May 18, 2004
'There were rockets, shells. It was war. Then bulldozers destroyed everything'
The Guardian, UK

Since the beginning of the intifada more than three years ago, Israel's armoured bulldozers have destroyed 1,200 houses in Rafah and, according to the UN, made more than 12,000 people homeless: one in 10 of the population.

Chris McGreal in Rafah reports on Palestinians preparing to flee Israel's onslaught

Tuesday May 18, 2004
The Guardian

Um Hisham Qishta stood at the spot where she cradled a dying Israeli soldier in her arms a few days ago and said she was going nowhere. But just in case the armoured bulldozers came too close, she bundled the entire contents of her immaculate flat into plastic sacks yesterday and sent the furniture off on the back of a donkey cart. On the street below almost every family left in the Saladin district of Rafah was hauling belongings on to wooden carts in advance of the coming storm.

Early this morning at least three Palestinian fighters were killed and five wounded as Israeli helicopters fired two missiles into the refugee camp in an attack feared by Mrs Qishta and other Palestinians, believing it to be the start of a full-scale assault over the following hours.

Hours earlier, word that Israeli tanks had sealed off Rafah was enough to stir those whose homes had survived the demolition by the army's bulldozers on Friday, which crushed about 200 houses in the name of the war on terror.

On Sunday Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's chief of army staff, said there was more destruction to come. Yesterday Mrs Qishta and hundreds of others in Rafah took him at his word.

"It's an act of terror to destroy all these homes. If you make people so afraid that they flee the homes they have built with the only money they have just to save their lives, what can you call that but an act of terror?" she asked.

Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, accused Israel yesterday of practising "ethnic cleansing crimes and collective punishment of innocent civilians" by retaliating for the deaths of seven of its soldiers in Rafah last week. Two members of Israel's parliament have denounced the destruction as a war crime.

But many in Rafah town and the neighbouring refugee camp believe the soldiers' deaths served as another justification by Israel for a long-term strategy to drive Palestinians out of the area.

Since the beginning of the intifada more than three years ago, Israel's armoured bulldozers have destroyed 1,200 houses in Rafah and, according to the UN, made more than 12,000 people homeless: one in 10 of the population.

The extended Qishta family dominates the Saladin neighbourhood in the part of Rafah that is not a refugee camp.

On Friday, many members of the family lost their homes, and one man his life, after the Israeli army moved in to recover the body parts of five soldiers killed when their armoured vehicle was blown up by Palestinians.

The blast, made worse by explosives in the Israeli vehicle, threw bits of body for hundreds of metres.

Palestinians paraded the dismembered fingers, hands and limbs in the streets in a macabre celebration after months of taking hits such as the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas.

Israelis were outraged at the abuse of the dismembered bodies but Um Hisham Qishta says three soldiers who set up a snipers' post in her flat showed no hostility.

"The soldiers were polite. One of them asked for permission to smoke," she said.

"They put me and my daughters into one room but after a while I asked to prepare food for the children. One of the soldiers was standing in the kitchen door when I heard him scream. I never even heard the shot. I rushed to hold him. I was holding his head and rubbing his arms but he was dying right there.

"It was like my son was dying in front of me. His friends were very scared. They brought a stretcher and I helped carry it down the stairs. At the bottom there was another shot and one of the soldiers carrying the stretcher was shot in the head. He was a very young guy. Only about 20 years old. After that, came hell."

The Qishta family says the Israeli response was swift.

"There were Apaches [helicopters], rockets, shells. It was war, real war. Then the bulldozers. They destroyed everything in their path," she said.

A few dozen metres away another part of the Qishta family fled their home. Two brothers, Ashraf and Hamad, had nine children between them. They could hear the bulldozers at work close by but were terrified to step out into the night with so many bullets flying.

"My brother was against us leaving," said Hamad. "He said we should stay and defend the house, but there were too many children. So he helped us move all the kids and then said he was going back to pick up some important documents. We pleaded with him not to go, but he was stubborn."

Ashraf Qishta was last seen alive by his relatives standing in the doorway of his home with a white flag in one hand and an axe in another.

"He thought the Israelis would respect him if he stood there and said he would defend his house," said Hamad. "They just shot him in the chest. The bulldozer pulled the building on to him. When we found him we could see where the blade hit his head."

That night, several rows of houses in Saladin disappeared under the bulldozers.

Yesterday Hamad Qishta was bundling up the pathetic remains of his home plus a few pots and pans given to him by the Red Cross.

"They bulldozed my home so I moved my things to my sister's place. Now I think they will bulldoze it too," he said.

Outside Ashraf Qishta's youngest son, Mohammed, four, played in the sand unable to grasp that he would never see his father again.

It was a different story in Block O of Rafah refugee camp, where bulldozers have accounted for nearly half the homes destroyed over the past three years. Abdel Karim Hasham's home was demolished in stages.

Two rooms of the tiny house were destroyed in an army raid on March 17.

As his family bundled up its possessions and fled, Mr Hasham's eldest son, Ayman, 23, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper. "They saw we were evacuating the whole family. The soldier saw it and he still shot Ayman," he said.

"It's not enough that they kill my son, now we are homeless as though we are the criminals, as though we are the ones occupying their land."

On Friday, the bulldozers finished the work on Mr Hasham's house.

Almost his entire street was destroyed.

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