------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 13, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
PALESTINE UNDER SIEGE: ACTIVIST TELLS OF ISRAELI TERROR IN NABLUS By Leslie Feinberg On May 31 Israeli troops re-invaded the Palestinian city of Nablus from three directions. It's no secret. But where is the live coverage on U.S. media reports? Where are the headlines? News of this brutality by Washington's proxy settler regime is suppressed. Tom Koutsoukos told Workers World that independent accounts, some of them posted on the Internet, are reporting what the U.S. media are ignoring. He explained that the whole city is under a shoot-to-kill curfew, as are other cities. Israeli military officials themselves admitted they had arrested 3,000 people in the Balata refugee camp--home to some 22,500 Palestinians. Koutsoukos traveled from Chicago to Nablus on April 10 as an international solidarity movement participant, "to basically act as a human shield to try to increase the safety level of the Palestinians." He explained, "I've always been very concerned about the plight of the Palestinians and felt this was something I had to do." Nablus is 3,000 years old--one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. The Casbah is the oldest part of the city. Koutsoukos recalled, "Someone told me 80 percent of the city had been destroyed by the Israeli invasion. I was able to visually confirm that. "You can't go anywhere where there isn't just massive destruction and rubble. It's horrifying." Imagine the outcry from the summits of power in the United States if the center of Rome had been obliterated. The Israelis arrested Koutsoukos outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on May 2. He spent 25 days in jail. He was immediately deported and banned from returning for 10 years. He concluded: "I believe that one of the reasons that the last invasion of Nablus on April 2 is not so well known is because what happened in Jenin shortly afterwards overshadowed it. The infrastructure of Nablus was of course targeted and the city was virtually destroyed. "There were 80 people confirmed killed, including eight ambulance drivers. And three of the refugee camps there were shelled mercilessly and continuously. "It was just an all-out, one-way war against a defenseless civilian population using the most sophisticated weapons available. It was just horrifying. People should know about it." - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
