'Afaf 'Ali Hassan al-Desuqi

During the military operations in Jenin refugee camp, as elsewhere, the IDF
has frequently used explosives to open doors of homes and buildings,
sometimes without waiting to allow residents to open them, resulting in the
death or injury of a number of women and men. On 5 April 'Afaf al-Desuqi, 59,
was killed when an explosive was used on the door of her home as she went to
open it. She had been called to open the door by her neighbour, Ismahan Abu
Murad, who was used as a "human shield" by the IDF to lead the way to the
house. Ismahan Abu Murad confirmed the account given by 'Afaf's sister,
'Aisha 'Ali Hassan al-Desuqi, who told Amnesty International:

"My family was at home on Friday 5 April. It was about 3 or 3.15 in the
afternoon. We heard the knocking and calling for us to open the door. My
sister 'Afaf said 'Just a moment'. She said this right away. At that time, we
were in the salon, which faces the street. 'Afaf left to answer the door; we
were following her. When she reached the door, she had just put her hand out
to touch the handle of the door and it exploded. The door exploded in on her
and the right side of her face was blown off. Her left hand was injured as
well as the left part of her chest. I think she must have died instantly.

We started shouting. The soldiers were just outside that door. The IDF began
to shoot at the walls as if to try and scare us. We yelled at them to get an
ambulance but they did not answer us. My brother then went and took 'Afaf's
body. We did not have a telephone; it had been cut off since 10am that
morning. The neighbours phoned the hospital and they were told that the
ambulance had to wait to get clearance. We waited but no ambulance came.

"On Friday and Saturday, I kept putting perfume on her. On Sunday, we changed
her clothes as they were covered in blood, and we bandaged her injuries.
Because I am a nurse, I knew what it would be like to keep the body in the
house with us for this time, so we went to stay with my brother to sleep at
night and returned to the house to be with my sister in the day. On Thursday
[11 April], the curfew was lifted for a few hours and 'Afaf's body was
carried in a neighbour's car to al- Razi hospital. We could not reach Jenin
City Hospital, as it was a controlled military zone. We buried 'Afaf in a
cemetery in the east part of the city.

"After her killing, the IDF tried to say 'Afaf was a suicide bomber and that
she blew herself up. That is not true. Look at the door: it was blown from
the outside. My sister was not political; she was not involved in anything."
Amnesty International visited the site and was able to examine the door, as
well as the explosive device, which the family had kept. The impression on
the door clearly indicates that the door had been blown in from an explosion
outside; this evidence is consistent with the testimony cited above.

Jamal al-Sabbagh

On 6 April 2002, 33-year-old Jamal al-Sabbagh was shot by the IDF after he
had been taken into their custody. According to a witness, at the time Jamal
al-Sabbagh was shot, he was unarmed and had posed no threat to the soldiers
who had detained him.
The day before Jamal al-Sabbagh's killing, a missile had destroyed his house.
On 6 April Jamal al-Sabbagh, along with other men aged between 16 and 45
years from the camp, were instructed by an IDF loudspeaker to come into the
streets. This occurred at approximately 6pm.

At this time, 16-year-old Muzaffar Jamal Zubaidi, from the Hawashin district
of the camp, was at home. He heard the loudspeaker instructing men in the
district to go out into the street but he was alone and afraid. Soldiers were
moving around on foot and in tanks. He told Amnesty International delegates
that he waited beside his house and was looking to see if he recognised
anyone going out into the street.

When he saw his neighbour, Jamal al-Sabbagh, he left his house to walk with
him. It was getting dark by this time. He said that soldiers had each man
strip to their underwear and provide their details, including name and ID
number. Jamal al-Sabbagh was carrying a sack with him and he explained that
the soldiers allowed him to carry his medicine, as he was diabetic, and to
keep his clothes on. The soldiers had instructed the men to walk to a square
near the health clinic. Muzaffar Zubaidi and Jamal al-Sabbagh walked there
together:

"We were ordered to lie on the ground, we did. Jamal was just a short
distance, a few metres or so, away from me. Jamal lay on the ground but held
on to his bag. Then the soldiers told us to stand up and told Jamal to put
his bag on the ground away from him. He put it just to the side of him. The
soldiers then said for us to take off our trousers. I had begun to take off
my trousers and I heard some shots. One of the bullets came very close to me.
I fell to the ground. Jamal was shot in the side of the head. I could hear
Jamal praying and then nothing. I stayed silent on the ground. I think the
shot came from a sniper in a third floor window.

A short time after, I am not sure how long, another group of men came into
the square. The soldiers ordered them to strip to their underwear. Together
with these men, I went into a room and the soldiers tied most of our hands
behind our backs. There were three men whose hands were not tied. They
carried his body to the entrance of the door and the soldiers told them to
search him. They searched him but they did not find anything. The IDF then
put his body in a fridge - it was a dairy store that the IDF had taken over."


Muzaffar Zubaidi returned to Jenin after two days in detention and 11 days in
Rumaneh village. He contacted Jamal al-Sabbaghs relatives, but he could not
find his body. The Director of Jenin City Hospital, Dr Mohammad Abu Ghali
said:
"At 5pm on 15 April we found the remains of a body, mutilated by a tank, by
the dairy store - a finger, some pieces of flesh, a pair of trousers beside
the traces of the body of a human being. I called the IDF over and said
'Where is the body?' They did not say anything."
The remains of the body, which had been run over several times by a tank, are
believed to be Jamal al-Sabbagh.

'Abd al-Karim Yusuf Sa'adi and Wadah Fathi Shalabi

On 6 April 2002, 27-year-old 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi and 37-year-old Wadah
Shalabi were shot dead by the IDF in an alleyway close to the Sa'adi home.
The two men were neighbours who lived near the entrance to the Jenin refugee
camp. At the time of their killing, the two men were with Wadah Shalabis
father, Fathi Shalabi, who managed to escape uninjured. He described the
events of that day:

"My son Wadah has six children four boys and two girls. The oldest child is
10 years old and the youngest is four months. It was 6 April at about 6.30pm.
The IDF had gone to the house of Yusuf 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi. He lives not far
from my house, maybe 15 metres. Yusuf's son, 'Abd al-Karim was at my house at
the time. The IDF then moved from this house to my neighbour's house. My son,
Wadah, does not normally stay with us but because of the situation, he had
come to stay here with his family. Myself, my wife, my son and his family and
my daughter and her family were all here with me. The IDF ... saw my children
playing in my backyard and told them to go to the basement of my house. We
all went to the basement, there were 17 of us, and we were there for about
five minutes. We were then told to go next door but instead of letting us
pass through the main entry, they made us walk along the street and then
approach my neighbour's house through an alley.

When we reached the end of the alley, the soldiers separated the men from the
women and children. Both my son and 'Abd al-Karim were holding children. They
handed the children to the women and remained in the alley. The women and
children went to a back garden of 'Abd al-Karim's house, which was located
through a metal door off the alleyway. When the women and children were in
the garden, the soldier closed the door. Some of the soldiers went with the
women and three stayed with us; they were only two metres away in the narrow
alley. Two were called Gabi and David. .... They told us to lift our shirts.

"We did not have anything in our hands. When they told us to raise our
shirts, we did. I heard Gaby say in Hebrew 'Kill them, kill them', then the
other soldier took his gun and sprayed us with bullets. He shot from left to
right, so 'Abd al-Karim was hit first and then Wadah. I don't know how I
wasn't shot except that when I heard the shots, I fell to the ground. My
son's body was resting on mine. I could feel something wet underneath and I
could see it was blood. I could see that my son was shot. I kept very quiet
and pretended to be dead".

According to Fathi Shalabi, the soldiers remained there for over one hour.
They checked the bodies from time to time and one had shone a light near his
eyes. He tried to remain still. After he was sure that the soldiers were
gone, he went and hid in his home. He knew both his son and 'Abd al-Karim
Sa'adi were dead. He stayed at home until later that morning and then left to
the Sa'adi home where his family was sheltering. The bodies of the two men
remained in the alley for nine days (the hospital record shows that they were
brought in on 15 April).

Amnesty International visited the site of the shooting. There was under two
metres distance between the position of the soldiers and that of the victims.
At the time the shootings would have occurred, it would have been early
evening, but would not yet have been dark. It has been suggested that 'Abd
al-Karim Sa'adi was wearing a back-brace and the soldiers might have mistaken
it for an explosive belt; however, the brother and father of 'Abd al-Karim
Sa'adi insisted that he did not wear a back-brace. Professor Derrick Pounder
carried out an autopsy on the body of Wadah Shalabi and concluded that he
died from a shot into the left back and out of the right front. Wadah Shalabi
was also shot in the foot.
Major-General Giora Eiland, the Head of the IDF Plans and Policy Directorate,
described this case as one where IDF soldiers found three men hiding, one
with a suicide bomb belt. He said:

"There was one time when a company commander called on people to come out.
Some women came out. The soldiers asked them if there were other people in
the house. 'Some visitors', they replied. 'Tell them to get out'. Three men
got out; one held a baby. The IDF officer told him to give the baby to the
women, he refused, the officer insisted, eventually he did so. Then they told
the men to come closer and take off their shirts. Two took off shirts, one
refused. Eventually he did and had a belt. He was shot."

This explanation of the case is difficult to reconcile with the location of
the bodies, in such a narrow alley way that it would have been unlikely for a
soldier, only 1.7 metres away, to order detainees to come any closer. This is
a case which has been widely reported, and the first names of two of the
soldiers involved in the shooting are known. It remains unclear why a full
and public investigation to establish the circumstances of death has not been
carried out

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