At least 37 killed in Ramallah assault
AFP [ SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2002 8:53:59 PM ]
RAMALLAH, West Bank: At least 37 people, mainly civilians, were killed during the three-week Israeli occupation of the West Bank town of Ramallah, the head of the Ramallah state hospital said Sunday.
"We know of 37 dead including two women and two children," hospital director Hosni Atari said.
"Others with medical complaints died in the villages around Ramallah because the ambulances could not get to them. During the last 23 days people could not get to hospital except when the curfew was lifted," he said.
Atari said "only about 30 per cent" of those killed in Ramallah were Palestinian fighters, the rest were civilians.
He said two boys, one aged nine and the other 15, were in their homes when they were shot and killed by Israeli snipers.
The hospital had also treated 30 wounded throughout the operation, Atari said, including a Palestinian man who normally lived in Romania who was visiting relatives and was trapped in the town when the Israeli troops moved in on March 29.
As the army completed its withdrawal from most of Ramallah Sunday, leaving Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters still under siege, families gathered at the hospital garden to visit the makeshift graves of 17 people buried there after the morgue overflowed.
Others packed into the spartan wards to comfort the wounded and supply them with provisions.
Raif Manassra, 23, said his cousin Wasim Atari, 22, from Romania was shot from behind as they ventured out into the street to buy bread in one of the brief periods every three days when the curfew was lifted.
"We walked about 10 metres (yards) and stopped at a friend's house to see if we could get anything for his family.
"As we were standing in the doorstep Wasim was shot from behind. The bullet went right through his liver," he said.
Another neighbour who came out to investigate the source of the shooting was shot in the leg, Manassra added.