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.

My Head Might Burst with Irony

by Alizarin J. Crimson

Sometimes I feel like my head is going to burst with irony.

Like walking through Arab East Jerusalem and seeing Palestinian men wearing tshirts that say: “F.B.I. anti-terrorism unit”. And I wonder if they are wearing it out of irony or if they don’t actually know what it says. Clothing covered with English words and phrases is very popular in the West Bank. Many of the phrases make absolutely no sense at all, while some of it is quite sexually suggestive. So it blows your mind when you walk through extremely conservative Hebron and you see a Palestiniain kid wearing a t-shirt saying “No, you’re NOT coming home with me tonight.” or “Mad licking skills.”

Today I had some business in Jewish West Jerusalem and stopped in a few art galleries that were on my way. To be confronted by a nice Jewish man who tries to sell you some Judaica painting for $3000 and who happens to be dressed in the exact same manner as the people who just spit on you and called you a Nazi the day before is irony. When enough of these people harass you, you have a physical reaction everytime you see them because your body is preparing you to be harassed.

So is kneeling down and feeling the pain in your right thigh where the gigantic rock hit you a few weeks before, (courtesy of the religious Jews in Hebron) as you examine a painting of a bunch of
religious Jews praying. This particular injury which has not healed yet came from an adult male this time (never got around to writing in detail about it, but the official report is here) who was never arrested despite a police complaint by both me and Joe Skillet.

More irony is when I ran into a border policeman who happened to be in the police car which took Joe and I to the police station that day we made the complaint. He saw me going through the checkpoint from Palestinian controlled H1 into Israeli military controlled H2 and told me that if I ever saw the guy in there (pointing to Palestinian controlled H1) who hit me with the rock, he’d arrest him. I informed him that it wasn’t a Palestinian who threw the rock, it was a Jew. With a look of shock and disbelief, he asked, “Why do they throw rocks at you ?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask them ?” I replied. Suffice it to say, he didn’t offer to go into Beit Hadassah and find the Jew who hit me with the rock.

To Israel: “You just want us all to die, and no one in the world seems to care”

A story from Maghazi Refugee Camp, central Gaza
by: Rami Almeghari

It was just after 1am when the Israeli jeeps and tanks, backed by war planes, invaded Maghazi, telling the story of Palestinian refugees anew. It is a story that not only pacifica radio, but all of us who live in Maghazi, know already, having seen it repeated again and again in Gaza. Less than one hour before, the Washington Based Pacifica had phoned me about doing a live interview about Maghazi camp in central Gaza, where I live. I laid down my head on the pillow, under darkness because there is no electricity, in order to have some peace of mind before the live interview the next day.

War planes began shooting heavily overhead. Abruptly, I rushed to my children beside me, waking them up and taking them downstairs in case of any stray bullets hitting from above. My mother was crying, my father was worried, my sister listening to newscasts.

In the darkness, everybody has been anxious, with kerosene lamps showing their wary faces and hushed voices.

My six year old son asked me, “Dad, will i be able to be in the second grade at school?”, as we got the news that Israeli war planes had dropped a missile on his school. The Palestinian News Network reported that this bombing killed one Palestinian cilivian and injured 20 others, who were all children. He noted that all of the children were transferred to a nearby hospital, where nine are being treated for “serious injuries.”

This morning’s raid marks what is merely the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on the Gaza refugee camp. Since Israeli attacks began on Maghazi Camp just a few days ago, eight civilians have been killed, and a staggering 90 have been wounded.

My eight year old daughter sat on the sofa, awake all night looking at me with frightened eyes, her face yellow and pale. I was worried about my brother and his children (like many refugee families, we all live together in one house), so i went upstairs to wake them up. I found my brother sleeping on the roof, due to the hot weather under darkness.

Unfortunately, I was sorry to break his rest, because the sky was raining in such a summer night, but an Israeli-made ‘Summer Rain’ [The Israeli military code-name for their ongoing Israeli invasion in the Gaza Strip is ‘Operation Summer Rains’].

Now, the whole family has been crowded in one small, much safer room, listening quietly to the summer rains and to my mother’s cries, which I tried to dry, but in vain. Because she was so worried, lest her other son, who was out with friends, seeking summer breeze and summer air, get wet by the ‘summer rains’ that have started to fall on Maghazi.

From 1 am to 9:30 am as I write this, the ‘summer rains’ have been falling, making a flow that has swept away six lives, wounded several others, devastated the camp’s transformer, hit a wall of my son’s elementary school, and inflicted damage to many homes and buildings.

My fear, as well as my family’s, is the same as that of thousands of Palestinian refugee families throughout the past six decades starting from 1948, 1956, 1967, and ending with 2006’s latest invasion of Maghazi and other refugee camps since june 27th.

However, Palestinians in the past century have found safe shelters to which they have fled. It now seems we have only one choice — staying in our homes under candlelight. This is the story of Palestinian refugees. Now, in the 21st century, I ask Israel — where else do you want us to go? It seems that you just want us all to die, and no one in the world seems to care.

I am writing this by pencil, on used paper, I can no longer type on my computer. The electricity is fully gone, the backup systems have all been hit. I have to dictate my writing by cell phone to a friend in the West Bank who can type it up – but soon, most likely, my cell phone reception will be gone as well. Now I have heard that two of my relatives were killed in the ongoing attack…..I’ll have to attend their funerals this afternoon. Will Israeli forces attack the funeral? Lately every time there is a funeral, their warplanes buzz overhead, dropping bombs on the attendees and making more funerals necessary. I just hope the next one will not be my own, or that of my dear, dear children.

Gaza Diaries: Cry Freedom

By Mona El-Farra

16th of July, 1.30 am
A loud explosion woke me up. My daughter was frightened and covered her head with the blankets as I switched on my little transistor radio. The F16 hit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building with one rocket, it is the second time in less than one week. Straight away I thought of Fawaz and Nawaf, my childhood friends, and their families. I did not dare to contact them! The sound of the explosion was too strong, it shook my flat (500 meters away).

16th of July, 7.30 am
After a struggle to sleep, I decided to get up and hurried to my friends’ house. They were not injured but, the scene was shocking: Fawaz was startled and unable to focus, causing his brother and the children to be traumatized. He showed me the garden: tall, old trees completely destroyed, so were the windows of their building, and the garden was covered with the rubble of the destroyed Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.

Why to hit the same building twice in one week? They did the same with the Ministry of Interior building, which my friend Hoda lives close to. It is a massive systematic terrifying collective punishment.

No electricity, no water, no milk for babies, no safety, closed borders. 1.5 million captured in their own country. 4 weeks of continuous shelling from sea, land, and air against civilian targets causing 145 deaths (45 were children) and hundreds of injuries in three weeks.

The captured soldier was a pretense for a well-planned systematic assault and collective punishment against a whole population. It is a desperate trial by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) to destroy our will and our determination to achieve our just national goals. But they will not succeed and they should learn from our people’s history: we get tired sometimes, we complain other times, but fortunately Palestinian people do not have the psychology of victims. We have the psychology of freedom fighters, and with the support and solidarity of other people who are fighting daily against injustice: we shall overcome.
With every pain and suffering we cry: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

19th 0f July, 4pm
Al-Magazi Refugee Camp, East Gaza

Today is the second day of IOF incursion into the Al-Magazi camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Shelling continues from the sea, land, and air. So far 9 people are killed, at least 45 (mainly civilians) are injured in the first hours of the incursion. Still no water and no electricity. Hospitals are struggling with increasing causalities. They are working through the emergency off the alternative power source and medical supplies are exhausted.

Beit Hanoun village North Gaza
Today the IOF withdrew from the village, leaving 40 houses demolished, 12 people killed, tens injured, large areas of fruitful agricultural land were destroyed, 2 journalists and 2 health emergency workers were injured. Our surgical team at Al-Awda Hospital was overwhelmed with the large number of the casualities. The army stayed for 3 days in the village, and left it destroyed.The UN OSO team reported some very poor families are in great need of baby formula but the UN does not supply this sort of milk. I shall make sure to distribute this milk via Middle East Children Alliance (MECA) tomorrow.

While I write, continuous explosions can be heared from the gunboats, Apache helicopters fill the sky with a drone sound. Still no electricity. I do not find it easy to write with the candle light and the old fashioned kerosine lamp.

In Solidarity,

Mona El-Farra

War Games in Beit Ummar

Journal entry by Ernesto. Provides a deeper insight to a previous ISM eyewitness report about the same incident.

After visiting the family of Yusuf Abumariya we headed to the house of another family. We were served tea and fresh fruit and before we were able to fully get the gentleman’s name and story, Ahmed, one of our local contacts got a call that Musa’s house had been teargassed and that his brother was in a car accident. We gave our shukrans and immediately ran out the door.

We found Musa’s sister and others frantically cleaning the house with soap and water, eyes tearing and gas hanging heavily in the air. Apparently the family was sitting in their garden on the side of the house when Jeish rolled by and shot two canisters of teargas at the house. One of the volunteers who was staying in the house went after them.

We thought about splitting up, half staying behind and the others going up to the main road to document any military activities, but our feet did the voting and we all ended up on the main road. What unfolded before our eyes is still inexplicably absurd. The main street of Beit Ummar was under seige by a Hummer, two smaller jeeps, and a platoon of young soldiers. It looked like a scene out of a war movie.

It was’t clear what was going on. Soldiers were letting some cars through and turning others away. Old women held grandchildren’s hands a little tighter as they walked through the street. One thing was for sure, the soldiers were in town and their presence was making people very uneasy.

One of the Humvees crashed into a taxi causing 1000 shekels worth of damage. The cab belonged to Ahmed’s brother and he was staying with some more of our folks trying to get some answers. We managed to fight fear and walk by the Jeish and through them to assess the situation.

Up ahead Jeish were rolling deeper into town and taunting shebab into wargames. Young soldiers took their positions, tucked safely behind the armor of their jeeps. They rolled passed old ladies who sat on their stoops gazing at this mini-invasion through tired eyes.

This carried on for about two hours. Jeish changed positions, held positions, talked into their walkie talkies and stood by buildings and in little alleys. In packs of four or at times in pairs. They reminded me of me and my friends playing G.I.Joe as kids in Riverside Park.

Their opponent, mighty as mice, were shebab. Those teenagers who defied their parents orders to go inside and stay out of trouble. Los que buscan problemas. Those who find dignity in never backing down to an enemy with far more superior equipment and orders to shoot. For two hours the Jeish deliberated and comiserated about how many times they would shoot rubber bullets at kids who scurried back and forth, drawn into the wargames, proving an uncertain sense of manhood in the face of hate.

Eventually, the Jeish retreated. They may have received orders to, or maybe they realized the absurdity of their existance -shooting rubber-coated metal bullets at kids who threw stones and slung them with makeshift slinghsots. But more realistically they were ordered to retreat, because men so entrenched in the work of occupation rarely realize the absurdity of it. My audible comments about how pathetic it was for a bunch of young men to position themselves and shoot at children was rejected with a perfect American-english “Could you please shut the fuck up.” I have heard young Zionist Americans make sure to serve their compulsory military service in Israel in order to ensure their citizenship and glory.

In the end the shebab won the Battle of Beit Ummar. Every time the children face off against the military, and cast stones, and suffer no casualties, they win. The occupation grows a little weaker, perhaps not in a material sense, but certainly in the spiritual. The young shebab regain a little bit of dignity -a dignity that is at stake under the heels of occupation. Let’s be clear, stone throwing is not encouraged by the majority of the adults. Many scuffles break out between paternal adults and rebellious youth, but boys will be boys. And if Jeish will be Jeish, Shebab will be Shebab.

In the meantime, Jeish detained the taxi driver, we rushed to the D.C.O [detention center] to await his release, and returned to the village with him for another cup of tea.

‘Blogging from Gaza’ – From bad to worse: the downpour continues

by Leila El-Haddad

Friday, July 14: Things are bad in Gaza. Very bad. Not to mention of course in Lebanon, where Yassine’s, my husband’s, family lives, in the Wavel refugee camp in Baalbeck, Hezbollah stronghold.

They, of course, along with all of Lebanon, are blockaded by air and sea, so Yassine has sort of become a double-refugee now: he can go back neither to Palestine, nor Lebanon. It brings back very bad memories for him, having grown up during the civil war there, and narrowly escaping mass slaughter at the hands of Syrian-backed, Israeli-advised, Phalangists in the Tel Zaatar camp, where his family originally lived, and where his uncle went missing.

Of course, what’s happening in Lebanon provides some uncertain relief for Gaza residents, where 82 Palestinians have been killed in the past 12 days, 22 of them children.

I was finally able to reach my Aunt…they had not gotten electricity in 24 hours when I spoke to her; people have been standing in long lines to purchase candles.

And of course, Rafah is still closed; 8 people have died waiting to get home. Egypt, following Israeli orders, is refusing to open the gates.

The nights are turning into days, and days into nights, as the sonic booming shocks them awake, shattering windows and terrorizing the population. The stress is taking its toll, but to quote my Aunt, though they are not living with ease, they are living with resolve.

Medicines are also running dangerously low. And to add to the misery, Israeli tanks have blockaded northern Gaza, where my Aunt lives, and where our house is, from southern Gaza, where my 84 year old grandmother lives on her own.

I think of them every day. I still cringe when I see news helicopters; or fireworks; or thunder; Today we had a thunderstorm, and the thunder was so loud it scared Yousuf, who thought it was gunfire and shelling, as I tried to assure him he was safe. But I wondered, inside of myself, does safe have an address?