Black Wednesday in the Middle East

According to the Associated Press (AP) news agency, Lieutenant Colonel Ziyad Al-Ciburi, Chief of Police in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, said that the U.S. attack occurred at 2:45 a.m. local time and that either 42 or 45 were killed. 15 of those killed were children, while 10 were women. One of the doctors in the city, Dr. Salih Al-Ani, announced that 45 people had been killed in the attack. Dr. Al-Ani said that as part of the wedding celebration shots were fired into the air. After that, U.S. marines came to location, and conducted a search. Later, U.S. helicopters opened fire on the location, destroying two houses.

Al-Arabiya television broadcast the images women crying over the dead while the men dug graves for those who had been killed at the wedding party. An eyewitness speaking to the television crew said, "American planes showered us with at least 100 bombs." The AP as well included images of the corpses and conversations with local people in its coverage of the event.

The American attack occurred before dawn and a statement issued by the Americans claims that members of the wedding party were acting as ‘aggressors’. The incident conjured up images of an attack on a wedding party in Afghanistan two years ago. 48 died in that attack. In their justification for that attack, the Americans claimed that members of the wedding party had fired shots at American fighter jets.

Elsewhere, Israel continues its large-scale operation in the Rafah refugee camp. The Camp was the scene of a bloody massacre as well yesterday. Israeli helicopters and tanks shot indiscriminately into a crowd of Palestinians who were protesting the Israeli operation. 22 Palestinians were killed, and 50 were wounded. 36 of the wounded are in serious condition. Over the past two days of the Israeli operation, the total number of dead has reached 42.

Meanwhile, Israeli military units demanded that Palestinians in the Tal al Sultan neighborhood of Rafah surrender or their houses would be demolished.

The Palestinian administration described the attack as a ‘war crime’ and announced that it would take Israel to the International Criminal Court because of the incident. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the Israeli army and demanded that international forces protect the Palestinian people. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmet Qurey added that the incident clearly points out that Israel does not want peace.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the attack as well and said that he warned Israel many times about the protection of civilians. The European Union and dozens of other countries condemned Israel’s actions, while the White House uttered its ‘deepest concerns’ about the incident. U.S. President George W. Bush told Israel to ‘calm down’; however, he did not condemn the attack. Bush was satisfied to say that he demands an explanation from Israel and that ‘innocent lives’ should be respected.

Israel issued an announcement that Prime Mniister Ariel Sharon was ‘sorry’ about the incident. On the other hand, however, the Israeli army defended that they did not open fire on ‘protesters’, but instead fired warning shots into an ‘open field’. The Israeli army also claimed that gunmen were among the protestors.

In other events, eyewitnesses exposed that Israeli soldiers gathered up male Palestinians aged 16 and over and brought them to a school. On Tuesday night the Israeli army killed two Palestinians in the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the West Bank.

Last week, after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza, the Army had decided to begin the operations in Rafah in order to expose the alleged tunnels that are used to smuggle arms from Egypt. Thousands of Palestinian residents of the Camp, fearing the impending Israeli assault, fled.