“Operation Iraqi Freedom” or “Operation Iraq Occupation”
PNA State Information Service
International Press Center
Gaza - April 1, 2003
Like the Israeli soldiers, perpetrating assaults in the occupied Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, American-Anglo troops, invading the Iraqi soil nowadays, did not surprise the whole world today by
shooting to death a civilian vehicle in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, where seven innocent Iraqi women and children
were killed and several others injured.
Early on Tuesday, the American Central Command in the nearby Arab capital of Duha, confirmed that American troops,
stationed near the town of Al-Najaf, 100 miles, south of Iraq, shot dead 7 Iraqi women and children and injured others.
Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the soldiers, who shot at the
vehicle, carrying the civilians, "did the right thing” because they presumed their lives were threatened.
In another separate incident, US marines shot dead an unarmed Iraqi civilian driver at a military checkpoint near the
south town of Shatra on Tuesday, just hours after the seven women and children were killed instantly by US Marines
soldiers.
A couple of hours after daybreak, the man had driven his white truck through the roadblock on a main highway, apparently
unaware of the barbed wire strewn across ahead, Marines told a correspondent at the scene.
As he drove ahead unaware of the coils of wire, the Marines sprayed the vehicle with hails of bullets, killing the
driver and injuring one middle-aged passenger in the arms and legs.
The said incidents remind us with the same type of events, taking place in the occupied Palestinian territories, where
the Israeli occupation soldiers place a large number of military checkpoints throughout Palestinian cities, towns,
villages and refugee camps.
These Israeli military checkpoints or road blocks have so far claimed the lives of dozens of Palestinian civilians,
whether by being shot dead or getting dead due to delay or hindering of movements of Palestinian civilians, including
the patients or pregnant women.
One example of the Israeli occupation practices is the cool blood killing of the 45-years old woman Randa Al-Hindi and
her two-years –old daughter Anwar.
In July 2002, Israeli soldiers stationed near the illegitimate Jewish settlement of Netsareim, south of Gaza, opened
fire on the car carrying the El-Hindi family back to their home in Khan Younis city after attending a family wedding in
Gaza City.
Following this event, Israelis, as ever as they have been used to when civilians are killed, claimed they suspected that
the car was carrying militants.
Such deadly incidents against Iraqi civilians in areas taken over nowadays by the American invading troops raise an
important question, what an operation Iraqi freedom sought by the America-Anglo troops in Iraq?.
What a kind of freedom that can be brought about by the blood of civilians by whom the freedom is needed so as to get
rid of the “tyrant Iraqi regime”?
Apparently, the Iraqi people is paying a very heavy price for the American war on Iraq; a price that they have never
paid throughout the rule of Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, who is accused by United States and Britain as dictator
and tyrant as well oppressor of human rights.
Several sources, including official Iraqi ones, confirmed that more than 600 Iraqi citizens mostly civilians and over
4000 others have been so far killed since the America-Anglo “Operation Iraqi Freedom” began 13 days ago.
Such a number of killed and wounded Iraqis can clearly tell us the truth behind the war on Iraq. This war appears to be
aiming at sub missing the Iraqi people to accept the “American cowboy” on their national soils, as the Iraqis, since the
war began, resisted relentlessly the American-Anglo invasion of their lands, particularly in southern Iraq.
Last but not least, the American code name for the war on Iraq, used by most US and British media outlets “Operation
Iraqi Freedom”, is viewed by the whole world as “Operation Iraq Occupation”.
ENDS