-Caveat Lector-
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=7910&contrassID==2&s\ubContrassID==5&sbSubContrassID==0&listSrc==Y&itemNo=7910
In the dark of night, with no witnesses
Ha'aretz, September 13, 2002
In the dark of night, with no witnesses A village mourns the death of four
young stonecutters, shot to death by soldiers, and wants revenge
By Ada Ushpiz
"A month ago you said that you want to be a shaheed [martyr], look," shouted
the father, kissing the face of his dead son, Ala'a Ayayda, 20, in the
clinic of the village of Bani Naim. "Yaba, yaba, may Allah have mercy on
him, leave me alone, let me cry, look, I'm calm, leave me alone," he pushed
away relatives who tried to calm him down.
The amateur video camera didn't stop focusing on Ala'a's father, who was
weeping bitterly, banging his head, refusing to believe what he was seeing.
Slowly it panned over the faces of the three other victims, lying on
stretchers, their bearded faces showing through the bandages that were meant
to cover the wounds of death and to close their open mouths. They were all
young laborers in a stonecutting plant in the quarry of the village of Bani
Naim, without any history of political or security activity, who were shot
to death last week by IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers.
The flickering pictures were effective in showing the hysterical despair of
relatives, circling around the stretchers, crying, waving their hands,
giving each other orders, washing the bloody faces of their dead, kissing
their lips, exposing bullet-ridden legs, congealed blood on their bellies,
congealed blood on their heads.
The amateur photographer, who documented the ceremony of purifying the
bodies and the funeral - another detail in the monument of the cumulative
national Palestinian memory - found it important to focus on close-ups of
the injuries: on the neck, the forehead, the belly, the legs, the left side
beneath the armpit; but the crowd standing around didn't always allow him to
do so. More than once, the camera focused on the arms and legs of the
corpses, tied up with white ribbons.
"We straightened them and tied them, so that the corpses wouldn't become
rigid in the distorted position in which we found them. We wanted to
preserve their shape," said the head of the village of Shuyoukh, Yussef
Hassan al- Halayka.
Green, red and black flags and Palestinian flags flew at the funeral,
testimony to the unity of all the movements, from Islamic Jihad to Fatah. A
group of children barely managed to lift a huge Hamas sign. Masses of people
approached the grave - a huge wave of anger, hatred and pain.
Nowhere were there any masked men shooting into the air, a sight that in the
past typified the funerals of intifada victims. The belligerent political
slogans were not heard, either. "Allahu akbar," shouted the crowd, "Ya
shaheed, beloved of God, rest, rest ya shaheed."
After the systematic assassination of the leadership of the movements and
their militias, the torch seems to have been passed on to rank and file
citizens. Quietly, empty-handed, they yearn for revenge. "The way I feel
now, I would kill a Jew every day. Revenge, that's the only thing I can
think about," wept one of the relatives, young, tall, strong, a graduate of
the Hebron Polytechnic College, a traditional supporter of Fatah.
Used to shooting at night
It happened at night, with no witnesses. The workers at the stonecutting
plant in Bani Naim had finished their work about 10 minutes earlier, at
about 2 A.M., and had gone to their homes in the village, says Ishaq al
Halayka, the only survivor of that night. Only he, his brother Atiyya and
their three friends, who live in the neighboring village of Shuyoukh, at a
distance of about 10 kilometers from Bani Naim, remained in the factory. One
of them, Hisham al Halayka, was on night shift, and was supposed to finished
his work at 6 A.M. The others planned to sleep until dawn in the tin shed in
the courtyard of the factory.
They used to do that every night, family members said. The residents of
Shuyoukh consider Bani Naim a very dangerous place. The village, which is
near the bypass road leading to Kiryat Arba, was in Area A, under full
Palestinian control, before the renewed occupation of the West Bank, whereas
Shuyoukh was in Area B, under Israeli security control.
Since the occupation, which has met armed local resistance, the village of
Bani Naim has suffered from a reinforced military presence. IDF patrols
protect the tomb of Calev Ben Yefuneh, state land that was sold to Menahem
Livni, a settler from Kiryat Arba and one of the leaders of the Jewish
terrorist underground that operated in the territories in the 1980s. This
Jewish enclave on the outskirts of the village, about half a kilometer from
the quarry, is a constant focus of defiance and unrest for the entire
village. In June a bomb placed there wounded three yeshiva students from
Kiryat Arba.
"The soldiers always shoot there at night," said Ishaq al- Halayka in a
quiet, hoarse voice, still stunned. He is 23 years old, with a mustache,
round red cheeks, a son of one of the poor families of Shuyoukh. "Once the
army closed the quarry for 15 days, because of problems with the Jewish plot
of land," he continued. "We were always afraid to return to our village at
night. It's a long way, on dirt roads in the hills, what will happen if
soldiers find us?" So they used to stay to sleep in the factory and to
return home in Husam's car with the first light, he said.
That night, the four were sitting in the courtyard of the plant, which is
lit by a searchlight. The guard was sleeping in his camper in the yard.
Hisham turned on the stonecutting machine and joined them, said Ishaq. He
himself went to the toilet, and when he came out he saw from a distance that
his friends and brothers were sitting on the floor, with armed soldiers
standing over them. He hid behind a pile of stone from the factory. The hum
of the stonecutting machine prevented him from hearing what they were
talking about. "I thought they wanted to interrogate them, as usual," he
said.
When he dared to look again he saw them with arms raised. Frightened, he hid
deeper in the huge factory, filled with piles of cut stones. After a while
he returned and looked again, but the courtyard of the factory was empty. He
went up to the covered roof, from which the road leading to the Calev Ben
Yefuneh site is visible.
In the blinding light of day, this road and the green plot of land alongside
it are spread out like a miniature pastoral painting. Along it, on the road,
beyond the gravel barrier, not far from the factory, the body of Ala'a
Ayayda was found the next day, shot in the knees, the belly and the neck, as
relatives who washed his body, and the videotape, testify. Further on, near
Calev's tomb, the bodies of the 30-year-old twins Husam and Hisham
al-Halayka were found ("They were born on the same day, and died on the same
day," they're saying in the village). Next to them, tossed in the field, lay
the body of their uncle, Atiyya al-Halayka, 25. Husam was shot in the
forehead, the two others were shot from the back. There is no argument
between the IDF and the Palestinians regarding the location of the bodies.
But in the heavy dark of the deadly night Ishaq al- Halayka saw nothing from
the roof of the quarry.
At the same time, Mohammed Shouab, who lives near the quarry, couldn't
sleep. He went out to his sheep, he said, and saw soldiers leading several
Palestinians from the quarry. He wasn't able to identify them in the dark.
He only remembers saying to himself: "Here, again they've arrested
Palestinians from the quarry." After a short time, both Shouab and
Al-Halayka said, they heard shots. They heard one of the young men shouting:
"Ala'a." Shouab didn't attribute any importance to it at that moment, he
said. Shots at night are an everyday occurrence in the area.
In cold blood
"There were many moments of silence," adds Ishaq al-Halayka. He was sure
that the soldiers were doing something terrible to his friends, perhaps
beating and wounding them. He lost all sense of time. And again shots were
heard. Many shots. The sounds were far away. Shouab thought he heard
laughter. And then the military jeeps came and filled the place.
Ishaq sneaked out of the quarry from the opposite direction, making his way
on dirt paths in the hills, a walking distance of over three hours to his
village. When he arrived home, dirty, with torn clothes, frightened, he
heard on the radio about "the killing of four terrorists in Bani Naim." That
was the first IDF announcement. Gradually, contradictory statements were
publicized, which originated in the office of the Defense Ministry, to the
effect that the four "had no criminal or security history, and it is quite
possible that they were not engaged in the planning of any attack." Ishaq
al-Halayka burst into tears and hastened to join the masses of villagers who
had already begun to make their way to Bani Naim. "That's it," he concluded
drily. "They murdered my friends in cold blood," he muttered, "and also left
the bodies tossed aside to bleed until 6:30 A.M."
The guard, Khader Ali al-Khadour, heard the shots in his sleep and continued
to sleep. "We're used to shooting here," he said. He sat up in his bed
inside the camper only when flares were thrown. "I was afraid to go out; if
there are soldiers in the area, it's dangerous," he explained. "Nobody wants
to die."
At about 3:15 A.M., he said, he heard the stonecutting machine beginning to
hit iron. He entered the factory and shouted to Hisham. Nobody answered. He
started to turn out the lights, but nobody stopped him with shouts, as
always. He didn't know where the workers had disappeared to. He thought that
perhaps the soldiers had arrested them. Only at 6 A.M. did he report to the
owner of the quarry that the workers had disappeared. "Look, I last saw them
here," he pointed to a stool in the tin shed in the courtyard, on which four
half-eaten pitas, two hard-boiled eggs and a green plate with tomato sauce
remained.
At 6 A.M. the Palestinian police of Bani Naim informed the headman of
Shuyoukh, Yussef al- Halayka, of what had happened, and asked him to come to
identify the bodies. Only after great effort did the IDF allow him to enter
the place. According to his testimony, he found the bodies in underpants,
covered with their work clothes.
First he identified Hisham and Husam. "Husam had a hole in his forehead, and
his belt was tossed to the side," he said. Afterward he identified Atiyya.
"His face was covered with blood, he was still wearing his work shoes, high
rubber shoes, and there were work gloves alongside him. I didn't see their
entire bodies; I only lifted the clothing a little in order to see their
faces," he said, careful to report the dry facts. He says that the broken
chain of the gate to the grove at the Calev tomb had been tossed aside. An
ID card was found in the pocket of Ala'a's shirt, and he was not allowed to
approach the body. "I have no doubt that they tortured them before killing
them," he whispered.
That is the Palestinian version.
On high alert
The IDF has an entirely different version. Three soldiers and their platoon
commander were lying on the lookout at the Calev site, alert and attentive.
This, for them, and according to all the briefings they received, is a site
"with a sectoral history" and a "sequence of incidents," in army language.
Two bombs have been placed here during the past year; one was very
sophisticated - operated by a cell phone. There have also been several
"incidents" of dummy bombs, and dozens of break-ins at the grove, "with and
without intention to commit hostile terrorist activity."
Therefore, "from the professional battalion point of view, the area of the
Calev site is an arena for hostile terrorist activity for us, with all the
military implications of varied activity, lookouts, day and night forces,
with the mission of frustrating and preventing hostile terrorist activity,"
as explained forcefully by an officer who arrived at the "site of the
incident" immediately after its conclusion.
That night, at about 2:30 A.M., the soldiers suddenly heard a noise made by
people coming down the road, which is closed to Palestinians, from the
quarry to the Calev plot and the Hebron road. The noise intensified when the
young men climbed onto the pile of gravel that serves as a barrier on the
road. Only then did some of the snipers clearly identify four figures, their
faces covered with kaffiyehs, one of them carrying an ax that could be seen
clearly against the skyline.
The platoon commander was not equipped with night vision equipment like his
soldiers. He received this report from one of the snipers, and immediately
"upgraded the force" to high alert. "For us, movement on this artery is
almost criminal intent," explained one of those present. But this was not
enough for the platoon commander. He waited until the four young men
approached the gate to the grove and tried to saw the chain open. The
soldiers clearly saw and heard them trying to cut the gate with the wire
cutters. Only then was the order to shoot given.
"From the moment they opened the gate, that is actually a definite criminal
intent," said the young soldier, the tremor in his voice unsuited to his
manner of speech, his eyes red from a night on patrol. "That is actually to
catch them in the act. The order was given and we opened fire. All four of
the snipers were shooting. From the moment we heard the steps until the
shooting about 12 minutes passed. Our ability to hit the target at distances
of 100- 150 meters is 90 percent and more.
"For an ordinary person, one bullet is not enough, unless it hits critical
places. An average person still walks a few steps after the shooting, and
only then does he fall. I saw two of them fall in the middle of the road.
The third fell in the field. The fourth was not hit in the volley, because
he had hidden behind a tree on the other side of the road. He started to run
up the road toward the quarry. At first it was hard to spot the escape, but
from the moment it was spotted another volley was fired. He fell before the
gravel barrier."
Why couldn't they shoot at their legs, or at other parts that would
neutralize them without killing them? After all, even the IDF says that
there had been many incursions into the vineyard for the purpose of theft
rather than terrorism.
"We are talking about hostile terror activity; the orders in such a case are
to shoot to kill, we don't play with the lives of soldiers. And what if the
terrorist is holding a bomb or a hand grenade?" explained the officer drily.
Then why did you have to shoot the fourth Palestinian - whose name happens
to be Ala'a al-Halayka - and who, even according to the IDF's version, was
running away when he was shot; at that stage it was already clear that there
was no danger to the soldiers from him?
Those are the orders, he replied.
Immediately after the incident, jeeps arrived with reinforcements, and in
their wake, the bomb squad. On the ground they found an ax, a saw, a small
pair of pliers and wire cutters. These work tools were photographed and
documented, laid out side by side.
"It's a very bad feeling to be accused of such things," said the soldier,
upset and frightened. "I say without any doubt that we shot at people who
didn't have good intentions, we have a lot of experience, no question, the
ax, the saw, everything points to a cold-blooded attack. A thousand percent
that they were trying to break into the grove, to wait until morning, and to
kill someone with the ax. We in the battalion and in the company are so
careful to treat people well, and to be accused of such a thing, cold-
blooded murder, we talk all the time about values, how one has to be careful
about little things, how even property shouldn't be damaged, and after all
this effort, they accuse us of the worst crime possible. The rules were
entirely clear to us. There was no reason to hesitate. We were even strict
with ourselves when we waited for clear indications of criminal intent."
An IDF investigation committee, headed by Major General Yitzhak Harel,
absolved the IDF this week of any responsibility for the death of innocents
in the last three incidents, in which altogether 13 Palestinians were
killed, including six children and a mother. The incident in Bani Naim was
also included in the investigation. The central conclusion of the committee
is that "that there were no defects in the procedures for opening fire."
In fact, the IDF doesn't need additional criteria. As Operation Defensive
Shield progresses and completes its "pinpoint" missions by assassinating the
political, operational and organizational leadership of the Palestinian
struggle, the IDF is increasingly positioned in a frontal war against
civilians. "The absence of a security record doesn't interest us," said the
officer. "Too many terrorists today have no security history."
This type of war naturally causes constant erosion in the official and
unofficial instructions for opening fire, an intolerable ease in pulling the
trigger, uncontrolled anxieties of young soldiers who have been pushed into
an impossible warfare situation, and an elastic flexibility in the
conceptual world of military ethics. On the Palestinian side, civilian
enlistment is only increasing. The bereavement, the despair, even the
rumors, fuel new hatred.
The cycle of hatred
The common mourners' tent for the families of the victims, in the courtyard
of the school in Shuyoukh, also served this week as a united national
assembly of followers of all the organizations. The speakers talked of the
increasing number of shaheeds "whose blood is soaking the land of Palestine
and intermingling with its dew" and about continuing the struggle until the
end of the occupation. The exhausted audience, seated on plastic chairs,
hardly reacted.
There was a mixture of exhaustion, subdued anger, powerlessness and a
violent silence. Permission to speak was left to the graffiti slogans, which
cover the walls of the houses with depressing density in all the villages of
the northern Hebron hills: "We swear to the fallen of the intifada to
continue in their path; If Sharon has forgotten the Popular Front, its
rifles will refresh his memory; The covenant is a covenant and the oath is
an oath, until we achieve our goals."
Alongside the militant slogans, the focused and surprising unanimity as to
the purpose of the struggle stood out: "There is no solution to the cycle of
bloodshed without an end to the occupation and the establishment of a
Palestinian state within the `67 borders," the young people of the village
repeated with determination - both those identified with Hamas and those
identified with Fatah.
"They've murdered innocent people," shouted Mohammed Ayayda, father of
Ala'a, his eyes dry. "What peace is Israel talking about, if it thinks that
the blood of an innocent Palestinian can be washed away with an apology?
What are we in their eyes? Why don't they put the soldier who shot my son on
trial? I want the defense minister to come to court and explain the war
crimes he is carrying out, let him explain how his soldiers have become
accustomed to killing, without having to account for it. I want to look into
the eyes of the soldier who shot my son, let him explain to me what reason
he had to kill him. Let's say they suspected them of something, why couldn't
they have arrested them?"
Ala'a's mother found out about the death of her son from the cries of the
muezzin, who announced the murder of the four the next afternoon, and she
fainted. During the early morning hours she had baked pitas, as usual, to
serve her son for breakfast when he returned from work. The telephone call
that the father received from a reporter from Radio Palestine at 6:30 A.M.
aroused her anxiety. "I started to scream: `My son, my son, where is my
son,' I cried, I went out to the yard and went back inside, I didn't know
where to put myself, I thought they had taken him, arrested him, or perhaps
he was injured, it didn't enter my mind that they had killed him," she cried
bitterly. "He was a good boy, he offered me his money all the time, the only
thing that interested him was studying, he stopped studying at the sports
college in Tul Karm because he was afraid of the army there, and returned to
the village, to die here, what a fate, and not simply to die, to die of
torture," she leaned back exhausted, closing her eyes.
"My son is a victim of Al-Aqsa," she hissed, moaning. "As long as there is
occupation there won't be peace, only when they leave us alone will we live
in peace. They are killing the working man, the man at home, the man on the
road, that's the situation. I only hope that God takes the soul of the
soldier who took my son's life and destroyed my life," she said, suddenly
crying harder. "I hope that God takes the murderer of my son, paralyzes the
hands that pulled the trigger."
k
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