Beaumont Journal · Beaumont, Texas · 29 July 1971

CP-1971-004

Terror Stalks Gaza

Copley News Service, Jebeliye Refugee Camp, Occupied Gaza Strip

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Transcribed from the clipping

“JEBELIYE REFUGEE CAMP, Occupied Gaza Strip — The young boys crowded around the truck loaded with watermelons, dickering with the seller over the price and blocking all other traffic along the main street of Jebeliye’s market.

Groups of men sat in open-air cafes over long-finished glasses of coffee, shielded from the sun by corrugated tin roofs held in place by large stones. Others shopped, along with a handful of women dressed in the traditional peasant garb of Palestine.

The otherwise peaceful scene was briefly interrupted by three armed Israeli soldiers walking slowly down a side road, Uzi submachine guns ready for use. The youths walked several yards apart—protection if a grenade is tossed—and one of them turned to give a warning stare at a group of boys when a pebble was thrown.

Then the soldiers walked on, and the men in the cafes resumed their talk, the women their investigations of fruits and vegetables. But when dusk comes, the scene is far different… Even within the camps’ mud shacks, many refugees are not safe. Almost 70 murders were committed in Gaza in the first six months of 1971, about half of them in Jebeliye.

Some are committed with automatic weapons, others with knives.

Often women are beaten to death—perhaps because their husbands ‘collaborated’ with the Israelis, perhaps during an attempted rape… And though many Arabs acknowledge that some of the murders are personally motivated, few are willing to accept the Israeli verdict that most of them are unconnected with politics.”

Context added by this archive

The same Copley dispatch the Jonesboro Sun ran three days later, under a different headline. This version opens on boys buying watermelons and keeps the paragraph about women beaten to death, and the sentence saying few Arabs accept the Israeli explanation.

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More from the 1970s

• Arabs in Israel: Minority Torn Between 2 WorldsThe New York Times · 29 January 1971
• Arab Fratricide and Hate of Israelis Grow in the Dust and Despair of GazaThe New York Times · 2 February 1971
• Haj Amin el-Husseini Dies; Ex-Palestine Grand MuftiThe New York Times · 5 July 1971
• Terror Still Stalks Residents Of Gaza Strip As Political Murders Increase In NumberThe Sun · 1 August 1971
• Israeli Program Ousts Number of Refugee Families in Gaza StripDaily Oklahoman · 20 August 1971
• Relocating of Gaza refugees upsets manyMinneapolis Tribune · 22 August 1971
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