina tells me he is certain the attacks were deliberate. Israeli snipers were in his apartment, and up on the rooftop for several days during the siege and before the attack. He says they knew exactly what they were shelling as a result. "Why did they target you?" I ask. "Ask Mr. Olmert!" is his response.

According to Dr. Mona El-Farra, a Union of Health Care Workers physician at Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalya, mass casualties started arriving at her hospital at 0530. It was utter chaos. Two rescue workers were hit and killed trying to rescue the injured. Al Awda hospital received 12 dead from the El-Athamina family, with only one three-year-old female survivor, Dina, who is still being treated for serious injuries.

Eighty-five Palestinian people have been killed in Beit Hanoun as a direct result of this siege and its aftermath. A further 118 have been killed by the IOF in the West Bank and Gaza so far in November 2006, and most are civilians. A photostory, showing the effects of the aftermath, photographed by me on 16 November 2006 now follows:

The secondary school in Beit Hanoun sustained extreme damage from tanks, shelling and bulldozers.(Dr. Bill Dienst)

Here is a zoom lens view of the spy blimp. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The mosque in the center of Beit Hanoun that was destroyed in a calculated and mockingly cruel humiliating manner, leaving only its minaret standing. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The mosque in the center of Beit Hanoun that was destroyed in a calculated and mockingly cruel humiliating manner, leaving only its minaret standing. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Near the mosque is a cemetery which suffered extensive grave desecration. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Near the mosque is a cemetery which suffered extensive grave desecration. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The Israeli Blimp with spy camera located over the border at Eretz Crossing keeps a close watch over the people of Beit Hanoun. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The stairwell of the apartment, which was hit first from the south, in order to impede evacuation from the apartment. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Majdi El-Athamina inside one of the apartments with damage from shells which were fired from the south. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Majdi with surviving members of his extended family having a meal inside the ruins of their devastated apartment. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Inside an apartment on the top floor, which took a mortar through the roof. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

View from the rooftop looking Southeast toward the center of Beit Hanoun. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

View from the rooftop toward the Southwest. Note the tank tracks. Tanks were present immediately outside the apartment for several days during the siege. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

View to the Northwest from the rooftop. The smokestack from the coal fired power plant south of the Israeli town of Ashkalon and the Apartheid wall around Gaza can be seen on the horizon. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The stairwell of the apartment, which was hit first from the south, in order to impede evacuation from the apartment. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

We see widespread devastation as we drive into Beit Hanoun. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

We see widespread devastation as we drive into Beit Hanoun. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Dr. Bill Dienst is a rural family and emergency room physician from Omak, Washington, USA.

Slaughter in the Town of Al Yamoun
Dr. Bill Dienst writing from Al Yamoun, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 17 November 2006

12 November 2006 in Al Yamoun, (population 22,000) about 7 km west by northwest of Jenin

Al-Labadi neighborhood of Al-Yamoun (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Today we are taking direct testimony from victims and witnesses of two separate killing incidents by Israeli Occupation Forces which have recently occurred here in Al Yamoun during the past 16 days. The first one was on 27 October 2006 and the second one was on 7 November 2006.

We are in the home of the Hasan Abu Hasan family. On 27 October 2006, during the period of Eid Al Fitr, the celebratory period at the end of Ramadan, Mohammed, age 38, was up on the roof here at his home. He was with his brother, Ra-ef, age 19 hanging laundry to dry before sunrise at approximately 3:30 am. He and his brothers were preparing to go to the mosque for Al Fajr, which is the first Morning Prayer, and a very important occasion during the Eid.

Mohammed Hasan Abu Hasan, age 38, who was shot through the chest by an Israeli sniper on 27 October 2006. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Suddenly, he saw a red laser beam coming from the hill to the east from between ¢ to 1 km away; and it was on him. Ra-ef quickly shouted and Mohammed turned to the left. The bullet entered his left lung just lateral to his heart and aorta, and exited through his lateral chest wall. Had he not reacted, he probably would have been struck in his heart and or aorta and killed immediately. Ra-ef was then shot through the left wrist. The bullet entered his wrist distally between the ulna and radius, and exited through his palm. The brothers had been hit by an Israeli sniper, firing at them for no particularly good reason from the opposite hill using a sophisticated laser guidance rifle...and probably with night-vision and telescope.

Their friend Ziad, who has lost many friends this way, tells me later that this happens frequently. These commando-snipers behave like trophy hunters, and they are promoted by their superiors based on how many Arabs they kill.

This is the alley outside the clinic where Ahmed bled to death from multiple gunshot wounds while he was trying to summon an ambulance to tend to his wounded brothers. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The two brothers screamed for their brother Ahmed, who ran up the street about 100 meters from their home to try and summon an ambulance at the local health clinic. Ahmed was gunned down gangland execution style while running toward the clinic; his body was riddled with multiple bullets. No ambulance arrived, so the 2 surviving brothers were taken quickly by a private vehicle to Al Yamoun hospital. Ra-ef was treated with a short arm cast and sling.

Ra-ef' Hasan Abu Hasan's (age 19) injuries 16 days after the attack. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

He is currently suffering 16 days after the injury with numbness and weakness of his dorsal left thumb and volar fifth finger, consistent with injuries to his left radial and ulnar nerves. He will probably have some degree of permanent disability to his left non-dominant hand. It will take months before he will know how much hand function he will be able to regain.

Mohammed's injuries 16 days after being shot, and after the chest tube has been removed. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Mohammed says that he suffered extreme pain and shortness of breath from the gunshot wound to his chest. He feared he was dying. At Al Yamoun hospital, he was treated with a chest tube to re-inflate his collapsed left lung (pneumo-hemothorax). He spent 4 days in the hospital until the chest tube could be pulled, and then he was released.

The clinic near where Ahmed Hasan Abu Hasan died outside in the alley on 27 October 2006. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Their dead brother Ahmed had only been married for 40 days. His wife is now pregnant with their first child. Their family and friends continue to suffer extreme sorrow and grief.

Bullet ridden door to the bakery. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

We also travel to the Al Labadi neighborhood of Al Yamoun to talk directly with two eyewitnesses, who were near the bread bakery at about 1: 30 am on 7 November 2006. This is where 5 men were killed by a team of Israeli commandos five days ago. Here, people are still afraid and are unwilling to give me their names or be photographed.

Inside the bakery; this is where Eyewitness 1 was situated at the time of the attack. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Witness 1 was inside the bakery where he is employed. He noted a group of several young men (i.e. Shebbab in the local Palestinian dialect) were outside on the street talking with someone in a car. Suddenly, the bakery was riddled with gunfire and grenade explosions outside the bakery. Witness 1 dove for cover. "Bullets were hitting like rain," he says.

The barbershop across from the bakery to the south also suffered considerable damage. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Witness 2 says the Shebbab scattered, but 5 were hit. Most were killed immediately; but one man was shot in the leg and tried to escape up the road to the south. He sought refugee about 150 meters away inside a home. We can still follow the 5 day old trail of blood on the pavement which leads right up to the home. The commandos busted through the door. They shot and killed him right in front of a mother and her teenage daughter, right in the foyer of their home.

Trail of blood leading to the home where a victim initially shot through the leg tried to seek refuge. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

Three of the men were wanted by the IOF because of their resistance activities previously. But both witnesses state emphatically that none of the men were armed at the time of the attack.

Damage from large explosive devices. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The witnesses both say that they knew right away that it was Israeli commandos due to the characteristic sound of the automatic weapons that were fired. These men have all heard these sounds before in previous incidents.

Martyrdom (Shaheedin) poster honoring those who died during the 7 November 2006 attack. (Dr. Bill Dienst)

The martyrdom (Shaheed) poster is now seen in windows and walls all over the neighborhood. It shows the dead men as armed fighters, but the locals tell me that this is simply done at the computer lab where their faces are posted on the bodies of armed resistance fighters to achieve the maximum martyrdom effect and instill patriotic feelings among the local citizens of Al Yamoun.


Dr. Bill Dienst is a rural family and emergency room physician from Omak, Washington, USA.

SETTLERS CHASE FAMILIES OFF THEIR LAND WHILE SOLDIERS STAND BY AZMUT, 4th of November 2006. Today farmers from Azmut village north of Nablus were attacked in their land by a group of young settlers, accompanied by two soldiers. They ran after the families, shouted and threw stones at them. At one point they hit an international volunteer. The settlers, aged around eight to eighteen, came from the settlement Elon More two kilometres from the village. This year's olive harvest has been difficult for Azmut. It's the third time this week that the farmers were forced off their land. Five days ago when they were picking, a settler security guard stopped from a distance and threatened the families from a megaphone to make them leave. Yesterday, a group of settlers chased the farmers off from a distance. The farmers, wise from the violent experience and facts of Elon More, didn't want to risk any injuries and subsequently left. This morning the farmers had to begin their work with picking up all the olives that settlers had spread out on the floor the previous night. And they had only harvested for about forty minutes today when two soldiers came and told them that "there is no coordination today, but tomorrow you can pick". The international volunteers argued with the soldiers about the families' legal right to access their own land any day, but in the same time a mob of 25 dressed up settlers were making their way through the groves. The families didn't have time to bring their tools and sacks with olives with them, as the settlers approached quickly. Fathers and mothers had to stand the humiliation in front of their own children, being chased off their land by a group of stone throwing youngsters. Everybody knew that if the Palestinians would react in any other way than leaving their land, they would be punished by the soldiers. Some of the settlers run up at a very close distance to the families and a young man hit one of the international volunteers and aimed for another one with a camera. One international volunteer got hit in the arm by a stone. Elon More is one of the oldest settlements in the northern West Bank and has explicitly expressed their purpose: to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. The around 1200 inhabitants are famous for their religious and violent extremism and they have been involved in a number of serious attacks on Palestinian villages where Palestinians have been killed. The villages of Azmut are scared, but determined to go back to their land and finish their harvest. Tomorrow international volunteers will join them again in their rightful attempts.

Having been enveloped in the endless welcome that is this city, I've found it hard to find time to tell you all hi, that I love you and will be home soon. Inshallah. I did write an email retelling the tales of my bruises and tears, but I decided that they can wait. This city, which at the moment is crying from the heavens and has been trying to keep us off the olive groves...but harvesting is resistance!! my days have drifted into weeks, and into months...and this place has gone from a piece of land, to cities and villages, to families and people, who've giving me their stories, and I'm going to bring home, its these stories that have been keeping me going...and my new city love, she been seducing me with beautiful sunsets, rubbing them out with her call to prayers...nablus habiti! The rolling hills of the west bank from a distance are not that different from the hills of home, just they have olives and sunshine! but in there if you look past the smiles of the ever pleasing Palestinians, are the scares and dirty secrets of this occupation that no one is meant to see or complain about, and yet in spite of these dirty scares, and the tragedies that these hills have witnessed, the families always have a warm smile for me, always a joke or laugh and always invitation! Even when telling me their stories, watching me selfishly fight back the tears, they can always find a little bit of hope, their last, to give me, to make me feel like this fight is not over ...Ramadan is over and the city is quite at night again, the cold is setting in, making my 5.30am wake up calls even more painful...I never understood why the revolution couldn't happen after 10am! once you get to know this place its funny how you learn to know when something is out of place, like today, walking round the old city, I noticed a few things, which let me know that tonight might not be so quite...you count gunfire and explosions here at night, the sheep are too busy being look outs... ....I'm having the pleasure of spending this extended welcome with some amazing people, already too many I've had to say goodbye to, but we've all made promises to come back and free the land, and then to free the donkeys...donkeys have their part in the resistance, only the other day 2 donkeys broke free and ended up having sex on a settler(only!) road causing a traffic jam! Sex is revolution! ....Balata refugee camp is one of the most densely populated places in the west bank, if not the world...30,000 people in one square Km! The children of balata are desperate to have that imaginary friend take them away, somewhere safe, somewhere the army don't shoot at them where their brothers done die in the dark, their homes are safe and their bodies aren't prisons ...the imaginary friends of balata. This city in a city is a heartbreaker. you cant live with her, but you cant escape her endless maze of ally ways and sorrow... this project is something I really hope to support when I get back its a ray of light out of the camp.. http://www.picturebalata.net I'm off to bed, settlers and soldiers and olives, these are a few of my favourite things... I'm back on the 12th... Love and Peace. Hannah.xx

23 September 2006

Day One: Arrival in Tel Aviv

By Bill Dienst MD

Good morning. It is almost 2 am. KLM flight 461 from Amsterdam approaches from the West over the Mediterranean Sea and directly over downtown Tel Aviv. The tires of our aircraft’s wheels screech slightly as we touch down on the tarmac at Ben Gurion airport. The passengers give our pilot a polite applause.

As we disembark, we enter the shiny new airport terminal. We walk down the long marble hallways and then down the ramp towards security/passport control. I feel nervousness swelling up within my chest. I try to meditate and think of something else, as I wait my turn to talk with the customs officer. I am dressed in my best “University Professor” outfit: slacks, open collar and sweater, complete with reading glasses hanging down off the end of my nose. As I get closer, I try to get my story straight within my head.

My main reason for being here in Israel/Palestine again for the fourth time is to do free lance photo-journalism and further document widespread human rights abuses that Israel commits every day against Palestinian Arab people in the West Bank and Gaza; the Israeli government is trying to slowly suffocate them, and steal their land, making life so miserable that they will leave.

I can’t tell the Israeli security officer about my real reasons for coming here; for if I do, I will be detained. My passport will be stamped “Entry Denied,” and I will be placed on the very next flight back to Amsterdam. More and more now, peaceful human rights activists are suffering this fate. Palestinian Americans are being denied entry all the time. Israel, and it’s supporters in the United States try to control the information flow. Israel does not want the world, and especially the American taxpayers who finance the Jewish state, to know the ugly truths.

So for me, now, it is like playing poker. I could go for the partial bluff and tell them that I will be visiting the West Bank city of Ramallah, and the Palestine Medical Relief Society. This is true, but not the full story. This approach might open up other doors of inquiry that I don’t want to open. I may then be just enough above the radar screen to invite the second round of questioning and interrogation, which might just get me into deeper doo-doo. If they Google me, and find out what I have written, photographed and posted on internet websites based on previous trips, then I may be fucked.

Now it is my turn. A beautiful young Israeli security officer beckons me. I make direct eye contact and smile as I approach. I decide to go for the full bluff.

“Why are you coming to Israel now, and how long are you planning to stay? Are you traveling alone? And who will you visit?”

“I am coming to Tel Aviv and the Galilee. I am traveling alone.” I mention the names of a few Israeli doctors that we met when I was here as part of a physician’s delegation a year and a half ago, and claim that I will be visiting them. I say nothing about the West Bank and Gaza. She buys this explanation, gives me my tourist VISA, and I am in. WHEW!! I wipe the bead of sweat from my forehead, and head for baggage claim.

I then let my guard down, and stupidly fall for the tactics of the first taxi driver who approaches me. To make a longer embarrassing story shorter, I end up getting ripped off for 320 shekels (about $75), for the short taxi ride from the airport to my hotel near the Tel Aviv beachfront.

When I get there, I realize I made another tactical blunder. Yes, I have a reservation, but it is for later today. It is now 3 am, but I can’t check in until noon, at the earliest. I leave my bags at the hotel, and wind up walking the main streets of Tel Aviv waiting for the sun to rise. I walk Ben Yehuda and Dizengoff Streets.

On Allenby Street, I find an all-night Bohemian Pub playing progressive Jazz and electric Blues from their digital jukebox. This is just my kind of place. I meet a man named “Dudi” and his friends, we share a few beers, and at their invitation, step outside to share a smoke of some of their local splevage, which comes to Israel from Egypt, and Lebanon via Jordan, from Bedouin tribesmen, who do a lucrative business.

These folks that I am partying with seem just like my kind of people. They would fit right in at a one of our hippie music fests in Seattle, or at the Barter faire in Tonasket.

They are longhairs. Their politics must be progressive. I take a calculated risk, and start asking them about their situation with the Palestinians. “They Palestinians get just what they deserve,” is one response. When the discussion starts getting more heated, we agree not to talk any more politics for now.

I leave the bar, and as the sun starts to rise, I walk down to the beach, past the heavily fortified US embassy which is immediately next to “Mikes Place,” another pub catering to expatriate American and British tourists. This was the site of a horrific suicide bombing in 2002. None of the reports that I saw on CNN mentioned that it was right next to the US embassy. I wonder if the person who did this was trying to send a message that American media doesn’t want us to hear.

The beach in Tel Aviv is beautiful, and the sand is perfect. The old Arab city of Jaffa can be seen just across the water to the Southwest. I drink coffee and try to stay awake for just a little longer. I check into my room, at noon, the moment it opens, and sleep away the better part of a beautiful Tel Aviv afternoon.