Category: Journals

Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.

War and Irony on Hebron Hilltops

by Anna, March 10th

No matter how bad things get in the North West Bank, it’s never as bad as in Hebron. I’m back in the ancient city exactly two years after my last visit:

Previous Reports:

http://annainpalestine.blogspot.com/2005/03/from-jericho-to-hebron.html

http://annainpalestine.blogspot.com/2005/03/conversation-with-hamas-supporters.html

I participated in several solidarity actions, among them school patrol in Tel Rumeida. This small Palestinian neighborhood of Hebron is home to some of the most violent ideological settlers in the West Bank, who have moved into local homes by force and parade the streets with guns, terrorizing local residents including children on their way to and from school. The settlers in Hebron are here because they believe the city of 150,000+ Palestinians belongs exclusively to the Jewish people.

Hebron’s were the first settlements in the West Bank after Israel occupied the area in 1967, when the Old City’s Palestinian population was around 7,500. Twenty-five years later, the population had shrunk by 80% to 1,500, a mass exodus provoked by Israeli settler and state violence and dispossession. The wealth left with the refugees; only the poorest residents remain, those with nowhere else to go. Their children dodge sticks and stones—from settler children (and their parents)—on their way to school every day as soldiers watch on indifferently; I and several other internationals accompanied the students to document and even shield the settler kids’ attacks.

Today my station was on Shuhada St, which used to be a major Palestinian thoroughfare before settlers moved in down the road and blocked it to non-Jews. Cars drive frequently through the neighborhood but they are all yellow-plated (Israeli) or jeeps; Palestinians are not allowed to use cars in Tel Rumeida. They are banned from even walking on the main street, so they wind through a cemetery to get from their neighborhood to the city. More than 2,000 small businesses in the Old City and Tel Rumeida area have closed down, and the once thriving cultural and economic center is now a ghost town.

We watched the schoolchildren advance cautiously down the road where Israeli flags hung from street lamps and nearly every Palestinian home had a star of David spray-painted outside. Out of one house came Jamilya, whose mother was recently attacked by a settler girl who incited a mob to come rip the family’s door off. Their windows are caged like all others on the street, to block stones; occasional cracks show where small rocks still get through. At the military station, Jamilya climbed a set of stairs to her right and then entered a school via a narrow stone path that was just reconstructed for the third time. A Palestinian gate nearby reads: “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.”

An Israeli friend Cesca showed a colleague and me around the olive groves between Tel Rumeida settlement and the school, where a few Palestinian families are still struggling to survive. Cesca introduced us to a shepherd named Abu Thalal, who welcomed us warmly into his home. He said he’s grateful for Israeli allies like Cesca, and has even tried reaching out to the settlers who trespass on his land everyday. Abu Thelal said when a settler once asked him for a cigarette he didn’t hesitate to hand one over, and even prepared tea for the two of them. Shortly after, Abu Thelal was shocked to see the same man and his children throwing stones at his home. He shrugged after he finished the story: “There are good Israelis and bad Israelis, just like there are good Palestinians and bad Palestinians.”

From Abu Thelal’s home you can see the mosque and temple where Abraham was buried. The groves and ruins surrounding Abu Thelal’s home are not just old; they look and feel biblical. Cesca said she once watched in horror as settlers set fire to one of the hills during the Jewish holiday Lag Ba’Omer. She said they burned Palestinian flags along with the ancient land.

Jewish holidays frequently translate into Palestinian suffering in the West Bank. This past week was Purim, so closure was imposed on the entire West Bank Palestinian population so that soldiers could go home to celebrate with their families. Extra help was needed patrolling today because it’s Shabbat, when attacks are more frequent because settler children don’t have school.

Soldiers also didn’t intervene when settlers rioted in Hebron during Sukkot holiday a few years ago. According to the Alternative Information Center (AIC), “during a big march of settlers, participants started attacking Palestinian homes close to the Tel Rumeida settlement. The house of Palestinian Hana’a Abu Haykal was stoned and windows were smashed in three apartments, and settlers also injured Jameel Abu Haykal, aged 12, in his shoulder. Hana’a said the assault happened during the daytime as soldiers stood by without trying to stop the assaults, while the Palestinians were confined to the house because of curfew.”

I met the Abu Haykal family, who live literally next door to a military outpost on one side, and Tel Rumeida settlement on the other. Their windows are caged, much of their land has been declared a “closed military zone” (although settlers frequently trespass it without consequence), and they removed the staircase to the roof so that soldiers would stop coming to use it for surveillance. Settlers have done everything they can to scare away the family so they can move into the large well-situated house, but the family just won’t give up.

The Abu Haykals have 11 children and have lived in their home since the neighborhood was Jewish, before Zionism and the Hebron Massacre of 1929 (again, see previous Hebron update for elaboration). Settlers claim they are reclaiming Jewish territory, yet the families who left have issued joint statements demanding that the settlers leave and stop all violence against their former neighbors.

Many Jewish Israelis like Cesca have spoken out against settler violence in Hebron. Many of them came with us today on a joint action to rebuild destroyed houses in the South Hebron hills. Across the South West Bank there are dozens of tiny villages where Palestinians live in caves, tents, and small stone houses surrounded by rolling hills where they graze their sheep every day. Many years ago, fundamentalist Jews began settling hilltops all over the area, and frequently harass or even physically attack the shepherds on their land and in their villages. Settlers from the illegal outposts have poisoned village water sources with dead chickens and dirty diapers, and cemented over cave entrances. They run down the hills into villages wearing masks and carrying baseball bats or large guns. (There’s a telling image from Purim two years ago up at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3735.shtml; click on “Click here.”)

To add insult to injury, the Israeli Army has been demolishing Palestinian structures across the region, most of them homes and bathroom facilities. The pretext is that the shepherds didn’t secure building permits from Israel before building the rooms and outhouses on their own land. Building permits are expensive (up to $20,000), and generally refused to Palestinians. In contrast, they are readily available to Jews who want to build homes, even on land that does not belong to them. The caravans of violent settlers who have snuck onto Hebron hilltops, surrounding the rural families, are meanwhile encouraged to flourish with subsidies, infrastructure, and protection from the Israeli state, even though they are illegal according to international and Israeli law.

Hundreds of rural Palestinians’ homes and caves have been bulldozed, and many families have fled in an exodus that can only be described as ethnic cleansing. Still, several villages remain, despite tremendous obstacles, refusing to leave their ancestral land. One such village is Qawawis, where I spent the day rebuilding homes that the Army recently demolished. Organized by Ta’ayush, a joint Jewish-Palestinian human rights group from Israel, dozens of Israelis, internationals, and Palestinians came together to build foundations, stone walls, and rooftops for the four rural families of Qawawis and other nearby villages. We mixed cement, formed assembly lines, and broke bread together throughout the beautiful exhausting day. When we were finished I headed back to Hebron.

Re-entering Tel Rumeida, soldiers searched my bag and person for weapons. Beyond the checkpoint I could see settler children and their parents carrying M16s home from synagogue. I reflected on the irony of being checked to enter a street where armed fundamentalists known for violence are granted virtual impunity.

As the Alternative Information Center puts it, “the core issue is Israel’s tacit cooperation with the fundamentalist settlers for its own colonial goals: 1. To exploit resources…[,] 2. To expand Zionist control… [and] 3. To realize military and strategic advantages…” AIC sites four main methods employed by Israel for land confiscation in the Occupied Territories: “the seizure of land for military needs, the designation of land as `state land,’ the definition of land as `absentee property,’ and expropriation of land for `public needs.’ All these methods serve a single purpose: the transfer of land from Palestinian to Israeli ownership.”

This trend of cooperation has been true for administrations of both major Israeli parties. As the foreign minister under Yitzhak Rabin’s first government, Yigal Allon of the “left-wing” Labor party offered substantial political support to settlements in the east Hebron area, trying to prevent Palestinian development in sections of the West Bank that were to be incorporated by Israeli according to the Allon Plan. Having too many Palestinians on certain coveted sections of the West Bank could threaten the “Jewish character” of Israel when they were eventually annexed.

Of course, Hebron’s radical settlers have generally been allied with the right-wing Likud, which along with Labor has facilitated the settler strategies of establishing facts on the ground and attacking Palestinian residents. Israel has stationed 4,000 of its soldiers at checkpoints and military outposts throughout the city of 150,000 in order to protect the 500 settlers. Palestinians are closely monitored while soldiers frequently fail to intervene in settler attacks against Palestinian civilians. In addition, the Army often imposes curfew following settler attacks so that the settlers won’t fear retaliation. Curfew only applies to Palestinians. Their Jewish neighbors, who often perpetrated the crimes prompting the curfew, are free to wander through the Palestinians’ streets and land.

If Palestinians manage to leave their homes and wish to register complaints at the police station, they have been prevented from entering by soldiers and police, who commonly dismiss charges directed towards settlers. In fact, settlers in Hebron are subject to a different legal system altogether from their Palestinian neighbors. Jewish settlers are subject to Israeli law, while Palestinians are subject to military law. Therefore, they have different rights and face different legal consequences for the same crime. In every scenario, the Israeli penal code is more lenient. Settlers—if tried at all, a rare occasion—frequently enjoy even lighter sentences than usual. For example, a settlement leader Rabbi Levinger spent just ten weeks in jail for killing an unarmed Palestinian merchant, while a Palestinian convicted of manslaughter could face life in prison. According to AIC, “Israel is violating the principle of equality before the law by creating a situation in which ethnic identity determines the applicable legal system.”

Sitting around the dinner table at night, I kept thinking about Nablus. Jewish fundamentalists once tried to set up camp in Nablus city but they were driven out by the city’s armed resistance. It was one of the few victories of the Second Intifada. What would have happened if the people of Hebron had taken up arms back in 1967 when the settlers arrived? Nablus fighters are called terrorists, and Hebron’s would surely be as well. Still, knowing now what wasn’t known then, could we really blame them? These were the thoughts swirling through my head tonight as I prepared to return to my relatively peaceful existence in Haris.

“We are a Democracy!”

by Hugh, March 11th

Walking through Bethlehem yesterday I was stopped by a taxi driver I have come to know over the years, Abu Anwar. He seemed agitated and angry. He knows of my work over here and was keen for me to go back to his house to show me what had happened during a surprise early morning visit he had received two nights earlier.

Abu Anwar and his wife life with their five children in a small house in Doha City, a relatively new city, effectively a suburb of Bethlehem, that has grown rapidly as there is little land left in Bethlehem itself for development due to the Apartheid Wall and Israeli colonization. They have three daughters and two sons. I have visited their house before, socially, as is the custom in Palestine, to drink coffee and talk.

At around 1am in the early morning of 7th March the whole family were, as most families would be at such a time, fast asleep. Abu Anwar works long hours, with early starts in his taxi, in order to provide for his family. When the first rock came through their window they woke with a fright. As more began to rein against their house and smash their windows they had no idea what was happening. The large green metal gate into their garden was ringing out with the sound of a barrage of rocks and bricks. Their heavy metal front door was echoing through the house as it was being kicked and beaten with the butts of M-16s. Um Anwar began to shout out, to find out what was happening:

“What’s wrong? What’s happening? What’s the matter?”

The answer was predictable enough for any late night disturbance in Palestine; it was not so much an answer as an order:

“We are soldiers, open the door, open the door now!!”

Um Anwar made her way down the stairs to the front door and opened it nervously:

“What are you doing? What’s wrong with you, we are trying to sleep!”

The reply she received was again more of a barked demand than an answer:

“Where is your husband? Get him down here now, I want all your family outside and on the street now!”

Abu Anwar came down as he had been ordered and walked onto the street asking them what the problem was. He was abruptly ordered to shut up, and told that they didn’t have to tell him anything (despite the fact they were terrorizing his family and damaging his property). Um Anwar went back upstairs to find her children and was followed inside by scores of IOF soldiers. Her too youngest children had locked themselves in the bathroom. Cowering with fear, a 9 year old boy and his 7 year old sister, hoped in their naivety that if they hid they would not be hurt and the intruders would leave. The IOF banged on the bathroom door, Um Anwar told her children to open the door knowing that if they did not the IOF would open it themselves with force and the children would be hurt. As a terrified little boy opened the door tentatively he peeped round:

“Salaam alekum” (Peace by with you)

As the nozzle of an M-16 was pushed through in front of a soldier, and the door was pushed open, even he received a screamed response:

“Salaam! You want salaam? I will give you salaam!”

The two young children cowered away, then, as the soldier entered the bathroom they ran out to their mother, looking for safety. She pulled them close to her. Their other two sisters were also in the living room and all the family stood close together. As the soldiers were spreading out through the house all the family was ordered outside to join Abu Anwar. Sound bombs were being thrown all around the house. As they walked down the stairs and outside they saw soldiers everywhere. Their garden was full of IOF, all with their guns trained on the family members. The neighbouring houses and the roofs of all surrounding buildings were also covered with these violent intruders. IOF Jeeps were spread all over the road blocking it, with their soldiers everywhere.

The eldest son, Anwar, lives in a bedroom on the bottom floor of the property, he had also barricaded himself into his room. The IOF’s steel toe-capped boots soon broke down his door. Anwar had his hands up in the air when the IOF entered, save giving them any excuse to shoot him. With all guns trained on him they searched him roughly before violently tying his hands behind his back with plastic cuffs. He was then pushed onto his bed and blindfolded, before being lifted up and pushed out through the door. As Anwar was dragged into the street his parents began to shout at the soldiers:

“What are you doing to him! What is wrong with you? He has done nothing!”

Anwar was immediately put into one of the jeeps which then sped away into the dark night. Abu Anwar tried again to question the soldiers:

“He has done nothing. He is a student. He studies, he works, and he sleeps, he has no time for anything else. What are you doing with him?”

With guns pointed at him he was again told:

“Shut your mouth, we have to tell you nothing!”

Bizarrely one soldier also informed him:

“We are a democracy!”

Quite what was meant by this comment no-one is sure. But what is certain is that all the family were terrified, the children screamed hysterically.

For the next 4 hours the family were kept on the street in the cold, dark night as the IOF systematically ransacked their house. At one stage a soldier ran outside with two large bags, maybe two or three kilos each, filled with a white crystalline substance:

“This is explosives! This is for bombs isn’t it!”

The two bags were then emptied all over the floor in the house’s entrance hall. This was the family’s entire supply of sugar…

When the family, minus the now disappeared Anwar, were finally allowed to return to their home around 5am, the destruction that they found added to their
devestation.

In the entrance hall all the boxes which had been stacked together filled with assorted toys, pots and pans and other household goods were scattered all over the stairs. As they went up the stairs they found smashed windows all along the way, one which looks as though it has been shot through with a bullet. At the top of the stairs next to the entrance to the living room is a sofa, they found it broken and cut to shreds with a knife. As they walked through the smashed door into their living room they saw the family computer lying on the floor, its hard drive removed and wires extruding. The sofa and chairs in here were also all damaged and had clearly been cut with knifes. The refrigerator was wide open, its door broken and food strewn all over the floor. The table and chairs where family meals are shared were all broken. Underneath the windows concrete is cracked and plaster is falling out after what must have been damaged with considerable force. The washing mac hine stands smashed and unusable. Children’s toys litter the floor, plastic cars and toy soldiers crushed, a large fluffy white bear has knife marks right down its back and its stuffing pulled out. Next to the front window a religious text has been ripped off the wall and the plaster behind it smashed and dug out with something. In the bedrooms all cupboards and wardrobes were lying prostate across the floors and their contents strewn everywhere, beds were turned upside down and mattresses slashed. On the top floor of the house, which leads out onto the roof, they find more of the same, smashed windows, storage boxes upside down and their contents thrown everywhere, and a new water storage tank, recently fitted to the roof, now full of holes and useless.

The family later discovered that other family members in the neigbourhood had received similar visits. Four houses in all had received this disgusting treatment. Around twenty jeeps had been counted up and down the street and an estimate of somewhere between fifty to eight soldiers were reported by witnesses. Anwar was the only person arrested but dozens had been terrorized through the night, including many young children.

Um Anwar shows me the footage she recorded on one of her daughter’s mobile phones. The film shows the destruction immediately as they returned to the house. Being shown round the house I can still see all the damage but things have been cleared up off the floor.

The family have received similar visits in the past. Anwar was arrested previously in 1998, when he was just 15, that time it was two years before he saw his family again. He was also fined 10,000 NIS (well over $2000) and banned from leaving Bethlehem or passing any checkpoint for five years. He was charged with stone-throwing but has always claimed his innocence and at the time all of his friends went to visit Anwar’s parents to say it was not true.
Um Anwar also shows me video footage of an incident that happened in December when a man was shot by invading IOF forces outside their home. With an IOF jeep parked across the road Anwar was ordered from his room at gun point and told to carry the injured man over to the jeep. The footage shows Anwar attempting to lift the man who is much larger than himself. He is clearly struggling with the weight as he drags the man through a pool of his own blood towards the jeep.

Anwar’s parents found out through the Red Cross that their son is being held at Acion detention centre. They still do not know if he is actually being charged, and if so with what crime.

The family are all clearly and understandably distraught, Um Anwar cannot contain her anger:

“They claim they are a democracy, what democracy! No democracy treats people in this way! They are no democracy, they are stupid, they are evil!”

There is little I can say to the family. They wanted to me to document the destruction and to tell their story, so here it is, another story of violence, destruction and families torn apart, thanks to ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’…

Dos meses en palestina como ISM

Primeramente son galega aunke escribiendo en mi lengua llegaria a mucho menos personal asi k por favor k no se ofenda nadie y a pesar de luchar en ontra de la ocupacion israelita en palestina y su derecho a tener un estado estoy mas pro la desaparicion de las fronteras k la creacion de nuevas, bien ya me he presentado asi k al ajo de la cuestion. Espero se disculpe la ortografia, puntuacion, gramatica y demas no soy lo major del mundo escribiendo pero es simplente una experincia k igual a alguien interesa .

La mayor parte de mi tiempo la he pasado en Hebron en el barrio Tel Rumeida donde hay 4 pekenhos asentamientos de judios con unos 400 habitantes y por esa razon parte de la ciudad vieja y este barrio en concreto estan bajo las leyes israelitas eso implica k los palestinos k viven en el barrio k por cierto llevan ahi generaciones y generaciones no tienen derecho a conducir por k solo Israelis coches pueden circular alli dentro es decir si alguien se enferma hay k cargarlo fuera a mano por k hacen falta dos dias de antelacion para pedir el acceso de una ambulancia,asi k ya os podeis inmaginar como es la vida alli cargando continuamente los alimentos el gas … y por aclarar un poko la cuestion la calle principal es una cuesta k nada envidia a la accession al parc guell o a rua das trompas (compostela). Ademas del impedimento del vehiculo los palestinos son sometidos a un continuo chekeo algunos tienen k pasar 5 puestos de chekeo para llegar a sus casas y en estos puestos de control los soldados israelitas pueden pedirles la documentacion, controlar todas sus pertenencias , hacerles levanter la camisas y girarse ,claro esta esto es solo una mera muestra de poder por k hay al menos un par de entradas al barrio sin pasar ninguno de los controles es decir si alguien con una bomba o algo parecido kiere entrar puede encontrar la manera pero el estudiante k viene del colegio tiene k pasar por un detector de metales y abrir su mochila o hacer todo lo k pidan los soldados, es solo un ejemplo, inmaginais vivir en un lugar asi…

Por si no fuera bastante kon el acoso de los soldados, resulta k estos no estan tan mal comparados con sus vecinos los judios k habitan en los asentamientos k simplemente los odian por ser arabes y vivir alli se dedican a escribir “gasear a los arabes” y a dibujar estrellas de david en las tiendas k konsiguieron cerrar despues de seis anhos impidiendo el acceso de productos y cerrando el area por tokes de keda ,pero ademas usan la violencia fisica es decir se dedican a tirar piedras a los palestinos , entrar en sus jardines, ocupar sus casas… Incluso los soldados y los policies k los protegen piensan k estan lokos pero resulta k por esa razon alli son ley y orden si no fuera por el trabajo de diversas organizaciones internacionales k hacen k minimamente se cumpla la ley k ya es bastante infima para los palestinos.

Durante mi estancia en Palestina en Jerusalem los israelitas escavaron cerca de la mezquita Al-aqsa, el tercer sagrado monumento del islam este incidente produjo los ninhos en Hebron estaban nerviosos y enfadados y lanzaron piedras contra el puesto de control claro k ninguna llego a la parte israelita bueno igual una o dos pero esto fue la escusa para salir a la parte palestina alrededor de 20 soldados y disparar balas de goma y gas lacrimogeno a el Mercado central de la zona k cerro durante 4 dias por k los soldados salieron cada dia a repetir la operacion el ultimo dia incluso un ninho menor de 16 fue al hospital por una bala en la pierna esta vez no era de goma….Podria contra una mil anecdotas de tel rumeida pero kreo k para hacerse una idea basta.

Manifestaciones contras el muro en un pueblo cerca de ramallah llamado bi’lin llevan dos anhos hacienda una manifestacion seminal (cada viernes) por k la construccion del muro les esta exprodiando el 60% de sus tierras y es ilegal incliuso para Israel k tiene leyes distintas para segun donde y quien ,las manifestaciones suelen ser relativamente trankilas hasta k al final los ninhos del pueblo comienzan a tirar piedras ,mas k nada es un simbolo de resistencia por k obviamente los soldados llevan cascos k los protegen y demas pero con esta escusa pueden usar todo su tactica y material belico debido a la presencia de israelitas e internacionales k apoyan su lucha ya no usan balas de verdad sino solo balas de goma , gas lacrimogeno y canhones de agua a presion claro k son kapaces de usar este material directamente contra los participantes es decir a una distancia k puede llegar realmente a causar estragos.

Invasion en Nablus ,el ejercito israelita invadio la ciudad y ocupo la television local pidiendo la aparicion de 8 personas que buscaban despues de hecho esto sitiaron la ciudad vieja y ordenaron un toke de keda sin limite de tiempo ,en este tipo de situaciones lo unico k se puede hacer es acompanhar a los del servicio medico y asegurarse k se les permite hacer el trabajo asi como asegurarse k tienen alimentos y las medicinas necesarias, en una de las visitas con el medico mientras tomabamos un te fuera en la terraza de la casa y nos contaban como acababan de inspeccionar la casa con un perro y se habian asustado mucho por k en la casa habia unos 8 ninhos menores de diez anhos, bien mientras nos contaban la experiencia un grupo de soldados subia por el tejado vecino y se acercaron a la casa iba un perro con ellos y nos mandarin entrar a todos en una habitacion mientras inspeccionaban la casa por segunda vez ,es deplorable k unos ninhos menores de diez anhas tengan k ever soldados apuntandoles con armas y un perro con bozal y muy nervioso lo unico k podia hacer era intentar entretener a la chikilla de dos anhos sentada en mis rodillas para k no hiciera mucho caso a lo k estaba sucediendo.

Otro espectaculo lamentable k pude observer fue cuando ibamos caminando siempre con voluntarios de primeros auxilios y a una distancia de 150m habia un grupo de soldados ibamos en la direccion contraria asi k no les hicimos caso hasta k dispararon algo para llamar nuestra atencion cuando nos acercamos a donde estaban, nos mandarin parar a un os 10m y uno por uno a los tres voluntarios medicos les hicieron abrir las chaketas, desabrochar el pantalon y girarse hacia los k estabamos esperando los otros dos voluntarios y las dos internacionales k los acompanhabamos, no hace falta recordar k Palestina es bastante tradicional y por supoesto resulto bastante embarazoso para los palestinos k unas estrangeras les vieran en gallumbos a mi me da lo mismo pero era totalmente innecesario y simplemente fue una forma mas de humillarlos publicamente.

Podria contra mas historias pero kreo k ya os haceis una idea salud y libertad para tod@s

********************************

First of all I want to say that I am Galician, but of course if I write in my own language, less people would understand me, so, please don’t be angry with me, because despite fighting against the Israeli occupation in Palestine and the Palestinian right to have a State, I am more in favor of the disappearance of borders than the creation of new ones. So, once I’ve introduced myself, please excuse me for the mistakes I may make in orthography, grammar, etc., I’m not at all a writer, but I think that perhaps somebody might be interested in my experience.

I spent most of my time in Tel Rumeida where there are four small Jewish settlements where around 400 settlers live and therefore, part of the old city and this neighbourhood in particular are under Israeli laws. This means for example, that Palestinian residents, who have lived there for generations, cannot drive there, because only Israelis can drive a car in Tel Rumeida. So, if somebody gets ill, he or she has to be carried out of the neighbourhood on shoulders, as ambulances have to be requested two days in advance. So imagine how life is there, swinging everything over shoulders, food, gas etc, the main street is completely steep, like going up to Park Güell in Barcelona or up by Rua Das Trompas in Compostela.

Besides having this problem, Palestinians are subject to continuous checking. Some of them have to pass 5 checkpoints to arrive home and at those checkpoints, the Israeli soldiers can ask them for their documents, check everything they are carrying, make them lift up their t-shirts, and turn round. This is only to show their power, because there are at least two ways in and out of the area without having to pass through the checkpoints, that is to say that if a terrorist decided to enter, he could easily find a way to do so. But the schoolchildren have to pass through a metal detector and open their bags and do whatever the soldiers ask them to do. So, imagine what it is like living in a place like this.

And if soldiers weren’t enough of a problem, there are the problems caused by the Jewish settlers who hate Palestinians only because they are Arabs and live there and they write on the doors of their homes “gas the Arabs” and draw Stars of David on the shop doors, which by the way, the Palestinians have been forced to shut, after six years of preventing the access of products and closing the area with curfews, and using also physical violence, by throwing stones at Palestinians, trespassing in their orchards, occupying their houses. Even the soldiers and the police who should protect the settlers believe that they are crazy, but this is the reason why they are there imposing “law and order”, and only the work of several international organizations trying to protect the limited rights of Palestinians prevents an even more intolerable situation.

During my stay in Palestine, in Jerusalem, the Israelis were excavating near the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third most holy site in Islam. That is one of the reasons why children in Hebron were angry and one day threw stones at the checkpoint, and although only one or two stones reached it, this was enough of an excuse for 20 soldiers to cross to the Palestinian-controlled side and shoot rubber bullets and tear gas at the central market, which had to be shut for 4 days. Soldiers went in every day to do this, and on the last day a child below 16 years had to be taken to the hospital because he was shot with live ammunition in his leg… I could tell so many stories about Tel Rumeida, but I think that this is enough to have an idea of what is happening there daily.

At a small village called Bil’in, which is near Ramallah, they have been holding weekly demonstration on Fridays for two years ago, against the construction of the Wall that is stealing 60% of their land. This is illegal even according to Israeli laws. Those demonstrations are peaceful ones, but if at any moment children of the village throw any stones as a symbol of their resistance and nothing can happen because of course the soldiers are wearing helmets and are very well protected, they use this as an excuse to employ their military tactics and weapons. Thanks to the presence of Israeli activists against the wall and internationals supporting Palestinians, they do not usually shoot live ammunition, but only rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons directly at people and at close distance, which may be very dangerous.

Invasion in Nablus. The Israeli army invaded the city and occupied the local television, asking for 8 persons they said were ‘wanted’. After this, they besieged the old town and imposed a curfew for an unknown time. In such situations, the only things that internationals can do is accompany medical teams and ensure that they can do their work, as they have the necessary food and medicines. In one of our visits to a doctor, while we were having tea outside on the terrace he was explaining to us that the IOF had just been searching the house with a dog scaring the 8 children under 10-years old, and while they were explaining their experience, a group of soldiers climbed onto the nearest roof and came towards the house with a dog again. Then, they ordered all of us into on room while they searched the house for a second time. It is awful that children under ten have to see and experience soldiers aiming at them with weapons and a very agitated dog wearing a muzzle, the only thing I could do was to try and entertain a little girl of 2 years sitting on my knees, so that she did not pay so much attention to what was happening beside her.

I witnessed more abuse when we were walking with first aid volunteers and there was a group of soldiers about 150 meters away walking in the opposite direction. The soldiers shot a sound bomb to attract our attention and then called us over. They told us all to stop 10 meters away from them. They then called the Palestinian medical volunteers over one by one and made them pull down their trousers and turn round to face the two internationals that accompanied them. I don’t need to remind you that in Palestine it is particularly embarrassing for Palestinians to have foreign women see them in public in their underwear. This was completely unnecessary and simply a way to humiliate them further in public.

‘When they took us… they did not even look at our IDs.’

my day in Huwwara by J.

On Wednesday I was in an Israeli prison for one day. As you know, Nablus, and the old city mainly, is now undergoing the Israeli operation of ‘The Hot Winter’. The operation started on Sunday, continued on Monday, stopped just for Tuesday and was resumed yesterday. Yesterday was the turn of our area (Al-qariown area) in the old city. They started at 3:00 at night, told all the families to leave their houses, including women, babies and old people.

After standing for more than 6 hours without being allowed to get any food or even chairs they told all the women, children and those over 30 to go back home, and kept just us, the youth They put some blindfolds on our eyes, and tied our hands behind our backs with some very painful plastic cuffs.

After that, we were moved to some stores in the street, which were opened, destroyed and converted to prisons. We were there for half an hour, after that we had to go up a lot of stairs and through passages to a very dirty unused room, full of dirt that is not suitable even for animals to sit inside. When we were moving, I was the last one of the prisoners, I was grabbed by one soldier who led me as I could not see anything, then another two soldiers came and started to beat me using thier weapons on my back! note that we still had our hands cuffed and the masks on our eyes. We were kept there for 7 hours (untill 10:00 am), not allowed to go to WC , and when we requested some food, they brought some bread, threw it to the ground, and said that this is food, eat it as you want, they demanded that we eat like animals, but we refused that, and continued without food.

We were there until 4:00pm, then we were taken to an Israeli military vehicle, big enough just for 4 people (inside it one of the prisoners who could remove the mask was able to read in Hebrew, that the maximum number of people is 6) but we were 22!!!!!! we sat one on top of the other, which was the worst period of the day, we were taken through different streets until they decided to take us to Huwwara military base. We arrived there at 5:30 pm and after a while they decided to keep us inside a room. The room had 6 beds, but we were 28. When we really were hungry, we told the army that we were really hungry, and after 3 hours they brought us some meals that are suitable for 3 prisoners. Every 4 people shared a small piece of bread, and for the rice-meal, every one had a little – we had to eat rice with our hands, not spoons)

At 9:00pm we decided to sleep, because we did not expect to be released that night. Three people slept in every bed, two top to toe and the third in the rest of the bed, and the other three had to sleep on the ground – there was no proper floor. Every one had a blanket but there were no pillows so we used our shoes.

It is not possible for 28 people to be silent immediately, and we continued chatting. I was the last to get to sleep at 10:00pm. At 10:30pm a soldier knocked on the door loudly and told us we were going to the “intelligence” (I am not sure of the word but it’s some military intelligence like CIA) They again blindfolded and handcuffed us, put us in a military vehicle and drove us for a short distance, then let us out.

Here we met some very bad soldiers who asked us to sit down on the rough,very cold ground for about 30 minutes before one of the human rights workers asked the soldiers to remove the masks and untie our hands, when we discovered that we were in a large area of ground, surrounded by razor wire. At 12:30am they started taking us one by one to the intelligence colonel, during the waiting period we asked for some blankets or anything to cover ourselves but they refused.

When it was my turn to meet the colonel, I was searched, even my shoes and socks were searched with high-tech machines!

When I entered the office, it was just ordinary questions and they tried to persuade everyone to spy for them. But the thing that made me most angry was that while we were suffering with temperature less than 8 degrees, the colonel’s room was supplied with an LG air conditioner.

After that and as expected as I had done nothing against them, they sent me back to the same vehicle to send us to some place, don’t know where (again masked and handcuffed), the vehicle moved for 3 minutes and they ordered us to get out, removed the masks, cut the ties and said, this is Huwwara check point (I think you know it well) it was about 1:30am. We passed the checkpoint , some of my friends said – this is the only time you come to Huwwara and pass it quickly.

We knocked on the door of the first house after the checkpoint to call the Palestinian emergency services who came with two buses and took us home. I arrived home at 2:00am to find my parents waiting and my little brothers Ahmad(12 years) and Abdulqader(5 years) still crying, and my sister was staying with our neighbours.

I just want to tell you, that when they took us from the street, they did not even look at our ID cards to check if we were wanted or not.

I just Pray to God to take us away from this situation.

death, destruction, racism, flowers

by Yifat Appelbaum, February 26th

Monday morning I got a call saying there is a major invasion in Nablus because soldiers had uncovered an explosives laboratory. The entire city was under curfew, and ISM needed volunteers to go there and help the medical teams. Of course, sure, I had a day off so why not spend it tramping through the wet, muddy streets of Nablus with the UPMRC (the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees) Sounds like a party to me.

Before leaving we learned that soldiers had taken over the local TV station and were broadcasting the names of eight men they wanted either dead or alive and that the operation would last until the men were found. Hmm, so they want to kill or arrest eight men and so the entire city is shut down, everyone is ordered to remain in doors while the soldiers rampage through the city, occupy homes and schools and continue the general harassment that is jading me to the point where things that seemed worthy of writing home about are brushed off and no longer given a second thought anymore. That is bad.

The road from Ramallah to Nablus is beautiful in the spring. The almond trees are blooming, there are fields of yellow and purple flowers and my favorite flower, the striking red poppy.

After arriving in Nablus, our team of four international volunteers met up with a group of PMRC volunteers and began the somewhat harrowing job of breaking curfew in order to check on sick people and bring medicine and food. I’ve never walked around a city under curfew before. It looked like a ghost town except for a few stragglers and teenaged boys who were provoking and teasing the teenaged soldiers. Ridiculous. Is any of this worth dying for ? I don’t think so, I wonder if the soldiers do. Then comes the existential questions, what am I doing here, is it helping ? Why bother… Even when the occupation has ended, the strife will move to another part of the world. Who is to say the Palestinians won’t turn their collective devastation onto another population like the Israelis have done to them and the cycle will continue ? The world is such a bad place now. I feel helpless.

Nevertheless we followed the UPMRC teams with our hands up shouting “MEDICAL RELIEF, WE ARE UNARMED, DON’T SHOOT” whenever we encountered soldiers. There’s nothing like staring down the barrel of a gun to pull you out of bouts of self-pity. It’s ironic how the unarmed UPMRC guys seemed so much less frightened than the jumpy soldiers who were armed to the teeth. Fear is a funny thing. I guess they’re used to it; it’s their city; it’s normal life for them. We helped them bring food and medicine to people who had called in with requests because the soldiers are less jumpy and violent when they see a group of international girls breaking curfew.

At one point a group of eight soldiers walked passed us, guns aimed in every direction, accompanied by an older Palestinian man. I couldn’t figure out what the Palestinian man was doing with them because he didn’t appear to be under arrest. I asked one of the PMRC volunteers who explained to me that the man had whispered to him that he was a human shield. He’d been “kidnapped” since 4am that morning and was forced to accompany the soldiers as they patrolled the streets so that Palestinian fighters would not shoot at the soldiers. You know this happens, you read about it but nothing prepares you for the shock and disgust of actually seeing it yourself. We made some phone calls to Israeli human rights organizations. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the use of civilians as human shields in military operations. At this point I start to wonder if anyone cares if a father of five who sells vegetables in the market during the day is being used as a human shield in a military operation.

As it began to get dark we found a hotel to stay at and the UPMRC guys helped us locate what seemed to be the only open grocery store in all of Nablus.

The following morning I left back to Ramallah. The beautiful ride back is kind of like the payment you get for the devastating way being in Nablus makes you feel. As I’m writing this report I heard of the first casualty of the invasion. A 50 year man was shot in the back of the neck while walking down the street with his son.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has a section where readers can post comments on a story, and while reading a recent story on the current situation in Nablus, I uncovered this little gem:

Title: God Help those who live near savages
Name: Steve
City: Tel Aviv

Why do we even associate with these people. Wall them in, expel them, and import thai laborers. END OF STORY. We need to be COMPLETELY seperate from murderous barbarians.

Isn’t this what’s already happening?