Hal Womack 3-dan
2006-04-21 08:57:22 UTC
BUSH SECRET POLICE BOMB HOME IN MISSION DISTRICT IN PRE-DAWN RAID:
FEDERAL NARCO-TERRORISTS SATANICALLY DESECRATE SACRED 4/2O DATE
(The headline editor Phil Bronstein forgot to use on p.1, just like
last month he forgot to report the Jews' murder in Palestine of 8
year-old Miss Akaber Zaid, see item #2. For more documentation of
Bronstein & Co's systematically criminal propaganda practices, please
visit Alison Weir's Website @ "If Americans Knew"*.)
* http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
====================================
SAN FRANCISCO
Hells Angels arrested after agents blow off door of S.F. clubhouse
Bay Area raids part of probe into drugs, money laundering
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006
Two leaders of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle
club were arrested Thursday along with several associates of the gang
in raids conducted as part of a six-month federal and local
investigation into drug trafficking and money laundering in the Bay
Area, authorities said.
Dozens of agents used explosives to blow off the doors of the Hells
Angels' clubhouse on Tennessee Street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood
of Dogpatch in the early morning raid. Agents also searched No Mercy
Tattoo at 12th and Howard streets. No one at the parlor would comment.
The club's president, Joseph Wilson, 35, was arrested along with Jason
Peterson, 32, according to sources close to the investigation.
Authorities said they found a pound of methamphetamine in the garage of
a home that abuts the clubhouse.
"The Hells Angels is a drug trafficking organization," said one
investigator who asked not to be named. "They deal drugs, both
marijuana and methamphetamine, to their clientele."
Both men in custody are from San Francisco, and sources say they led a
methamphetamine trafficking ring in the Bay Area. Agents targeted 16
locations, including in Livermore and San Mateo County. Authorities
recovered a dozen weapons, including a Mac-10 machine pistol. They
found a total of 6 pounds of methamphetamine -- worth about $100,000
wholesale and $250,000 on the street -- and a small amount of cocaine.
In San Mateo, one of the searches netted a hand grenade.
San Francisco FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy said Thursday that she could
not discuss the investigation or confirm who was arrested, as the
indictments related to the case remain sealed.
The FBI led the raid, but investigators took part from the Drug
Enforcement Administration, San Francisco police, and narcotics task
force agents from San Mateo County and West Contra Costa County.
She did confirm that of the 16 suspects who were indicted, 11 have been
arrested and were in federal custody. Four were still being sought, and
one was in state custody.
Peterson and Wilson were the only Hells Angels members to be arrested
in Thursday's raid. But all the others arrested were associates of the
group, authorities said.
A neighbor said he awoke to the sound of what he later learned were
explosives used to blow off the doors of the residence that leads to
the clubhouse.
"I was scared to look out the window -- they had guns, lasers, they
were everywhere," said Karel Smid, who shares a wall with the
clubhouse. "They had helmets, goggles. I heard explosions -- they blew
up the doors."
Another resident, Rebecca Miller, said she also shares a wall with the
clubhouse. She heard an explosion and loud voices but said that the
group has never been a problem.
"Everyone is appreciative of them -- it sets the tone and keeps things
safe," she said.
This is not the first time the clubhouse has been raided in recent
years.
In December 2003, agents raided the Tennessee Street headquarters and
other motorcycle gang hangouts across the West, making a total of 57
arrests after a two-year undercover investigation into methamphetamine
trafficking and gun dealing.
And last year, Peterson was charged by federal authorities in the
deadly April 27, 2002, clash with the gang's rivals, the Mongols, at
the Laughlin (Nev.) River Run motorcycle rally. Two Hells Angels and
one Mongols member were killed in the fight.
In October, a federal grand jury in Las Vegas indicted Peterson in
connection with the Laughlin clash, as part of an amended indictment
that now names 44 members of the Hells Angels.
At the time of his arrest on Thursday, Peterson was free on a $250,000
federal bond, charged with 19 counts of violence in aid of racketeering
and 13 weapons charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to
murder several members of the Mongols at Harrah's Hotel and Casino bar
in Laughlin. Federal authorities say the Hells Angels had a long and
bloody feud with the Mongols, leading up to clashes at the River Run.
The rivalry turned bloody when Hells Angels members, carrying
everything from guns to wrenches, went after the Mongols.
Doug Rappaport, an attorney who briefly represented Peterson at his
detention hearing, said Peterson was operating No Mercy Tattoo at the
time of his arrest in the Laughlin federal case.
"He owned a business, his family was there at the hearing," Rappaport
said. "All 43 other defendants had been released -- the allegations
against him were no more serious than any other Hells Angel, and given
his involvement, it was probably less."
Page B - 1
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/21/HELLSANGELS.TMP
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
#2)
http://www.counterpunch.org/
March 27, 2006
The Shooting of Little Akaber
Are We Done Killing Children, Yet?
By GIDEON LEVY
A bullet in the head from a distance of a few meters, fired suddenly
and without warning shots aimed at the wheels, which the Israel Defense
Forces claims there were. This is the way undercover soldiers from the
Border Police killed Akaber Zaid, an eight-and-a-half year-old, who was
on her way to the doctor, according to her uncle, who was with her and
was also wounded.
Little Akaber was going to the doctor and he did indeed see her, but
there was no longer a reason for him to do so. She had been on the way
to have him remove stitches from her chin, but instead arrived dead at
the same doctor's office, with her head smashed and her skull gaping.
Soldiers from the Border Police's undercover unit, known by the Hebrew
acronym Yamas, shot at her uncle's taxi at close range as he was
parking the vehicle next to the doctor's office. All the soldiers'
claims, as presented to the media by the IDF, to the effect that they
had shot at the taxi's wheels in accordance with the "regulations for
arresting a suspect," were nothing but lies, says the girl's uncle, who
was sitting next to her.
The car was sprayed from the right and from behind with bullets, which
entered through its windows. The shots were fired from just a few
meters away, the uncle stresses, in the light of a street lamp.
We saw the taxi this week: All its wheels are intact. However, those
who carried out the "investigations" on behalf of the IDF and the
Border Police did not even bother to examine the vehicle, or to
question the man who had driven it. He was also wounded and is
hospitalized.
We also took testimony from him and could not find a single fact on the
ground that contradicts what he reports: The undercover soldiers shot
at the girl from two directions, from nearby and, the uncle says,
without warning. No soldier with a gun, certainly not an expert
sharpshooter from the Yamas, would aim at close range at wheels and hit
someone in the head instead.
Down the road, hundreds of meters from the shooting, are the remaining
signs of the destruction wreaked by the Border Police. Not one wanted
man was detained, but a five-story apartment block was badly damaged
and there are wrecks of cars that were completely crushed, one after
the other, still standing in the street.
Why did the undercover soldiers shoot at a young girl? How could they
dare claim they aimed at the wheels? Why did they have to shoot at
innocent people in a taxi in the first place? Why did they wreak such
havoc? Why did they crush vehicles that were the last source of income
for their owners? What is the difference between this action on the
soldiers' part and a terrorist attack? And why are these questions not
being asked?
The father did not accompany his daughter to Dr. Samara. He said he
could not bear to see the doctor removing the stitches from her little
chin. Akaber was a second-grade pupil from the village of Al-Yamoun,
northwest of Jenin. In her picture from kindergarten, she can be seen
wearing a square black graduation cap, like those worn by university
graduates and people receiving doctorates. That is the custom in the
Al-Yamoun kindergarten: The children who excel are photographed with
the special hat. That is how she will remain in the collective
consciousness of that town, whose sons once worked in Israel.
Akaber is not the first girl they are burying. How many children were
killed in Al-Yamoun in the past few years? The school principal, who
came to pay his condolences to the family, begins to list them, one by
one, but stops suddenly and asks: "Why should I count them? Are we
finished having our children killed?"
The father enters the mourners' room in the local council building, his
eyes red with crying. Abdel Rahman Zaid, 31, the father of six, drives
a commercial van that travels in the West Bank, when possible. About
three weeks ago, Akaber fell on the stairs in her house and hurt her
chin. Last Friday it was time to remove the stitches.
When Abdel Rahman returned from work, he asked his brother Kamal--a
27-year-old taxi driver, whom he calls Hamoudi--to go with Akaber to
the doctor's house on the hill, where he has his office. It was Friday
night, the last night of her life. His brother took the girl and she
sat beside him in the passenger seat. The father stresses that the
taxi's windows were transparent; there were no curtains covering them
or hiding the passengers. Any soldier could see the occupants, any
soldier from the Yamas could see that there was a small girl with a
braid sitting there.
The two left for the doctor's and soon reached his street. From his bed
in the government hospital in Jenin, his wounded hand in a bandage,
Kamal relates that after parking, he suddenly noticed some soldiers to
the right of the car. It is a narrow road and they were standing barely
a few meters away. He says they began firing immediately, from the
right and from behind. Only after that did he hear shouting in Hebrew,
which he does not speak. Little Akaber was already lying on the seat
with her head smashed.
Kamal lifted her up in his arms; the soldiers instructed him to leave
her on the road. Thus, they remained on the road--the dead girl and her
wounded uncle.
The Yamas soldiers ordered him to stand, to lift up his shirt and then
to sit back down. They continued to shoot in the air, Kamal says. A
neighbor took the girl to the doctor who was expecting her. From there
she was taken to the hospital in Jenin where her death was confirmed.
The uncle's arm was bandaged on the spot and he was taken by military
Jeep for interrogation. He says the soldiers beat him. There was a dog
in the vehicle, who sniffed him, and a soldier called Raslan who, he
says, hit him in the head when he spoke Arabic. Kamal took three
bullets in the arm and leg. He says seven bullets hit the girl, three
of them in her head.
The yellow Renault taxi tells the story: Its wheels are intact, but its
body is riddled with bullet holes. The back window is shattered, and
there are bullet holes in the back head rest and in its sides. There
are blood stains everywhere, the blood of the dead girl and her wounded
uncle. All this time, they hid her death from her father. Abdel Rahman
had heard the shots--the doctor's office is not far from their
house--but he never thought of his daughter somehow, only of his
brother. He went to the doctor's office and there they told him that
Akaber had been wounded. The doctor injected him with a sedative, and
he says he did not wake up until morning. Only when he awoke and went
home, at about 5 A.M., did his other brother break the bad news. His
wife already knew: She heard the news on an Arabic-language TV station.
Through his tears, the father wants to tell us something: The girl's
mother, Ikram, was born in Israel. Akaber was also Israeli. She was
born in a Nazareth hospital and has an Israeli birth certificate. She
was buried in the Al-Yamoun cemetery on Saturday morning.
The IDF Spokesman: "On March 17, while a special forces unit of the
Border Police was engaged in arresting wanted men in the village of
Al-Yamoun, northwest of Jenin, the unit surrounded an area in which
there was a suspicion that wanted men were hiding. During the
operation, the force saw a taxi that seemed suspicious approaching the
area and began the procedure of arresting a suspect. When it failed to
heed the soldiers' calls, they opened fire in the direction of the
taxi."
Does anyone think the uncle would not have heeded the calls to stop if
indeed the soldiers had called out? The man was taking his little niece
to the doctor. The army announced merely that "the IDF regrets harming
the Palestinian girl and is conducting a comprehensive examination of
the circumstances of the event."
The scene of the destruction: A Palestinian bulldozer removed the
wreckage next to the Zaid family's house on Sunday. A five-story
building, which the soldiers suspected was housing wanted men, has been
partially destroyed. The family members are now covering the huge holes
in it with gray bricks, and its elegant columns are in danger of
collapsing. In the yard below are the other wrecked cars: a yellow
Mercedes taxi, a white Subaru, and another few pieces of metal that
were once cars.
Mohammed Zaid, who owns one of the apartments, emerges from the debris:
"This is the Jewish army--this is the bad Jewish army," shouts his
uncle who is with him. Mohammed recalls that at about seven on Friday
night, he saw another group of soldiers outside his grocery shop. They
demanded that he tell all the residents to leave the building.
There are five large families--families of a lawyer, a doctor, an
engineer, a teacher--living in the five stories. All the tenants went
out into the street and had to wait there until morning--dozens of
children, women and men--until the soldiers finished their work.
Mohammed says that the women and children acted as a barrier between
the area where people were shooting at the soldiers, from one house,
and the area where the Border Police was returning fire. When the
building had been evacuated, they sent Mohammed to turn the lights on
in all the rooms to see if someone was still there.
An IDF bulldozer was ready to tear the structure down. Mohammed says he
suggested the soldiers accompany him to see that no one was left
inside, but they shut him up, saying, "We know what work we have to
do."
Around midnight, the bulldozer started tearing things down. The house
across the street was also damaged.
Mohammed says he asked an officer: "Does Israeli law permit you to do
this?" The officer said, according to Mohammed: "Go and complain at the
UN."
Mohammed's brother, a dentist, whose clinic was completely destroyed,
tried to tell an officer that he was a doctor "for humans," and the
officer replied: "Shut up."
Mohammed was taken for interrogation at the Salem facility and was
released only on Saturday at noon. He says he told his interrogator:
"On TV, you say you are a democracy." The interrogator replied:
"Democracy is only for the TV."
Mohammed, a teacher, says: "I always tell my pupils that we like peace.
What will I tell them now? That this is what peace looks like?"
We go to the top of the hill where Akaber was killed. A sign points the
way to Dr. Samara's clinic. Someone has placed a row of little stones
on the road where the taxi stood, to mark where the little body was.
The bloodstains have not yet been wiped away.
Gideon Levy writes for Ha'aretz.
FEDERAL NARCO-TERRORISTS SATANICALLY DESECRATE SACRED 4/2O DATE
(The headline editor Phil Bronstein forgot to use on p.1, just like
last month he forgot to report the Jews' murder in Palestine of 8
year-old Miss Akaber Zaid, see item #2. For more documentation of
Bronstein & Co's systematically criminal propaganda practices, please
visit Alison Weir's Website @ "If Americans Knew"*.)
* http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
====================================
SAN FRANCISCO
Hells Angels arrested after agents blow off door of S.F. clubhouse
Bay Area raids part of probe into drugs, money laundering
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006
Two leaders of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle
club were arrested Thursday along with several associates of the gang
in raids conducted as part of a six-month federal and local
investigation into drug trafficking and money laundering in the Bay
Area, authorities said.
Dozens of agents used explosives to blow off the doors of the Hells
Angels' clubhouse on Tennessee Street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood
of Dogpatch in the early morning raid. Agents also searched No Mercy
Tattoo at 12th and Howard streets. No one at the parlor would comment.
The club's president, Joseph Wilson, 35, was arrested along with Jason
Peterson, 32, according to sources close to the investigation.
Authorities said they found a pound of methamphetamine in the garage of
a home that abuts the clubhouse.
"The Hells Angels is a drug trafficking organization," said one
investigator who asked not to be named. "They deal drugs, both
marijuana and methamphetamine, to their clientele."
Both men in custody are from San Francisco, and sources say they led a
methamphetamine trafficking ring in the Bay Area. Agents targeted 16
locations, including in Livermore and San Mateo County. Authorities
recovered a dozen weapons, including a Mac-10 machine pistol. They
found a total of 6 pounds of methamphetamine -- worth about $100,000
wholesale and $250,000 on the street -- and a small amount of cocaine.
In San Mateo, one of the searches netted a hand grenade.
San Francisco FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy said Thursday that she could
not discuss the investigation or confirm who was arrested, as the
indictments related to the case remain sealed.
The FBI led the raid, but investigators took part from the Drug
Enforcement Administration, San Francisco police, and narcotics task
force agents from San Mateo County and West Contra Costa County.
She did confirm that of the 16 suspects who were indicted, 11 have been
arrested and were in federal custody. Four were still being sought, and
one was in state custody.
Peterson and Wilson were the only Hells Angels members to be arrested
in Thursday's raid. But all the others arrested were associates of the
group, authorities said.
A neighbor said he awoke to the sound of what he later learned were
explosives used to blow off the doors of the residence that leads to
the clubhouse.
"I was scared to look out the window -- they had guns, lasers, they
were everywhere," said Karel Smid, who shares a wall with the
clubhouse. "They had helmets, goggles. I heard explosions -- they blew
up the doors."
Another resident, Rebecca Miller, said she also shares a wall with the
clubhouse. She heard an explosion and loud voices but said that the
group has never been a problem.
"Everyone is appreciative of them -- it sets the tone and keeps things
safe," she said.
This is not the first time the clubhouse has been raided in recent
years.
In December 2003, agents raided the Tennessee Street headquarters and
other motorcycle gang hangouts across the West, making a total of 57
arrests after a two-year undercover investigation into methamphetamine
trafficking and gun dealing.
And last year, Peterson was charged by federal authorities in the
deadly April 27, 2002, clash with the gang's rivals, the Mongols, at
the Laughlin (Nev.) River Run motorcycle rally. Two Hells Angels and
one Mongols member were killed in the fight.
In October, a federal grand jury in Las Vegas indicted Peterson in
connection with the Laughlin clash, as part of an amended indictment
that now names 44 members of the Hells Angels.
At the time of his arrest on Thursday, Peterson was free on a $250,000
federal bond, charged with 19 counts of violence in aid of racketeering
and 13 weapons charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to
murder several members of the Mongols at Harrah's Hotel and Casino bar
in Laughlin. Federal authorities say the Hells Angels had a long and
bloody feud with the Mongols, leading up to clashes at the River Run.
The rivalry turned bloody when Hells Angels members, carrying
everything from guns to wrenches, went after the Mongols.
Doug Rappaport, an attorney who briefly represented Peterson at his
detention hearing, said Peterson was operating No Mercy Tattoo at the
time of his arrest in the Laughlin federal case.
"He owned a business, his family was there at the hearing," Rappaport
said. "All 43 other defendants had been released -- the allegations
against him were no more serious than any other Hells Angel, and given
his involvement, it was probably less."
Page B - 1
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/21/HELLSANGELS.TMP
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
#2)
http://www.counterpunch.org/
March 27, 2006
The Shooting of Little Akaber
Are We Done Killing Children, Yet?
By GIDEON LEVY
A bullet in the head from a distance of a few meters, fired suddenly
and without warning shots aimed at the wheels, which the Israel Defense
Forces claims there were. This is the way undercover soldiers from the
Border Police killed Akaber Zaid, an eight-and-a-half year-old, who was
on her way to the doctor, according to her uncle, who was with her and
was also wounded.
Little Akaber was going to the doctor and he did indeed see her, but
there was no longer a reason for him to do so. She had been on the way
to have him remove stitches from her chin, but instead arrived dead at
the same doctor's office, with her head smashed and her skull gaping.
Soldiers from the Border Police's undercover unit, known by the Hebrew
acronym Yamas, shot at her uncle's taxi at close range as he was
parking the vehicle next to the doctor's office. All the soldiers'
claims, as presented to the media by the IDF, to the effect that they
had shot at the taxi's wheels in accordance with the "regulations for
arresting a suspect," were nothing but lies, says the girl's uncle, who
was sitting next to her.
The car was sprayed from the right and from behind with bullets, which
entered through its windows. The shots were fired from just a few
meters away, the uncle stresses, in the light of a street lamp.
We saw the taxi this week: All its wheels are intact. However, those
who carried out the "investigations" on behalf of the IDF and the
Border Police did not even bother to examine the vehicle, or to
question the man who had driven it. He was also wounded and is
hospitalized.
We also took testimony from him and could not find a single fact on the
ground that contradicts what he reports: The undercover soldiers shot
at the girl from two directions, from nearby and, the uncle says,
without warning. No soldier with a gun, certainly not an expert
sharpshooter from the Yamas, would aim at close range at wheels and hit
someone in the head instead.
Down the road, hundreds of meters from the shooting, are the remaining
signs of the destruction wreaked by the Border Police. Not one wanted
man was detained, but a five-story apartment block was badly damaged
and there are wrecks of cars that were completely crushed, one after
the other, still standing in the street.
Why did the undercover soldiers shoot at a young girl? How could they
dare claim they aimed at the wheels? Why did they have to shoot at
innocent people in a taxi in the first place? Why did they wreak such
havoc? Why did they crush vehicles that were the last source of income
for their owners? What is the difference between this action on the
soldiers' part and a terrorist attack? And why are these questions not
being asked?
The father did not accompany his daughter to Dr. Samara. He said he
could not bear to see the doctor removing the stitches from her little
chin. Akaber was a second-grade pupil from the village of Al-Yamoun,
northwest of Jenin. In her picture from kindergarten, she can be seen
wearing a square black graduation cap, like those worn by university
graduates and people receiving doctorates. That is the custom in the
Al-Yamoun kindergarten: The children who excel are photographed with
the special hat. That is how she will remain in the collective
consciousness of that town, whose sons once worked in Israel.
Akaber is not the first girl they are burying. How many children were
killed in Al-Yamoun in the past few years? The school principal, who
came to pay his condolences to the family, begins to list them, one by
one, but stops suddenly and asks: "Why should I count them? Are we
finished having our children killed?"
The father enters the mourners' room in the local council building, his
eyes red with crying. Abdel Rahman Zaid, 31, the father of six, drives
a commercial van that travels in the West Bank, when possible. About
three weeks ago, Akaber fell on the stairs in her house and hurt her
chin. Last Friday it was time to remove the stitches.
When Abdel Rahman returned from work, he asked his brother Kamal--a
27-year-old taxi driver, whom he calls Hamoudi--to go with Akaber to
the doctor's house on the hill, where he has his office. It was Friday
night, the last night of her life. His brother took the girl and she
sat beside him in the passenger seat. The father stresses that the
taxi's windows were transparent; there were no curtains covering them
or hiding the passengers. Any soldier could see the occupants, any
soldier from the Yamas could see that there was a small girl with a
braid sitting there.
The two left for the doctor's and soon reached his street. From his bed
in the government hospital in Jenin, his wounded hand in a bandage,
Kamal relates that after parking, he suddenly noticed some soldiers to
the right of the car. It is a narrow road and they were standing barely
a few meters away. He says they began firing immediately, from the
right and from behind. Only after that did he hear shouting in Hebrew,
which he does not speak. Little Akaber was already lying on the seat
with her head smashed.
Kamal lifted her up in his arms; the soldiers instructed him to leave
her on the road. Thus, they remained on the road--the dead girl and her
wounded uncle.
The Yamas soldiers ordered him to stand, to lift up his shirt and then
to sit back down. They continued to shoot in the air, Kamal says. A
neighbor took the girl to the doctor who was expecting her. From there
she was taken to the hospital in Jenin where her death was confirmed.
The uncle's arm was bandaged on the spot and he was taken by military
Jeep for interrogation. He says the soldiers beat him. There was a dog
in the vehicle, who sniffed him, and a soldier called Raslan who, he
says, hit him in the head when he spoke Arabic. Kamal took three
bullets in the arm and leg. He says seven bullets hit the girl, three
of them in her head.
The yellow Renault taxi tells the story: Its wheels are intact, but its
body is riddled with bullet holes. The back window is shattered, and
there are bullet holes in the back head rest and in its sides. There
are blood stains everywhere, the blood of the dead girl and her wounded
uncle. All this time, they hid her death from her father. Abdel Rahman
had heard the shots--the doctor's office is not far from their
house--but he never thought of his daughter somehow, only of his
brother. He went to the doctor's office and there they told him that
Akaber had been wounded. The doctor injected him with a sedative, and
he says he did not wake up until morning. Only when he awoke and went
home, at about 5 A.M., did his other brother break the bad news. His
wife already knew: She heard the news on an Arabic-language TV station.
Through his tears, the father wants to tell us something: The girl's
mother, Ikram, was born in Israel. Akaber was also Israeli. She was
born in a Nazareth hospital and has an Israeli birth certificate. She
was buried in the Al-Yamoun cemetery on Saturday morning.
The IDF Spokesman: "On March 17, while a special forces unit of the
Border Police was engaged in arresting wanted men in the village of
Al-Yamoun, northwest of Jenin, the unit surrounded an area in which
there was a suspicion that wanted men were hiding. During the
operation, the force saw a taxi that seemed suspicious approaching the
area and began the procedure of arresting a suspect. When it failed to
heed the soldiers' calls, they opened fire in the direction of the
taxi."
Does anyone think the uncle would not have heeded the calls to stop if
indeed the soldiers had called out? The man was taking his little niece
to the doctor. The army announced merely that "the IDF regrets harming
the Palestinian girl and is conducting a comprehensive examination of
the circumstances of the event."
The scene of the destruction: A Palestinian bulldozer removed the
wreckage next to the Zaid family's house on Sunday. A five-story
building, which the soldiers suspected was housing wanted men, has been
partially destroyed. The family members are now covering the huge holes
in it with gray bricks, and its elegant columns are in danger of
collapsing. In the yard below are the other wrecked cars: a yellow
Mercedes taxi, a white Subaru, and another few pieces of metal that
were once cars.
Mohammed Zaid, who owns one of the apartments, emerges from the debris:
"This is the Jewish army--this is the bad Jewish army," shouts his
uncle who is with him. Mohammed recalls that at about seven on Friday
night, he saw another group of soldiers outside his grocery shop. They
demanded that he tell all the residents to leave the building.
There are five large families--families of a lawyer, a doctor, an
engineer, a teacher--living in the five stories. All the tenants went
out into the street and had to wait there until morning--dozens of
children, women and men--until the soldiers finished their work.
Mohammed says that the women and children acted as a barrier between
the area where people were shooting at the soldiers, from one house,
and the area where the Border Police was returning fire. When the
building had been evacuated, they sent Mohammed to turn the lights on
in all the rooms to see if someone was still there.
An IDF bulldozer was ready to tear the structure down. Mohammed says he
suggested the soldiers accompany him to see that no one was left
inside, but they shut him up, saying, "We know what work we have to
do."
Around midnight, the bulldozer started tearing things down. The house
across the street was also damaged.
Mohammed says he asked an officer: "Does Israeli law permit you to do
this?" The officer said, according to Mohammed: "Go and complain at the
UN."
Mohammed's brother, a dentist, whose clinic was completely destroyed,
tried to tell an officer that he was a doctor "for humans," and the
officer replied: "Shut up."
Mohammed was taken for interrogation at the Salem facility and was
released only on Saturday at noon. He says he told his interrogator:
"On TV, you say you are a democracy." The interrogator replied:
"Democracy is only for the TV."
Mohammed, a teacher, says: "I always tell my pupils that we like peace.
What will I tell them now? That this is what peace looks like?"
We go to the top of the hill where Akaber was killed. A sign points the
way to Dr. Samara's clinic. Someone has placed a row of little stones
on the road where the taxi stood, to mark where the little body was.
The bloodstains have not yet been wiped away.
From an old elections poster, Yasser Arafat's picture looks down on
this makeshift memorial to Akaber.Gideon Levy writes for Ha'aretz.