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<div class="ViewDetails_Title"><b><big><big>Israeli forces spray
Bethlehem homes with putrid-smelling water</big></big></b></div>
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<div class="ViewDetails_Stamp"><br>
Published today (updated) 27/06/2014 17:36<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=708269">http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=708269</a></small></small></b><br>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-top: 10px"><b>By <a
href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/Search.aspx?AUTHOR=Alex%20Shams">Alex
Shams</a></b></div>
<br>
<div id="BODYdiv" class="ViewDetails_BodyDiv">BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) --
Rubhiya Abd al-Rahman Darwish was taking a nap on the couch of her
family home on Sunday when she was awoken with a start by the
sound of shattering glass.<br>
<br>
"I saw a burst of water breaking through the window, when suddenly
an intense odor hit and I passed out from the smell, so they had
to take me to the hospital," the 75-year-old woman told Ma'an
during an interview in her small apartment in Bethlehem's Aida
refugee camp.<br>
<br>
Although she is used to Israeli soldiers throwing tear gas
canisters into the alleyway beside her home, Darwish was surprised
to find that this time they had come with a cannon to hose down
the sides of local homes with putrid-smelling water.<br>
<br>
"I went to the hospital and they gave me a shot, but the poison
started coming out of my mouth and nose. I started screaming
because my back was hurting, and it hasn't stopped," the elderly
woman, who said she suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and a
heart condition, told Ma'an.<br>
<br>
"All my clothes were ruined, and we had to throw all the quilts
and mattress out," she said.<br>
<br>
"Why do they do this to us?"<br>
<br>
Locals say that the daytime attack on their homes was completely
unprovoked and unexpected, and many expressed shock at the fact
that Israeli forces had covered the camp in a layer of an unknown,
repulsive substance.<br>
<br>
Known as "Skunk," the Israeli military has been using the chemical
since at least 2008 as a form of non-lethal crowd control.
Palestinians, however, simply call the liquid "shit," after the
smell that can stay for weeks on clothes, body, walls, and
furniture.<br>
<br>
An Israeli military spokesperson contacted by Ma'an did not return
a request for comment on Skunk's chemical makeup, or on the
purpose of the raid. However, Israeli human rights watchdog
B'Tselem says that the military has in the past said that the
substance is organic, although it has not divulged its
ingredients.<br>
<br>
A B'Tselem report on Skunk also confirmed the recurrent usage of
the substance -- which causes nausea and vomiting, especially
among children and the elderly -- against Palestinian homes,
"raising suspicions that the Skunk is being used punitively
against villages where regular weekly demonstrations are held."<br>
<br>
Near the camp, on what used to be the main Hebron-Jerusalem road
but is now cut off by the Israeli separation wall, a large water
cannon was even installed earlier this year beside a military
tower to spray the water at locals, highlighting how quickly Skunk
has been integrated into the Israeli army's arsenal.<br>
<br>
Salah Ajarma, the director of a nearby cultural center, said that
a group of children had been walking about fifty meters from where
the separation wall cuts through the camp when Israeli soldiers
started firing tear gas canisters at them.<br>
<br>
"The soldiers then came down and followed the kids," Ajarma told
Ma'an during an interview at his office at the Lajee Center, "and
as we stood watching from the center with a group of visiting
foreigners and journalists, the soldiers began cursing vile words
at us and at the children in Arabic, to make sure we understood."<br>
<br>
In the week before the attack, Israeli soldiers had thrown tear
gas canisters at groups of children when they gathered near the
center after morning exams ended, and so Ajarma said he was
expecting the usual threats again on Sunday.<br>
<br>
"I was surprised, though, when the soldiers came back with a big
vehicle with a pump on top of it and they started spraying
everything with a chemical substance with a terrible smell," he
said.<br>
<br>
"They weren't trying to hit the protesters, there weren't even any
protesters in the street! They shot at the homes of people and
into their windows, regardless of whether they were open or
closed," he added.<br>
<br>
After the raid, residents emerged from their homes, horrified to
find the alleyways and homes of the camps covered in a
foul-smelling coat of liquid. For the next few hours locals
attempted to clean it up, and while they managed to get rid of the
worst of the smell, when a Ma'an reporter visited the scene three
days later, the smell still hung heavy in the air.<br>
<br>
"People don't even know what the substance in is in order to clean
it," Ajarma said, "and we do not know what the chemicals are made
of. We tried to clean it with chlorine but there was a chemical
reaction, giving off an even more killer smell," he added.<br>
<br>
Noting that this is the third time the army has sprayed Skunk in
the camp, Ajarma said that in the winter the smell had stayed for
10-15 days, and a row of trees hit by the water had since
shriveled up and died.<br>
<br>
"This chemical could have effects that we don't know about, on the
nature in the camp, and on the future generations," Ajarma
worried.<br>
<br>
Nidal Al-Azraq, a volunteer at the Lajee Center, told Ma'an that
the soldiers were "having fun" throughout the raid, mocking
residents as they shot the cannon into homes and even taking
pictures of themselves beside it.<br>
<br>
"There was a dog above one of the walls on the street where they
were spraying houses, and so they aimed at it and started shooting
the water," Al-Azraq said.<br>
<br>
"After almost hitting it twice, the dog started barking, and on
the third time the soldiers hit the dog straight on with the water
cannon and they all started laughing," he added.<br>
<br>
Al-Azraq said that although he was unsure of the purpose of the
Israeli raid, he believed that they had done it in order to
pressure residents into stopping protesters in the camp, who often
throw rocks at the Israeli soldiers stationed nearby.<br>
<br>
"They win sometimes, and people get mad and tell the protesters to
stop," Al-Azraq told Ma'an.<br>
<br>
"But other people reject this pressure and say: 'What does it mean
to hit us with this kind of stuff?' It's not just an insult, it's
as if we're not even human beings!"<br>
<br>
Al-Azraq said that many people, however, were resigned to such
attacks by military forces. "It's useless to say that this is
against our human rights, because that is not a language that
Israel knows. What use is it to ask why they do this to people?"<br>
<br>
Darwish, the 75-year-old woman who passed out after soldiers
sprayed the putrid-smelling water into her window, expressed her
resignation at the repeated Israeli attacks on her home.<br>
<br>
A refugee originally from the village of Malha near Jerusalem,
Darwish was forced to leave her home with her family when Zionist
forces came and expelled them from the town in 1948.<br>
<br>
"Where should we go?" she asked, sitting on the couch of her small
apartment as she looked up at the roughly-patched up window broken
by the water cannon.<br>
<br>
"They kicked us out of our homeland, and what are we supposed to
do? Where are we supposed to go?"</div>
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