Subsequent to reading this article, does anyone want to indulge in the luxury of debating that this is not terrorism?
If Ta’mar, Hasan, or Ala decide to join Hamas for what occurred to their fathers, which one of us would be arrogantly judgemental enough to condemn a son’s decision? God Forbid if i was in his position over there and it happened to my father, or to anyone i love for that matter, i would be the first one finding ways to rebel and rise up. It is nothing short of a fundamental expression of humanity to do so. How easily we sit on pedestals from afar, passing judgements against others; when a crime reaches these proportions, it is not the actions and beliefs of others that need re-evaluating. It is our own.
The author of this article is Jewish (Gideon Levy); source is from one of Israel’s mainstream newspapers, the Ha’aretz.
**
“This is from God and the army”](http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=220818&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y), Gideon Levy
Ha’aretz, 23 October 2002 [excerpts only]
Death lurks around every corner in Jenin. Young Hasan Satiti was waiting for his father, who had promised to bring him breakfast on the recent holiday commemorating the Prophet Mohammed’s ascent to heaven. But Ahmed Satiti was shot to death from afar by IDF soldiers, killed in the city market in the early morning as he loaded vegetables into his car. Young Ala Hamrashi, son of taxi driver Tawfik Hamrashi, who was a friend of Ahmed Satiti, carries in his pocket the wages his father earned on the last day of his life: 220 blood-soaked shekels. His father was killed in his taxi as he left the home of the Satiti family after having paid a condolence call. A tank, its lights and engine off, was waiting in ambush and apparently killed him without any warning.
While we were visiting the homes of these two innocent victims in Jenin this week, soldiers shot Yusra Sawalha, a woman who was driving from the city to her home in the nearby village of Ra’i, killing her and wounding two of her friends who were with her in the car. Sawalha was 40 years old. Nearly every day, an innocent person is killed in Jenin. At any moment, a tank could appear in the middle of town and start shooting without warning. This dying town is burying its dead in a new cemetery that was dug for the 55 people killed during the occupation of the refugee camp in April.
On the asphalt road at the edge of the main market, at the foot of the Al-Bureij building, between Osama Shami’s clothing store and Mustafa Najib’s egg stall, the blood stains have been covered with sand. Some of the stalls are closed and the ones that are open have hardly any customers. There is no curfew, but there are also no buyers.
This is where peddler Ahmed Satiti was standing two Thursdays ago, loading sacks of onions and garlic into his station wagon, which had an old, rusty speaker mounted on the roof. It was early in the morning, before seven, and Satiti was hurrying to finish loading the merchandise. He had promised his son Hasan that he would bring a special holiday breakfast from the market and that they’d eat it together when he got home.
Since it was a holiday, there was no school that day. Shirin and Ahmed Satiti had waited 10 years for the birth of their first son, Hasan, and another eight years until his brother, Ta’mar, now one and a half, was born. In the family’s address book, under the heading “The Jewish Doctor,” are the name and address of fertility specialist Dr. Amnon David from Ramat Gan, who treated the couple for years.
Satiti was almost finished loading the produce. He came here every morning to buy his goods and then took to the streets of the city in his car to sell them, using the speaker to attract customers. The tanks appeared shortly before seven. Two tanks that came from the direction of the mosque and stopped across from the entrance to the market, aiming their guns inside. Shami and Najib say there were many people in the market when the tanks arrived and that the soldiers suddenly started firing at the passersby. Eyewitnesses in the market say that there was no reason and no warning given. The IDF spokesman says an explosive device was thrown at an IDF force, that the force came under fire and returned fire, and that IDF is continuing to investigate the circumstances of the incident.
No one in the market was sure whether the curfew was in effect that day or not. Usually, the local television broadcasts report in the evening whether there will be a curfew in effect the next day. But the night before, there was no such report. The curfew has become a vague concept in Jenin. Often, the residents have no idea if they are supposed to stay inside their homes or if they are allowed to come out into the street. Sometimes, the people in Jenin say, the tanks suddenly enter, announce a curfew and start shooting.
Satiti was felled almost immediately. A bullet struck him in the head and he crumpled to the ground next to his car. Witnesses say that an ambulance that tried to rush to his aid was delayed for 15 minutes by the soldiers. The market continued to come under fire and Satiti was finally taken in a vegetable truck to the private Al-Razi hospital in the town. The doctors pronounced him dead shortly afterward.
“The Jews helped him bring two children into the world and the Jews also killed him,” says Mustafa, the dead man’s brother, who also works as a vegetable peddler. Mustafa was the last one to see his brother alive. He was buying his own produce for the day while his brother was loading up the garlic and onions he had just purchased.
To access article in its entirety, click here.