Newsday · 7 March 1991
CP-1991-046
Kuwait’s Palestinians Targeted
By Susan Sachs
Transcribed from the clipping
Kuwait City — This scarred city’s liberation has unleashed a small but unusual crime wave. The bottled-up anger of seven months of Iraqi occupation is erupting in violent acts of retribution against Palestinian residents, apparently by both Kuwaiti soldiers returning from exile and civilians who rode it out at home.
In addition, gunfire has struck at least a dozen Kuwaiti soldiers manning checkpoints throughout the city. Doctors at Mubarak Hospital, which serves a largely Palestinian community, said yesterday they have treated five young Palestinian men who had been beaten or shot over the last week.
One man’s toenail had been ripped off, in grisly imitation of one of the torture methods employed by the Iraqis against Kuwaitis. Three of the victims worked at the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose leadership supported Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and is vilified by Kuwaiti officials.
A PLO spokesman at the group’s run-down offices in Kuwait City, speaking from behind a closed door, refused to comment on the attacks. But the doctors said the three men told them they had been shot by the Kuwaiti military at checkpoints or police stations.
“What we hear about is a lot of quarrels at the checkpoints,” said one doctor, a Palestinian himself, who feared retribution if his name was revealed. “Is it a green light from their people to torture the Palestinians? We had trouble during the Iraqi presence. Why should we suffer when Kuwait becomes a free country?”
The sound of gunfire still rings through the night. Most is believed to come from celebrating Kuwaitis who fire into the air, with weapons abandoned by the Iraqis.
Cite this clipping
"Kuwait’s Palestinians Targeted," Newsday, 7 March 1991. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1991-046. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1991-046
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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