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Eyewitness Says Israeli Troops Storm Barghouti Home, Abuse Daughter
By Sunni M. Khalid, IslamOnline Staff Writer
WASHINGTON D.C., Dec. 14 (IslamOnline) - Invading Israeli troops stormed the Ramallah home of Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and physically abused his 11-year-old daughter in front of his family after she threw an Israeli flag from a balcony, according to a freelance television producer.
Nidal Rafi, a freelance television producer and an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent, said Friday in a telephone interview with IslamOnline from her Jerusalem home that she witnessed the incident Thursday when she went to the Barghouti home with an Italian television crew.
Barghouti, the charismatic leader of the Tanzim militia, was not at his home when a heavily-armed contingent of Israeli troops arrived.
"We went to his neighborhood in Ramallah and there were something like five Israeli tanks exactly in front of the house," said Rafi. "Behind his house, there were more tanks. I counted at least 10 of them, but there were more. I couldn't see all of them because it is a wooded area."
Once inside the Barghouti home, Rafi said she saw six heavily-armed Israeli soldiers in the living room standing in front of Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, the couple's four young children, Barghouti's brother and his wife. They had been preparing to have
iftâr, the nightly meal where Muslim's break fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
On the balcony of the Barghouti home, a blue-and-white Israeli flag had been festooned to the railing.
Just after she entered, Rafi said she noticed Barghouti's 11-year-old daughter, Ruba, walking toward the balcony.
"When [Ruba] got there, she took the flag from the balcony and threw it down in the street," said Rafi. "Then, I saw the Israeli soldiers pull her by her hair and they beat her. They pulled her very hard by her hair and they beat her with their hands. They beat her in front of the family, the wife of Marwan Barghouti, the four kids and his brother and his wife."
After the Israeli soldiers finished, Rafi said they ordered all of the Barghoutis to stay in one room of the house, while the Israelis settled into the other rooms of the house. She said the commanding officer was visibly angered at Ruba's act of defiance.
"The soldier said as punishment, they wouldn't allow them [the Barghouti family] to have
iftâr," added Rafi. "They had already prepared the food. The incident was only 15 minutes before
iftâr."
Responding to the Israeli soldier, Fadwa began to scream at shout at them. "She told me to take pictures and tell everyone what they [the Israelis] were doing," Rafi said.
"Then, one of the Israeli soldiers went down to the street to get the flag," she added. "He came up the steps and started dancing and laughing in front of everyone."
The Israelis then ordered Rafi and her Italian television crew to leave the premises. Reports in
Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli daily newspaper, said that Israeli soldiers have taken up indefinite residence in Barghouti's home and have restricted the leader's family to one room of the house.
There is no information concerning the whereabouts of Barghouti, an outspoken leader of the current Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, as well as the previous one against Israel's continued military occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Tanzim forces have clashed with Israeli forces, especially near Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. He has been outspoken in his opposition to Israeli policies and has clashed openly in the past with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat about the Intifada.
Barghouti also narrowly escaped an Israeli assassination attempt on his life earlier this year. It is not known if his name was on the list of 33 names Israel submitted to the Palestinian Authority for arrest.
While Barghouti apparently remains a free man, Palestinian areas remain tense as Israeli forces have re-occupied much of the land they ceded to Palestinian control under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
Rafi, who has lived through much of the 34-year occupation, said there was a difference between Israel's previous occupation and its recent re-occupation of areas ostensibly ruled by the Palestinian Authority.
"Dealing with the Israelis now is totally different," she said. They've digressed. At the checkpoints, they won't even let women through.
'Yesterday, there was a man at a checkpoint who asked the Israelis to let him take his daughter to have dialysis at a local hospital. He showed them the papers and the permission, but they wouldn't let him through. He even asked us to speak to the Israelis to help him, but they wouldn't listen."
She also said the recent Israeli military campaign against Palestinian-ruled areas was unlike anything she had ever seen before.
"The Israelis are shelling, bombarding with F-16s, Apaches, opening fire with all of these things," she said. "The undercover units are going into the Palestinian areas anytime they want. Israel is not respecting any part of the Oslo agreement."
The mood of the Palestinians, she added, has ranged from increasing desperation and confusion to anger.
"People are angry," said Rafi. "After one year of the Intifada, the political situation is very bad and the economic situation is getting worse. Now, in many Palestinian homes, people are only eating beans and some bread with tea.
"The poverty is very bad. In one home, they only have one pair of shoes for three boys. That one pair of shoes has to be shared, with two of the boys staying inside while the other uses the shoes."
The Palestinian Authority, she says, has all but disappeared.
"Arafat told the people, told the Israelis, 'You can't expect me to do anything if you [Israel] don't respect me, if you don't show my people that you respect me.' I think Israel wants to indirectly destroy the Palestinian Authority. It has already paralyzed the Authority."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington still regards Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people, despite rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision this week to ban all official contacts.
Powell has repeated his calls for Arafat to do more to crackdown on Palestinian resistance groups who have launched attacks against Israel. But Washington has not condemned Israel's massive use of force against the Palestinians, arguing that the Jewish state is simply exercising its right of self-defense.
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