Bethlehem

The Israeli army’s indiscriminate fire has injured and killed a large number of Palestinians in the last 18 months (about 1,300 killed and over 20,000 injured before 25 March 2002). More than 25% killed and injured are under 18 years of age or younger.

This testimony comes from the B’Tselem human rights report, Excessive Force, Human Rights Violations during IDF Actions in Area A, the section of the report dealing with IDF activities in the Bethlehem area in October 2001.

Soldiers in Bethlehem, April 2002, photography by Mahfouz Abu Turk for PalestineChronicle.com

Death of Johnny Taljiya, 16, resident of Bethlehem, 20 October 2001

Testimony of Mario George Hana Taljiya, 31, single, restaurant owner, resident of Bethlehem

The Taljiya family has lived near the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, for many years. Our family has eight members: my father and mother, my five married siblings and me. I am single and live with my aged parents in the family home, which is twenty meters away from the church. My brother Yusuf and his five children, aged 6-18, live nearby.

The area is relatively safe because it is considered holy land, where the messiah was born, and no person or house in this area was hit. Even in the first intifada, the square in front of the church and the nearby houses were not hit. When Beit Sahur and Beit Jala were under fire, their residents would come to the church square to hide.

This was the situation until after midnight on Thursday, 18 October, when Israeli tanks invaded Bethlehem. We heard heavy gunfire that continued until the next morning. On Friday morning, we saw five Israeli tanks positioned on Mount Hindazeh, which is five hundred meters from our home. The tanks fired blindly at residents’ homes in the city. Our houses were not touched by the gunfire. The Israelis also fired from the Intercontinental Hotel, which they had occupied. From there, they fired at the ‘Aida refugee camp. The firing continued until the next day, a Saturday.

On Saturday, I woke up at about 8:00 A.M. Then I woke up my parents and my brother Yusuf’s family, who had come to live with us on Thursday. They feared that the situation would deteriorate after the Israelis invaded the city with tanks. We had breakfast together. Then, around 8:30, I went outside with my nephew, Johnny Musa Taljiya, 16, a tenth-grade student at the Beit Sahur Boys School. We went to my restaurant, which is on al-Qarthias street. The area in which the restaurant is located is also safe and there is no shooting there.

It took about seven minutes to get to the restaurant because we went very cautiously. We started to clean and arrange things inside. We finished around 11:00 and then returned home. Israelis in the Rachel’s Tomb area and in the Paradise Hotel, which the soldiers had also taken over, were firing at al-‘Aza refugee camp.

We reached our house just when the heavy tank fire began from Mount Hindazeh. We stayed inside the house for about an hour. Then we went into the Church of the Nativity Square, which was full of people mourning over the three Abiyat family men who had been assassinated on Thursday by an Israeli explosive planted in their car. A mourning tent had been set up in the square, and many people were moving about freely without fear because the square, as I mentioned, is relatively safe.

Then we went inside the house to have lunch. Around 3:00 P.M., Johnny said that he wanted to go to church for afternoon prayers. He left for church. Johnny’s father, my father, my brothers Nabil and Ibrahim, and I went to a club run by a Catholic organization to have some fun because it was boring at home. The gunfire continued all this time.

After a while, we went back to the church square and sat there with some other people. We saw Johnny leave the church. He came over to us and said that he wanted to go to the club with us. We got up and walked some thirty meters. The firing by the Israelis and the Tanzim increased. The Tanzim were firing at Mount Hindazeh from the Latin cemetery, which is about five hundred meters from the church square. The square was not in the line of fire between Mount Hindazeh and the Latin cemetery. Whereas the Palestinians fired straight at the mountain, the Israelis fired blindly. They also fired at civilians’ houses.

We continued on our way. We stopped when we saw our cousin, Elias Taljiya, and his son Mike, who is four years old. We spoke with him for a bit and then continued on our way. Johnny played with the small boy and picked him up. I saw him hug the child and turn him in the air. Suddenly we heard the loud sound of gunfire coming at us from Mount Hindazeh. I saw Johnny fall to the ground with the child. At first, I thought that he lay down on the ground because of the gunfire. The many people who were in the church square started to run in all directions, with bullets flying over their heads. Some of them lay on the ground.

After a few seconds had passed, I heard Elias cry out. I crawled to where Johnny and the small child were lying. I saw that the child had not been hit, but Johnny was bleeding badly. He was hit by a bullet that had penetrated his right shoulder, entered his heart, and exited his left shoulder. My brother Yusuf came and held his bleeding son. He screamed and called for help. A police vehicle that was in the area by chance tried to take Johnny to the hospital in Beit Jala, but the policeman was unable to get there because of the Israeli tanks in the Bab-al-Zaqaq area, which were firing at everything that moved. We had to take Johnny to the clinic in Beit Sahur, but he had already died. The physicians told us later that the bullet had struck him in the heart.

We still don’t believe that Johnny was killed. For us, it is like a nightmare that will soon end and Johnny will rejoin the living.

Testimony was given to Suha Ziyad on 10 November 2001.