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Seven Palestinians killed and 53 wounded in latest Israeli assault

Palestinian Center for Human Rights 9 April 2003


Two Israeli combat helicopters, accompanied by an F-16 fighter jet, launched two missiles at a civilian car in a densely populated area of Gaza City. Two Palestinians, allegedly wanted by Israeli occupying forces, were traveling in the car. A number of Palestinian civilians gathered around the targeted car to rescue the victims, when the aircraft launched a third missile, killing 5 Palestinian civilians, including two children, and injuring dozens. 

Another assassination

Palestine Monitor 7 April 2003

Israeli troops yesterday raised the level of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian security sources, yesterday afternoon Israeli Special Forces, dressed in women’s clothes entered the Palestinian town of Salfeet. Upon reaching the center of town they opened fire on 23 year old Badr Abdel Raouf Yassin, killing him. 

Israeli Army Invades Tulkarem Refugee Camp

2 April 2003

In the small hours of this morning the Israeli Army and border police invaded Tulkarem refugee camp with attack helicopters, tanks, APCs, hummers (special forces vehicles) and hundreds of soldiers and border policemen. After taking control of the camp, they began to round up the camp’s entire male population between the ages of 15 and 45. At dawn the men were marched in groups to the Tulkarem refugee camp’s School for Girls where they were held until for varying periods of time before being taken away in trucks. This update offers detail about what ISM activists witnessed at the scene. 

Pro-Israeli lobby forges unholy alliance with the Christian right

Akiva Eldar 7 April 2003

“Evangelical Christians from South Carolina paid for the huge billboard on Israel’s Ayalon highway declaring ‘There’s no land for peace.’ TV evangelist Pat Robertson last week reprimanded Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, saying ‘Who do you think you are, handing Jerusalem over to Arafat?’ With Christian friends like these close to the president’s ear, the right-wing government in Israel does not need Jewish friends to rebuff political initiatives like the road map.” Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar charts the growing — and troubling — influence of Christian Evangelical Zionists in Washington, DC. 

First major ISM anti-bulldozer action since Rachel Corrie killing

Joseph Smith Rafah, Palestine 6 April 2003


“At about 5pm, we received a call from a Palestinian journalist friend of ours with information that bulldozers were working in the Tel Zorob area, the western-most refugee camp next to the Egyptian border. We were actually in the middle of a meeting, so within minutes all eleven of us were geared up and out the door. Five English, two Scottish, two Americans, and two Italians piled into a large taxi and headed to the scene.” Joseph Smith, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, based in Rafah, Gaza writes about the first major ISM action against bulldozers since his friend Rachel Corrie was killed on 16 March 2003. 

Brian Avery shooting: Annotated map from eyewitness Tobias Karlsson

Tobias Karlsson 7 April 2003


International Solidarity Movement activist Brian Avery was shot in the face with heavy machine gun fire in Jenin on 5 April 2003 by Israeli troops in an armored personnel carrier. Tobias Karlsson, International Solidarity Movement coordinator for the Jenin area, offered the following annotated map giving more information about the incident, thus highlighting the incredibility of the Israeli army’s claim that the shooting was a “crossfire”-type accident. 

What about the apartheid wall?

International Womens Peace Service Mas'ha, Palestine 7 April 2003

If you’ve ever sat in springtime in an olive grove, enjoying the shade of the trees and the scent of the fresh earth, perhaps you will understand what land can mean to people who depend on it. Go just once to Mas’ha, Bidya, Sanniria or one of the dozens of Palestinian villages that are losing most of their land to the Israeli Apartheid Wall and you will get an idea of what kind of pain Palestinians feel at this theft and destruction.