Netzarim becomes a symbol of brute force

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Netzarim becomes a symbol of brute force • Israelis accused of hair-triggered violence at this lonely and now bloodied outpost stoned the police, quickly break- ing through their lines. As firing broke out, some shots appeared to come from a building on the Palestinian side, pocked with bullet holes. Smoke billowed from piles of burning tires in the street.

Israeli helicopters circled over- head, as dozens of youths ran The Associated Press through the street, one waving a Palestinian flag.

A veiled Pales- tinian woman stumbled as she NETZARIM JUNCTION, Gaza Strip - This violent crossroads, scene of some of the bloodiest battles in six days of Israeli- Palestinian clashes, is ground zero in a growing debate: How much force is too much force? Israeli military doctrine is simple: When soldiers' lives are threatened, deadly force is justi- fied.

But in places such as Net- zarim, where teen-age Palestin- ian stone-throwers are being felled by live bullets and machine-gun fire from heli- copter gunships, the unequal matchup has Israelis on the defensive.

Israel argues that the pres- ence of Palestinian gunmen among the demonstrators even if they are only a tiny minority in the crowd - leaves its soldiers with no choice but to use live ammunition. "Wherever we are fired upon, we will fire back," Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defense minis- ter, told Israel radio on Tuesday. Since the unrest began last week, 56 people have died.

Two of the dead were Israeli soldiers and one was a Jewish Israeli civilian, but 43 were Palestinians and the other 10 were Israeli Arabs. "It's not a war. We're not shoot- ing at them; they're shooting at us, and we're dying." counters senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

At Netzarim Junction, a high- way crossroad in the scrubby flatlands of the central Gaza Strip, a lone army outpost guards the access road to a Jewish set- tlement by the same name.

Like many other settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Netzarim is loathed by Palestini- ans living in nearby towns and refugee camps as a symbol of oppression and occupation. tried to get out of the line of fire. Demonstrators rushed to carry the wounded to arriving ambu- lances. One drove off so fast that a roll of surgical tape unwound out its open back-doors.

At least 41 people were hurt and two other men killed in the daylong battle, according to hos- pital officials. The army acknowledged the use of live fire and said helicopter gunships fired rockets. Hospital emergency room director Moawia Hassan said a gaping wound such Abu Amounah's would likely have come from a high-caliber weapon.

More than 2,000 people packed the narrow concrete alleys of Nusseirat for Abu Amounah's funeral, held only an hour after he was killed. Netzarim Junction has been the scene of some of the most wrenching events in nearly a week of fighting.

On Saturday, a 12-year-old•Palestinian boy was shot dead and his father serious- The Associated Press An unidentified Palestinian sits in front of the Netzarim Junction, where some of the worst Palestinians-Israeli violence has occurred. ly wounded as the two huddled, terrified, trying to find shelter from a hail of bullets.

The army acknowledged Tues- The Israeli soldiers at Net- zarim Junction are far outnum- bered by mobs of rioters who have besieged their isolated post each day.

Given their state of hair-trig- ger jumpiness, it sometimes is only a matter of moments before a lower-level confrontation - stone-throwing repelled by rub- ber bullets and tear gas - turns into a full-scale battle with live On Tuesday at the junction, a chaotic scene erupted when a rioter on a warehouse rooftop adjacent to the army outpost was struck by a missile.

Onlookers said the man - iden- tified as 28-year-old Falimi Abu Amounah — was throwing stones. But the army said he was proba- bly shooting toward the soldiers. Friends who jumped to his aid saw that his brains had literally been blown out, sending them into a frenzy of shock, rage and grief. "Allahu Akhbar (God is great)!" they screamed.

One of the group seized a handful of bloody brain matter and waved it wildly in his bare hands.

Palestinian police tried to block the group from charging the Israeli outpost, but they snatched up rocks and furiously day its soldiers had apparently fired the fatal shots and expressed sorrow over the inci- dent - but blamed Palestinians anew for the "cynical use" of children in the confrontation with Israeli troops.

Speaking specifically of that incident, a top Israeli commander said the troops' field of vision was often limited. At the bunker- like outpost at Netzarim, soldiers are aiming through small slits, Gen. Giora Eiland said. Word of Tuesday's gruesome fatal shooting spread swiftly to the ranks of the young stone- throwers massing for a new wave of attacks against the Israelis.

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"Netzarim becomes a symbol of brute force," The Santa Fe New Mexican, 4 October 2000. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2000-033. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2000-033

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They could not agree on his name