Posted on 04/22/2002 2:02:46 PM PDT by knighthawk
Ramallah, West Bank - It remains to be seen whether Israel dealt a serious blow to what it termed the "terrorist infrastructure" in the West Bank, but the Palestinian governmental infrastructure built over the years by Yasser Arafat clearly has been battered - ministries are ransacked, files and computer disks missing, office equipment wrecked.
In Ramallah, the Palestinians' de facto capital from which Israeli troops made a partial withdrawal on Sunday, officials are seething with anger over the destruction of seven years of work on a structure to run what they hoped would be a Palestinian state.
What had been the Palestinian Authority apparatus was built largely with donors' money. The leaders say it will take months and millions of dollars to repair the damage. Many believe the destruction was an intentional effort to undermine their state-in-the-making.
"To rebuild what they've destroyed and replace what they've seized will require a super effort and a long period of time," said Ahmed Qureia, Palestinian parliament speaker and one of the main architects of the 1993 Israel-Palestinian peace pact known as the Oslo accords.
Rebuilding would cost $500 million
He estimated the total cost of rebuilding in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank at close to $500 million. Other Palestinian officials assigned to assess the damage say it is too early to put a figure on the destruction.
Israel says it launched "Operation Defensive Shield" on March 29 to rout Palestinian militants only after truce efforts repeatedly failed and Palestinian suicide bombings and shooting attacks killed scores of Israeli civilians.
Israeli officials claimed to have found documents during raids on civilian offices proving the Palestinian Authority was involved in the terrorism. Another goal was apparently to uncover what the Israelis termed "incitement" to violence against them.
"The troops had explicit orders to avoid unnecessary damage," said Raanan Gissin, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "If unnecessary damage was caused it will be investigated. But bear in mind that as soon as we pull out the Palestinians move in to fix up the show for the TV cameras."
Besides Ramallah, Israel on Sunday pulled out from Nablus, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the current stage of the campaign had been completed.
'No policemen left'
A tour of four ministries - education, environment, supplies and higher education - in Ramallah immediately after Israel's withdrawal on Sunday revealed extensive and, in some cases, selective damage to the government infrastructure.
Throughout the West Bank, facilities used by about 10 Palestinian security and intelligence units lay in ruins from Israeli attacks or abandoned for fear of fresh ones. Many, if not most, of their personnel are either in hiding or in detention, raising serious questions about how the Palestinian Authority could maintain law and order among the West Bank's estimated 2 million inhabitants.
Speaking after a visit last week to the town of Jenin, scene of the worst fighting in Israel's West Bank campaign, UN Special Envoy Terje-Larsen said "the infrastructure of the Palestinian security forces - their powers, their outposts, etc - is destroyed. There are no policemen left."
There are also fears about delays in restoring garbage disposal and medical services, raising the prospect of disease outbreaks.
In the four ministries visited on Sunday, and in the Bureau of Statistics, the floors of most offices were littered with debris - stationery, damaged computer monitors, hard disks, glass, check books, invoices and posters, including some of Arafat and the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's holiest shrines.
'Educated to incite'
In offices where explosives had been used to open safes or doors, light fixtures and electrical wires dangled from ceilings, chairs and desks were overturned.
Mohammed Habes, head of the Department of Precious Metals, part of the Ministry of Supplies, said he watched from his nearby home as the soldiers arrived on April 13 at the five-storey building that houses the ministry and the civil service headquarters.
"They left soon afterward and came back later, when a big explosion was heard," he said.
In some cases, like in the Education Ministry, the soldiers took so much material they needed a truck to carry it away, according to witnesses.
"The money donated (by) donor countries was not used to educate young Palestinians for peace - it was used to incite them to hatred with the aim of producing suicide attackers," said Gissin. "We had to gather this material for the purpose of exposing the extent and the virulent nature of the incitement."
The Education Ministry was visited twice by troops - on April 4 and 14. Their first visit, during which five explosives were used, lasted eight hours, according to acting Education Minister Naim Abu Homos and Salah Sobani, a ministry employee who stayed with two colleagues at the ministry compound throughout Israel's occupation.
PA's security infrastructure damaged
"I opened all the doors I had keys for and they blasted open the rest," recalled Sobani. "They kept us outside the building but gave us advance warning before every blast so we could protect our ears." Sobani looked haggard but sounded eager to talk to visitors after more than three weeks in the company of just two other people.
The extensive damage to the Palestinian Authority's security infrastructure included the building near Ramallah housing "Preventive Security" - the body in charge of internal security - that was badly damaged by Israeli shelling.
"In my opinion, an attack of this sort on the Preventive Security Service reflects a desire to destroy the infrastructure of which Preventive Security is the backbone," West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub said in remarks broadcast on Israel TV.
Preventive Security used to work with similar Israeli agencies and the CIA in the hunt for Palestinian militants.
In Nablus, the West Bank's largest town, the Israeli army badly damaged the local government compound, which includes buildings used by security, and soldiers confiscated light arms belonging to the police. Facilities used by Palestinian security in Tulkaram and Qalqilya had been badly damaged by Israeli shelling before the current offensive.
Much like in Nablus, the local government compound in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, which includes security facilities, was shelled and no longer is in use.
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Sniff. This is just SO sad.
Darn straight. Israel ruined Arafat's dream of a terrorist crack house nation on the door step of Jerusalem and Israel. Pallies can get back to Israel when they want a peaceful Palestinian nation. Until then they can suffer since they seem to like their terrorists and the suicide bombers that target innocent unarmed Jews.
WHAT medical services? The Pals are always running to Israeli hospitals, especially to have their children.
Ohmygawd! The Israelis didn't treat posters with reverance!
Slight correction: officials are seething with anger over the destruction of seven years of work on a structure to run what they hoped would be a Palestinian terrorist state.
Has anyone else noticed the massive amounts that these Palestinian 'causes' cost!!
They go through money faster than is humanly feasible!
Especially to 'rebuild' those cement-block 'office buildings' (and what with the cheap labor....)
Translation: night watchman of the warehouse where Arafat keeps his gold.
All that Arabs and blacks have to do in order to be granted ZILLIONS in largesse, is to "seethe with anger." Again and again, they are said to be seething with anger. I think if seething was not so well-rewarded by Norway, the EU, Canada, and yes, even the USA and Israel, there might be less "seething."
Things might, in other words, simmer down.
LOL.
A truck goes by, changes gears, down they fall.
Those IDF animals! </ sarcasm>
Note the dismissive quotes around "terrorist infrastructure" to imply journalistic skepticism. But, we know well, that the "terrorist infrastructure" is really the same as the "governmental infrastructure" of Arafat and his thugs. No difference except to the dishonest.
Has anyone else noticed the massive amounts that these Palestinian 'causes' cost!!
They go through money faster than is humanly feasible!
Especially to 'rebuild' those cement-block 'office buildings' (and what with the cheap labor....)
Great point! and may be they should have thought about the consequences, when after being given and supplied all the tools necessary to 'govern' the Palestinians they didn't put a stop to the terrorist groups operating out of their territory. Or, to be more unfashionably frank, may be if they hadn't been diverting all those previously donated supplies to terrorism, and had instead been truly developing a infrastructure devoted to supporting a healthy profitable economy, they would by now be in an independent position of their own and could totally ignore their hated Israel while enjoying the fruits of their own labors.
Can you imaging some city inspector coming and trying to figure where the hell $500,000,000. went?
How could they begin to justify: Interior decorating? Plants and their care? The custodians and cleaning team?
And then you find in the same publications that carry such stories as these... lists of the costs of each suicide bomber, etc.
Anyone ever hear the concept: "Money is Fungible!
Dysfunctional perpetual beggars, thanks to their "leaders" - murdering, lying, treacherous barbarians.
I don't know how I'll sleep tonight, tossing and turning, worrying about poor Yasser's infrastructure.
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