New York Times
March 12, 2002
By Joel Greenberg

DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank, March 11 -- As Israeli tanks and armored troop carriers churned down the deserted road running by this camp today, Ahlam Faraj grieved behind closed doors for her husband.

Two bullets struck him in the chest as he played with his small children in their room on Friday, his blood spattering his son's tricycle and his daughter's clothes. He was shot as Israeli tanks and armored vehicles surrounded Dheisheh, before their entry into the camp early today.

Moving in after midnight, the Israeli forces backed by helicopter gunships rumbled into the Palestinian-controlled camp on the edge of Bethlehem, firing shells, flares and machine guns to deter any resistance, Hussein Hamash, a resident, said.

"It was a horrible situation," he recalled. "Houses shook and children were frightened."

Local gunmen melted away after announcing that they would not fight back to avoid heavy casualties like those in other refugee camps invaded recently by the Israelis. Residents said that three Palestinians had been killed in Dheisheh since Friday during the encirclement and incursion.

Militants escaped before the army arrived, residents said. The Israelis rounded up the camp's men, using loudspeakers to summon males between 15 and 45 to a stonework factory this morning. Lined up with their hands over their heads, they were blindfolded and handcuffed for questioning. Soldiers searched homes, punching through walls to move from one house to the other.

At Mrs. Faraj's house, a trail of blood marked the path of her husband as he staggered from the childrens' room after he had been shot. The blood-stained tricycle and other toys still littered the floor, and her husband's name, Issa Faraj, and the date of his death were daubed in his blood on a wall.

The couple, cousins who were married four years ago, had been napping on couches in the living room on Friday afternoon when Mr. Faraj, 24, got up to play with his 2-year old son and 1-year-old daughter, his wife said. According to her account, which was confirmed by the Israeli Army, there were no exchanges of gunfire at the time.

As Mr. Faraj played with his children in their third-floor room, which faces the main road by the camp, he was hit in the chest by bullets that came through the window.

Mrs. Faraj and Dr. Peter Qumri, the director of the neighboring Hussein Hospital, said that Mr. Faraj bled to death.

Getting him to the hospital was delayed by the need to get Israeli approval to take him by ambulance out of the surrounded camp, Dr. Qumri said. Then more than an hour went by before Israeli approval was granted to take him by ambulance from Hussein Hospital, which lacked a chest surgeon, to Maqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, the doctor added. Mr. Faraj, who had lost much blood, died shortly after his arrival.

The Israeli Army said that it had no knowledge of the delays, and that no request for evacuation had been received by the local Israeli-Palestinian liaison office.

Mrs. Faraj, 21, said that her husband, a stone mason who built marble counters, was illiterate but self- taught, and had encouraged her to complete her college education.

"He used to tell me to go to back to school, that my success would be his, but I wanted to be home with him," she said. "We would sit and talk sometimes until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.

"He didn't deny me a thing, despite the difficult economic situation," she continued. "He would take food from his mouth and give it to me. He was like an angel from heaven. Sometimes I wish that I had died with him."