Beit Hanina, Palestine 6 June 2002
After its invasion of the town of Jenin yesterday afternoon, the Israeli army has invaded Ramallah at 2:15 am this morning. Israeli tanks have entered and surrounded the headquarters of Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and are bombarding the headquarters with tank shells and heavy artillery. A fire has broken out within the compound. In addition to the deployment of tanks, the Israeli army is flying F16 jets over the city.
So far two people have been killed and six seriously injured. A civilian driving nearby the headquarters was killed when Israeli soldiers shelled his car with tank fire. Another person died from his injuries sustained by Israeli gunfire at the headquarters.
The Israeli army is preventing ambulances access to the injured inside the headquarters and an ambulance that is already inside the headquarters is not being allowed to get the injured to hospital, effectively leaving the people inside to bleed to death.
The Israeli government must not be allowed to deny access of medical services to injured persons. We fear that the atrocities of the last Israeli invasion will be committed once again.
This is a grave and extremely dangerous situation where the Israeli army has carte blanche to carry out Sharon’s pre-determined plan of full occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is not only an attack on President Arafat but on all of the Palestinian people and their elected leadership.
