- "The Israeli army is the most moral army in the
world, we never harm unarmed people unless accidentally, and immediately
the army publicise an apology."
-
- Ariel Sharon's stated objective for Israel's current
operations in the West Bank is to "destroy the Palestinian terrorist
infrastructure".
-
- But reports from inside the Israeli-occupied towns
suggest
that the civilian infrastructure - roads, water pipes and the electricity
supply - is also being badly damaged, or destroyed, by the actions of the
Israeli Defence Force.
-
- Officials from the United Nations agency for Palestinian
refugees have told the BBC that the agency's staff are reporting
"wanton
destruction" of Palestinian infrastructure across the West
Bank.
-
- There have also been reports of looting of food and
personal
items by Israeli soldiers carrying out house to house searches.
-
- Bethlehem experience
-
- Elaine Zubi has lived in Bethlehem for 12 years. She
is an American married to a Palestinian, and mother of four.
-
- Her home is just south from the Church of the Nativity
- she can see the church's steeple from her front window.
-
- "The tanks came up our street on Tuesday. Right
away, they ruined the water pipes at the top of the street and water has
been running down ever since," she told BBC News Online.
-
- "Another knocked down the electricity wires. We
have no power. We still have water, but are using as little as possible
because the water tank on the roof will run out. If this goes on for a
week we will get desperate."
-
- Elaine and her family are combining their food and water
supplies with those of two other families who share the building.
-
- "Yesterday, when the tanks moved off, my husband
went across the road to give some groceries to some people who had run
out. The tanks came back, and I thought he'd be sleeping over there, but
he got back after dark."
-
- News that the curfew is being temporarily lifted keeps
filtering through, Elaine says. The US consul had called various US
nationals
in the city to tell them that the curfew was being lifted on Friday
morning,
but when they ventured onto their balconies they were ordered indoors by
Israeli soldiers.
-
- "We have a ton of tanks and armoured personnel
carriers
right outside out house now. I don't know how safe it will be to go out
even if a break in the curfew comes through," she said.
-
- Adam Shapiro, a US national and a worker with the
International
Solidarity Movement, spoke to the BBC from Ramallah:
-
- "I've seen tanks roll straight over cars and destroy
walls for no apparent reason. Many homes and building are shot through
with bullet and shell holes," he said.
-
- Difficulty of verification
-
- The Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, says there
are widespread reports of this sort of damage, but that the organisation
cannot formally verify them because their field workers are not being
allowed
into the occupied areas.
-
- "We do have confirmed reports of Red Crescent
ambulances
not being allowed to pick up the wounded from the streets and of a private
hospital being shelled," B'Tselem spokesman Leore Yavne said.
-
- BBC News Online was contacted by Itsik Avichatsira -
a former IDF sergeant in the Golani Brigade who served in Hebron and
Lebanon.
-
- "The Israeli army is the most moral army in the
world, we never harm unarmed people unless accidentally, and immediately
the army publicise an apology," he said.
-
- Asked about reports of soldiers causing damage not
related
to the stated military objectives of "destroying the terrorist
infrastructure",
he said soldiers never do anything they are not ordered to do.
-
- "They may have cut the electricity in order to carry
out operations in the dark. If there are reports of water pipes and tanks
being destroyed, I can only believe this was done by accident," Itsik
said.
-
- The director of the Israeli Government press office,
Danny Seaman, told BBC News Online that if any damage was being done to
Palestinian civilian infrastructure, it was not deliberate.
-
- "There is no deliberate campaign to uproot civilian
infrastructure. Such reports are part of Palestinian disinformation and
propaganda and the international observers and journalists who are
reporting
this lack experience. Combat is not an easy thing," Mr Seaman
said.
-
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1913000/191315
6.stm"
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