Children's corpses legacy of West Bank battles

11.50 am - by CHRISTINE HAUSER

NABLUS, West Bank - The dusty corpses of the al-Shabi children are frozen in time, testimony to their last moments of life in the battle-scarred ancient quarter of this Palestinian city in the West Bank.

Seven-year old Azam's arms cover his head as if he was trying to shield himself from the rubble of his home as it came crashing down, killing him and seven other members of his family more than a week ago during an Israeli military offensive.

His four-year-old sister Anis has her little fists clenched to her stomach. She is curled up, still dressed in her green sport shirt and pants.

"They were all together in a bombed building in the old city," said Anan Qadri, the head of the emergency medical committee in Nablus. "The Israelis destroyed their house in a missile attack and then destroyed it with bulldozers."

The eight members of the al-Shabi family were among 71 Palestinians killed in Nablus during the Israeli sweep since April 3, according to Nablus' Rafidia Hospital records obtained by Reuters.

Nablus was viewed as a stronghold of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, which has claimed responsibility for some of the recent suicide attacks inside Israeli.

Israeli armoured personnel carriers and tanks churned up the hilly streets of the West Bank's largest Palestinian city on Tuesday, enforcing a reoccupation in a campaign Israel says is aimed at uprooting terrorism.

Qadri had no breakdown for the number of gunmen and civilians killed in Nablus. "We are still working on this but many of them are civilians," she said.

The military curfew imposed on the more than 100,000 residents of Nablus has grisly implications in a city where tradition calls for mass public burials and three-day condolence visits.

"We have to prepare the tombs, and the families have to come but we are under curfew," said Qadri. "The Israeli liaison officer said 'we will allow you to only bury them one by one', so we refused."

This means that the bodies of the Shabi family and 25 other Palestinians are kept in a refrigerated dairy truck in a parking lot behind the hospital because the mortuary is overflowing with even more corpses.

"Good health and strength!" the advertisement on the side of the truck says above a collage of coloured milk cartons in vivid colours. A generator hums softly next to the vehicle, keeping its contents cold.

The Israeli army said it had no figures for Palestinian fatalities in Nablus, and added it was checking the policy on burials.

The dead are being lowered into shallow temporary graves, covered in palm leaves in the Islamic tradition. Three corpses have been buried in the hospital garden.

In the old quarter of Nablus, stone steps lead up a narrow alley towards a wooden door between houses with arched windows their residents say are centuries old. The door swings open onto a lilac-scented garden.

Under the shade of lush almond and peach trees, two indentations in the ground mark the spot where 13 Palestinians have been buried in a temporary mass grave.

Palm fronds fan across the soil. Two military-style olive green overcoats are splayed in the dirt, riddled with what look like shrapnel perforations.

"We buried them here," said Nafez Eissa, whose home opens up onto the garden. "We will dig them up when the Israeli army withdraws and give them a decent burial in the cemetery."

In the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, the Abu Aisha family buried their 11-year old son Qusay near their home. He was shot dead with two bullets in his chest during the Israeli army incursion into the camp on Tuesday.

Inside the Old City, known locally as the Casbah, or bazaar, hundreds of fighters mingled with Palestinian police and security forces of Arafat's Palestinian Authority in preparation before the Israeli incursion.

Graffiti on the walls urging more militant attacks is scrawled next to signs which urge residents not to park in driveways.

Blood stains spatter the rubble in front of scorched groceries and shops. The facades of houses are busted through with gaping holes residents say were made by helicopter rocket attacks. Bomb-blasted buildings have been reduced to mounds of yellow stone and dust.

The door of the 300-year old Al-Beik mosque in the old quarter is spattered with blood from the dead and injured who were brought into the prayer room, which was transformed into a temporary operating theatre and first aid station.

Blood-caked surgical instruments soak in dirty water, and plastic sheeting covers the floors under the mosque's sparkling chandeliers.

Israeli tanks had sealed off the narrow alleyways into the old quarter during days of fierce fighting.

"After the incursion we turned the mosque into a hospital," said Doctor Tawfik Ghazal. "We could not evacuate injured Palestinians from the old city. We tried to save lives in the street under gunfire.

"I saw four patients due before my eyes because we had no blood for infusions and no proper facilities. We worked under very difficult conditions."

- REUTERS

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