Israeli Soldiers Raping Women in Bethlehem

I am James Abou Nader. I am writing to you from Bethlehem. It is April 5 and the local time is 9:49 p.m. I came with some friends to the camp of the Antiochian Orthodox some few years back, and now I am writing to you all in distress for some help for our people in Palestine.

The Israeli tanks and military personnel broke into our homes, entered my sister and her husband’s home around 2:30 this morning. They proceeded to attack my sister, one of the military men made advances on her that were not appropriate, he violated her in more than one way. My sister is four months pregnant, and for sure she most likely has lost the baby. When he was finished violating her, two other army men did the same thing. When she refused and tried to fight them off, they beat her, more in the stomach.

Her husband George was shot three times in the back of the neck, when he tried to stop them. This morning at around 5 he died from the wounds. When they stopped violating my sister they threw her on the bed. All of these horrible things were witnessed by her seven-year-old son, my nephew Michael. At the end of their beating and violating my sister, they stole her jewelry, her monies, and some other things. At that point they went and totally destroyed different things in her apartment home. As of this morning, she feels that she had a miscarriage of the baby.

Also, these same soldiers came into our home, and we were blessed by God that my father had cash, almost two thousand shekels (this is the money of Israel), and he gave it to the soldiers. He also took gold from his own neck, from myself, and my younger sister and my mother. The soldiers told my father in Hebrew (we understand Hebrew) that his wife was too old and unattractive to have sex with, and that we should feel lucky about this, but that they had all violated the woman in the apartment before they violated my sister.

Then my mother asked the soldiers to please allow bringing medicine for my sister, and to please help to remove my brother-in-law’s body from the apartment. They would not. My poor mother was too afraid to cry for what had happened, because they would kill us too. Please, you must help us, we are Orthodox Greek Christians. We are your people from your religion. We are being persecuted and there is no end in sight. Your country doesn’t allow you to know the news of what is really happening to our people. There were calls I made on cellular phones in Nablus that tell us that over 86 women were raped and beaten and there are many men, their husbands, who have been killed while they were trying to stop these soldiers.

The American government is standing and allowing this to happen. None of the Arab countries is helping us. What are we to do? Please help us. I must go. God was gracious to give me enough battery power in my laptop to send you this e-mail. I am scared that I will not be able to read your responses. Please help us. Please send this e-mail to anyone who cares to help the Christians in Palestine. I must go before I get into trouble, or someone finds me (the soldiers come into the homes at night, that is when we are most scared).

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(An Arab News reader received this e-mail. To protect the writer’s identity, we have changed his name and that of his murdered brother-in-law. If any government agency or human rights organization wishes to investigate the matter, the real identities will be made available to them. — Editor