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October 4 2002 Iraq Burin Attacked, 16 men arrested, IDF admit 'Sorry' wrong guys...

Last night 14 jeeps, 80-100 soldiers and 2 tanks (Eyewitnesses conflict on the sightings of tanks) surrounded 3 houses, a stable and some caves on the edge of Iraq Burin - a small village poised on a mountain verge, 4-6km from Nablus city. From 7pm until 12pm today, the village was besieged by soldiers. During the mini incursiuon three houses were repeatedly fired on with rockets and bullets, families were evicted from their homes and forced to sleep under the stars, belongings were smashed and 16 men were arrested, tied up, driven 25 km to Huwara military base, interrogated and then released.

The 16 arrested men, the youngest being just 16-years-old, were in their separate homes playing cards, sitting with their families, 'doing nothing' as Abdul Rahim Ahmad Kaduz, the village's mayor and headmaster of Beit Wazin school puts it, when the attack occured. The soldiers arrived at 7pm 'looking for terrorists' -'suspicious Palestinian men' they had seen walking down the street. They shot missiles into Abdul Rahim's house first, clean through the outer walls into the family rooms, and kitchen, creating see-through holes 3 to 6 inches wide. Abdul Rahim is a small, shrewd man with a sardonic, stand-up comic sense of homour. He greets as soon as we step out of the servis taxi myself and Hussein are lucky enough to nab on the way into the village. 'Welcome, welcome' he says. He launches into a 2 minute irate explaination of the events of the past 16 hours in Arabic, pointing up at the missile holes flcking the front of the house and the shattered windows, his voice thick with disgust, pointing here, there and everywhere before saying, in English, 'But first, I show you the donkey'. Ey? He leads us, along with 10 or so local shebab (Yoof) and adult men to a sun scorched clearing before the stable where a donkey is lying, twitching in the heat. 'This, they shoot seven times, Seven times! Why?'. Flies are buzzing into the wounds in its side - a rash of raw sticky dark holes. 'Why they shoot the donkey?'. 'Harram' says Hussein, shaking his head, (meaning 'it's blasphemy, it's unacceptable in Islam'). We then visit the outhouse/stable. It's dark and musty and stinks of offal. A man brings out two chickens, holding them by their feet. Their necks are broken, hanging loose on red tendens. We go inside. Light shines down in dusty beams through a smattering of tiny bullet holes in the roof. 'Look', says Abdul, pointing to a hole in the ground about 6 inches deep and 30 inches wide. It was recently, rashly shot or dug out by the soldiers.'The tuunnels of the terrorists. They think we have people hiding there below', he says.

Next we get a guided tour of all three houses. One woman was injured, in her eye, from flying shrapnel. A man from Tell, a neighbouring village was shot in the foot whilst sitting in his frien's car. Aside from those two direct hits, the story's pretty much the same in each house. Never ending gunfire (even when the men from the houses shouted that they would come out without struggle and could the soldiers just stop shooting, the bullets didn't stop flying. The soldiers carried on, firing above their would-be captives' heads')forced entry, everything turned over/shot at, and everyone in the house marched out at gunpoint and ordered to sleep under then trees in a cold night with no possibility of bringing extra clothing or blankets for the babies or children of the homes. One man, who had been taking a shower at the time, was fored out into the night in his underwear and taken to Huwara semi-naked, without his shoes. During the arrests, a young boy, no older than 5 years old, saw his father being screamed at by soldiers and a gun put to his head. When other soldiers began to fire he thought his father had been killed. 'You shot my father!!' he had yelled in terror. The shock of the sight and situation and sound had rendered him mute for an entire day. Before our eyes he looked like many Palestinian kids I've seen here, post-trauma; sullen, withdrawn but with slightly stunned, slightly disorientated eyes.

The 16 men had their hands tied behind their backs with plastic cord, were shoved into military jeeps and taken to Huwara military base, near the main checkpoint into Nablus. There they were blindfolded, gagged and bundled into tents from which they were taken, one at a time, to be interrogated 'by detectives and captains'. Time and time again they were asked about 'terrorist links' and whether they were hiding anyone, whether they had seen these new and suspicious strangers in the village. 'Maybe they were just coming to buy sheep or sell things' came the rational reply from many of the detainess. Abdul asked his interogator, 'Why did you crush the houses? Why did you kill the donkey?' 'Sorry, we just wanted to find the strangers' came the lame reply. During their entire ordeal at Huwara - approximately 8-10 hours they were allowed nothing.'No water, no toilet, no smoking'. Tells us another arrested man. Abdul had 500 shekels stolen from him too. He had 800 on him when taken in but when his belongings were returned to him in a standard issue army brown paper bag, 500 of it was missing. The soldier told him he didn't know what he was talking about. Amazingly, noone was beaten. At the time, Israeli radio, seemingly taking their info cue from the IDF reported that 16 'wanted men' had been arrested in Iraq Burin - 8 of them 'very dangerous'.

Abdul takes us into his home. Outside he points to a sagging electricity cable. 'Here, the soldiers cut the electricity. Then they come in, and say, 'Turn on all the lights! Turn on the lights now'. I say, 'how? you cut the power?'. Inside it's like the other two homes - smashed windows, pounded-in doors, and everything thoroughly bullet riddled and rifled through. Cracks run along the walls created by the impact of the missiles - some still hanging in the walls or entangled in lighting fixtures, and hundreds of bullet and shrapnel holes pock-mark everything. Mirrors stand jagged, pieces fractured on the floor, and reams of clothes are scorched and slashed from wardrobes being axed open and shot through. School books are torn, furniture upturned, chairs broken, tables axed, TVs shoved in or exploded. We enter the kitchen. The cupboards are cracked and sacks of rice and sugar lie ripped open - by bullets or knives - the contents spilled over the floor, mixed with shattered glass and bullet cartridges. 'Here, ah, Osama Bin Laden eat here' jibes Abdul, gesturing about the room with his hand. When we get to his bedroom he shows us slashed up clothes and burnt holey shirts, all still hanging in his shot up, now lopsided wardrobe. He coninues on the Bin Laden tip: 'Here, Osama Bin Laden's clothes' he says. It may not seem it but it was really funny, just the irony of the situation and the sarcasm and pure rue in his voice.

After 104 days of curfew, food is scarce in Iraq Burin. 'All people eat here is just the oil, bread and cheese. No vegetables. Nothing'. Tells us Abdul. In July, water wells and wheels in the village were destroyed. The result is unclean water which has led to a break-out of hepatitis. There is no waterpipe network in the village and electricity is only available for 7 hours per day. There is a clinic but no staff. One doctor and one nurse is all that's needed, say villagers, or a twice weekly visit from the overstretched mobile health clinic. Many children deparately need imunisation. Roadblocks and checkpoints have seen to the demolition of that possibility. 15 days ago a preganant woman in labour from iraq Burin was forced to haver her baby at a roadblock. 40 International volunteers removed the main roadblock in August but the road was forbidden for use and re-blocked after seven hours. An army bulldozer - huge, cranking, screeching metal shacks on treadwheels - shut it. The main roadblocks have been removed five or six times but every time it is re-imposed within hours. Many children have been unable to get to the one school in the village and teachers cannot get to classes. Of the 11 teaching staff once active at the school, only 3 remain now, plus the headmaster and a handful of volunteers. The result is a poverty of education with 60 kids being routinely crammed into one schoolroom and all the noise, distraction and difficulty in communication that goes with it.

Before we go, we drink the ubiquitous sugar-thick shai (tea). Over our steaming sweet shot-cups, Abdul reminisces about teaching in Nakob prison. Nakob is located in the middle of desert land in Nablus and held 10,000 prisoners during the first intifada. This time round it's packing in 3,000. In the beginning it was 'just scorpions and snakes', says Hussein, 'but then the inmates farmed the land and people cleaned and learned from one another'. Tanks and barbed wire surrounded the entire the place but it became, due to the self-organisation of the people inside, 'like a university'. People learned Hebrew, English, better Arabic, and survival skills - physical, technical and emotional. Abdul taught 25 people to read and write there. 'For free!' he laughs. Every prison has its escape routes.

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