Stage One: Siege on Balata Refugee Camp
The incursion in Balata refugee camp started on 1:00 am February 19 when Balata camp was put under curfew. The Israeli Military has made medical emergency work impossible. All entrances to Balata refugee camp are blocked. The one ambulance left in the camp brings the wounded only to the edge of the camp, as medical workers fear that the army would prevent the vehicle from re-entering. The wounded are carried on
stretchers to the entrance of the camp and transported to hospitals in Nablus. Normal ambulance traffic has come to a complete halt.
International volunteers are working with ambulance personnel to transport the wounded to an emergency field clinic inside the camp and to hospitals in Nablus and other cities. They witnessed all of the following incidents or heard and confirmed them with ambulance personnel of the United Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UMPRC) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
Two youth were killed and over thirty injured when the Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition at the youth who were confronting soldiers with stones. Medical volunteers were called to the site where Mohammed Ahmad Natur and Ibrahim Ahmad Sheikh Khalil had been shot. One had been shot in the neck and the other in the chest. They were later declared dead. According to the IOF the boys were planting bombs. The volunteers have witnessed no explosions or bomb squads in the area and the army has continued to use the road in question throughout the day.
In the morning, an ambulance carrying a woman in complicated labor and an injured person was ambushed by two jeeps. The jeeps drove into the ambulance from both sides and shot at it. The soldiers forced the ambulance to stand still for half an hour to use it as a shield against youth throwing stones at them.
07:15-An Israeli military Jeep shot in the direction of an ambulance and prevented it from approaching the camp. 11:15-The military attempted to close the UN medical clinic by shooting warning shots and percussion grenades. They also prevented patients from entering the clinic.
13:00 pm two ambulances were held up by several jeeps. According to the ambulance team they were detained for 30 minutes and someone with a bullet wound in the shoulder was beaten inside one of the ambulance. The soldiers forced the ambulance personnel to undress his wound, which had just stopped bleeding. The ambulance was held until the family, with the help of the ambulance team and the IWPS volunteers, brought his ID card. After his ID was checked, the ambulance continued its way,
only to be stopped by the next jeep on the road.
13:30 pm the IWPS volunteers arrived inside Balata refugee camp on foot, where they witnessed the shooting of two boys shot in the leg and the side. One of them had a flesh wound and the other's bone was crushed by a bullet. A medical team and the IWPS volunteers ran two kilometers with the two injured boys, because the ambulance that was carrying them was not allowed to move.
13:45-Mohammad Yousef was shot with a rubber coated metal bullet in the head while throwing stones at a military jeep on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street near the entrance of the camp. The bullet entered several centimetres into his skull. There were an additional 12 young men injured while throwing stones at the military jeeps, in Balata village. Another five were injured by rubber coated steal bullets.
15:20-Four youths are injured by rubber coated steel bullets. One of them is shot in the head.
15:40-Israeli soldiers denied entry to a medical team attempting to deliver food and medicine into the camp. The Israeli soldiers also threatened to shoot them.
18:00- large group of soldiers surrounded a house in the Magdush neighbourhood in Balata camp. Soldiers broke into neighboring houses and broke windows and doors.
19:10 Twenty-two year old Mohammad Subkhi Abu Hanade was shot in the chest with live ammunition while he was in his home by a sniper in an occupied house adjacent to his. A medical team and international volunteers who were in the vicinity say that the atmosphere was quiet when they heard two shots followed by screaming coming from the house. They immediately came in and found Abu Hanade bleeding heavily. After Mohammad was evacuated, a pregnant woman in the house went into what seemed to be shock induced labor and was also evacuated to hospital.
They saw no weapon, nor any apparent reason for the shooting. Israeli soldiers subsequently ordered Mohammad's family, a total of 12 people including two small babies, out of the house at 20:45 and detained them in the street for an hour and a half.
In several instances, soldiers drove through the camps cursing the residents' mothers and sisters in Arabic in what seemed to be an attempt to provoke the youth to throw stones. The volunteers have witnessed no armed resistance, only youth throwing stones and building barricades.
On the third day of the military invasion, Feb 21st, 16 year old Kamal Khalili was shot in his chest with live ammunition at 11:00 this morning in Balata Camp while throwing a tone at Israeli soldiers. He is now brain dead. According to Dr. Ghassan Hamdan head of the Nablus UPMRC nine other youths were injured today, at least four of them with live ammunition. Dr. Hamdan Says that this brings the total of injured people to 64. The military has occupied over 60 homes.
After three days of confrontations between the camp youth and the military the Israeli military withdrew from Balata at 17:00 on February 21st. They wounded at least another four people during there retreat. However, this was only round one of the invasion of Balata. See previous report for information on the second invasion.
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Stage Two: Invasion of Balata Refugee Camp
‘We were standing in the alley way, everything was quite when suddenly without warning we heard a big explosion and heard gun shots. I then saw Jarar and Ihab liying on the floor. Ihab wasn't moving.’
Wounded Dutch medical volunteer
Balata Refugee camp was reinvaded at 1:30 in the morning on February 23rd.
19 year-old Ibrahim Saadi was shot dead while throwing a stone at the Israeli armored jeeps
20 year-old Naim Abu Sarif was shot dead by a sniper while standing on the roof of his house.
Five refugee camp residents were wounded, including a 36 year-old taxi driver, Farach Kawa, who sustained multiple fragments of a live bullet to his head and shoulder.
At 11:45 this morning an explosion set off by the Israeli military inside the house belonging to Muhammed Abu Hamis Abu Amar caused a fire in the house. Occupation forces prevented fire trucks from accessing the area and told them that they will be detonating further explosions in the same house. Emergency teams accompanied by international volunteers treated children in some of the adjacent houses who were effected by smoke inhalation. Neighbours attempted to put out the fire by bringing buckets of water.
At 12:30 the military set off a series of additional explosions inside the house of Muhammed Abu Amar.
At 1:00 A medical team including two Palestinians and two international volunteers were trapped in an alleyway adjacent to the house belonging to Muhammed Abu Amar. They were standing behind an Israeli Jeep that soldiers had vacated.
At 2:00 without any warning shots they were fired at and a grenade was thrown at them from around the corner. According to the volunteers the shooting came from the direction of the Alleyway where the Israeli soldiers were. A twenty two year old American student was wounded by shrapnel in the hand a twenty nine year old Dutch volunteer was wounded by shrapnel in the thigh and shoulder. Jirar Candola an ambulance driver with the UPMRC was shot in the arm and leg and Ihab Mansour, a medical volunteer working with the Palestinian scientific society, was shot in the head and taken away by the Israeli soldiers.
At 3:00 the soldiers blew up Muhammad Abu Amar's house, thus killing three Palestinian fighters who were inside.
Israeli forces withdrew from the camp in the early evening.