MIDDLE EAST: Over the past two weeks, The Irish Times has been holding conversations on uncertain mobile phones with Ms Caoimhe Butterly, a 23-year-old Cork woman, who entered the besieged headquarters of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, on March 29th. Caoimhe Butterly talks to Michael Jansen in Jerusalem.
Her aim was to provide the 300 Palestinians inside the mukata with the minimal amount of protection afforded by an international presence.
Caoimhe put her life on the line at dusk on Good Friday after the Israeli army had commenced its assault. With two other international volunteers, she and Adam Shapiro from New York decided to accompany the ambulances evacuating the wounded from the mukata. "As we approached, Israeli troops shot in the air past the ambulances. We stopped. We had some dialogue via microphones we in the ambulances and and in the tanks. We were yelling up at the buildings."
Referring to one of the Palestinians inside the building, she said: "Khaled had rung me, he and two others were wounded and needed help. APCs [armoured personnel carriers] were arresting people. We waited. There was a change of shift. We asked the soldiers to allow us to go in. They said they would communicate with the people inside. At around 11 p.m., we took the ambulances in."
The shelling continued. "Eventually we entered at the side. There were a few wounded. Khaled was the only serious one. We were there an hour. We chose to stay in the compound. But I decided to escort the ambulances out. The men - medics and drivers - were taken out of the ambulances and led into a building were they were forced to sit facing a wall, with guns to their heads, the wounded were left alone. The soldiers were yelling in Hebrew."
Five minutes later the paramedics were released. She recalls: "There was a change of shift, four tanks, APCs and around 40 soldiers came. There had only been 10 before. Orders changed: the injured were not allowed out."
Caoimhe and a nurse were ordered to put the wounded on an APC. "But we wouldn't. So they did it and tore one IV intravenous drip] on purpose. The doctors were put in an APC. One of the wounded cried, 'Don't leave us'."
"Caoimhe was fighting them," said Khaled Jarrar, a member of Mr Arafat's presidential guard who was shot in the thigh, "She shouted, 'He is wounded. He needs to go to hospital.' Caoimhe and the nurse called Dr Mustafa Barghouti and the Red Cross. But they took all the men in a truck to Beitil," the military camp and detention centre for the district.
Khaled continues: "The soldiers put me on the ground near a truck. They kept saying a doctor would come in 15 minutes, two or three hours passed. It was cold and raining. I was delivered at the checkpoint at 2.30 a.m., more than six hours after I was shot."
"I told the woman paramedic to drive one ambulance to the hospital since all the men had been taken away," Caoimhe continued. "An officer said, 'You can't go back inside, you can sleep in the ambulance. I sat down and after two hours I asked if it was OK. I told him, 'I know the Palestinians won't shoot me and I ask you not to shoot me. I am going back, OK or no."
"I had no assurances that the Palestinians wouldn't shoot and no way to tell the Israelis I was coming. I walked back in. The shelling was still going on. They shouted, 'Whoa, stop or we'll shoot.' I met up with Adam and spent the night in an office.
"On Saturday more volunteers came for a half hour and left with Adam, and more wounded. That night was scary. There was shelling, a lot of sound bombs and percussion grenades. A 20-year-old guard was killed and another wounded. Both the injured and the body were quickly taken out.
"One of Arafat's aides came and said, 'The president wants to dine with you'." Caoimhe chuckled. "I thought he said, 'The president wants to die with you'."
"Life was still very difficult. We had to crawl by windows because of the snipers. Toilets were overflowing. People became sick. There was no running water. We couldn't bathe for 10 days. We had little food. The electricity was cut a few times. A sufficient amount of water and food came the day before Mr Colin Powell's first visit, she says.