|
Checkpoint writing numbers like holocaust { April 29 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/news2003-04/news-101.htmlhttp://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/news2003-04/news-101.html
Wednesday 30 - April - 2003
Remembering Holocaust, Israeli Soldiers Recap Nazi Practices on the Palestinian People
International Press Center
April 29, 2003
As Israelis marked the national day of remembrance on Tuesday for the Holocaust, the Israeli occupying forces in the Palestinian territories have resorted to the same Nazi practices, in order to humiliate the Palestinians, and further tighten their grip on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
IOF soldiers, manning several military roadblocks around the West Bank, have started scribbling numbers on the palms of Palestinians trying to cross these roadblocks. The soldiers used ink to write three digit numbers on the palms of hundreds of passing Palestinians, Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday.
IOF confirmed the incident, and claimed that it was the action of a lone soldier, and that he would face disciplinary hearing.
“I never felt such a degrading insult,” said professor Hamdi Al-Jabali, 46, a lecturer at Al-Najah University in Nablus, after an IOF soldier wrote number “125” on his right palm.
Professor Al-Jabali added that several citizens told IOF soldiers that they considered this as a degrading act, but were given the choice by the soldiers to either turn back to where they came from, or submit to the marking.
"I thought seriously about going back from where I came, but I had many lectures, many appointments."
Al-Jabali was heading to Nablus from the nearby village of Bieta. “Do they want to repeat the way the Nazi Germans treated Jews?” he asked.
He said that the soldiers were very determined not to allow any unmarked Palestinian to pass through the roadblock. “Nobody will get through without his or her serial number printed on his/her palm,” Al-Jabali quoted the soldiers as saying.
Palestinians have refused the Israeli claim that these actions are isolated incidents, and said that many other soldiers on several roadblocks conduct the same degrading practice.
Some people said that IOF soldiers at Hawara roadblock, south of Nablus, which is considered one of the busiest in the area, have started this act on Sunday.
During Monday morning's rush hour at Hawarah, hundreds of Palestinians waited at the roadblock on their way to their jobs and schools in Nablus.
Wa’el Dweikat, an insurance agent who was assigned the number 113, told Al-Ayyam daily newspaper Tuesday that residents waiting to cross tried unsuccessfully to convince the IOF soldiers that they would line up in an orderly fashion without them marking their hands.
“But the soldier said, ‘these are our orders. If you will not accept that, you will not enter the city.’”
IOF claimed in a statement that, “at a checkpoint near Nablus, soldiers handed out numbers to those passing the checkpoint, as part of a routine inspection.”
“At a certain point, they ran out of numbers, and one soldier continued writing numbers on the hands of those passing,” IOF said.
The occupation forces added that the “soldier made a flawed decision, on his own, in contrary to army regulations.” IOF troops were told “there is no place in the army for such actions,” the statement said.
For 31 months, Israeli forces have enforced very strict travel restrictions on the Palestinian people, even between the Palestinian Districts' towns and villages, through scattering hundreds of military roadblocks on the main roads and highways in the West Bank.
A similar incident happened in March 2001, when soldiers marked numbers on the foreheads and forearms of Palestinian detainees awaiting interrogation during an incursion of a refugee camp in the West Bank.
At the time, the action drew outrage from an Israeli lawmaker who survived the Holocaust, and the practice was halted.
Israel on Tuesday marked its national day of remembrance for the Holocaust, in which they marked the Nazi regime's oppression and massacre of the Jews in Europe. During World War II, Nazi concentration camp inmates, had numbers tattooed on their forearms.
|
|
