Thursday, August 2, 2007
They can't keep Hamas from smuggling in weapons, but unarmed desperate people, those they can beat to death. Or are they under such strict orders to stop any crossings at all costs that they have been left with no sense of judgment at all and are left with fear, resentment and murderous intent to those whose actions (even a desperate attempt to save their own lives by crossing into "the Promised Land") put them at risk? That wouldn't be impossible with a relatively poorly disciplined force and a cultural bias against individual initiative operating on that side of the border. Nevertheless, this is unreal: 'Egyptians killed 4 Sudanese trying to cross border'
According to the soldier, female IDF troops operating night vision devices identified several refugees approaching the border in an attempt to infiltrate Israel and alerted other soldiers who arrived after a few minutes in an army jeep.
However, Egyptian troops who also discovered the refugees, fired upon them, immediately killing two and wounding a third. A fourth refugee ran towards the fence and an IDF soldier stretched out his hands, trying to help him cross.
At that point, the soldier recalled, two Egyptian soldiers arrived and started pulling at the refugee's legs.
"It was literally like we were playing 'tug of war' with this man," the soldier said. The soldier eventually loosened his grip on the man, fearing the Egyptians would shoot him.
The Egyptians then carried the man several meters away from the border fence, and proceeded to beat him and another wounded refugee to death with stones and clubs.
"What happened there yesterday was a lynch. These are not men, they're animals. They killed him without even using firearms," the soldier said. "We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped."
The entire event was caught on IDF tapes, but, the soldier said, his commanders, who were not at the site, would not dare watch them.
The entire incident took place on the Egyptian side of the border, IDF sources told Israel Radio later Thursday evening.
A Channel 10 commentator said the channel preferred not to show the tape, so as not to cause a diplomatic row with Egypt.
Egyptian authorities said that they would investigate the incident.
Update: Democracy Project comments on the refugee situation, here.
My jaw literally dropped when I read that story yesterday. The IDF soldier probably made the right decision in backing down instead of escalating a cross-border incident, but I wouldn't blame her if she had shot the Egyptians.
"the channel preferred not to show the tape, so as not to cause a diplomatic row with Egypt."
But Egyptian TV shows no reluctance to broadcast the most evil libels against Jews.
Reprehensible. "The Lost Boys of Sudan," a product of the earlier Sudanese repressions and crimes committed against southern Sudan animists and Christians - rather than the current repressions/genocide in western Sudan, in Darfur - is a poignant story of the plight of Sudanese peoples who are not Arab Muslim. Repugnant and profoundly so, in some large part because outlets in the West evidence proportionately far too little concern with the specifically Arab Muslim regime in Sudan.
They do witness to what is going on, but inadequtely so in several respects, for example vis-a-vis the broader war against Muslim excesses and Islamofascism more specifically and more globally.