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.
Ok I admit I’ve been a little lazy this week. Part of that is has to do with the fact that, wrapped up in my pre-travel anxiety as it were, and my mad rush to tie up as many loose ends as possible and write as much as possible, I think I burnt myself out.
He makes it all better
That and being here can be overwhelming at times; this week has been one of those times. Sometimes I’m too caught up to notice, but then on a “down” week, it catches up to me. I feel powerless, even crushed, in the face of an ugly, foreboding, larger than life force that seems to grow and mutate with every passing day. It is everywhere and nowhere at once. And try as you might, you cannot hide from it.
It squeezes you tighter and tighter, instilling within you a feeling of helplessness and dejection and isolation, until you begin to feel you are alone, even among 1.5 million others. And there is nothing you can do about it.
Sometimes I don’t want to do anything about it. I just want to run away, somewhere I hope it can’t reach me. Sit on the beach, listen to the troubled stories that the Gaza’s lonely Mediterranean is desperately trying to tell. “Take me to the beach at sunset, so I may listen what the beach says…when it returns to itself, calmly, calmly.”
Yousuf frolicked about in the sand, building and destroying his imaginary creations, pleased with his new-found prowess. He glanced over at me, sensed something of sadness in my eyes, and patted me on the shoulder-“ma3lsh, mama, ma3lish” he said… “It’s ok”…and suddenly, just like that, everything was.
I visited Rafidia hospital this afternoon to check on the condition of the boy I last saw unconscious, being taken from my arms into the back of an ambulance. I notice small patches of his blood still visible on my jeans and shoes as we walked into the ICU.
Mohammed Saqer (17) is critically injured and on life support systems in Rafidia hospital. He is in a medically induced coma following emergency brain surgery by Dr Madher Darwazeh. The attempt to revive him will come some 72 hours after the operation and, as this is all his doctor would confirm, only then will his condition truly be known.
For now his heart beat is an artificially steady 80 per minute, his blood pressure 121/71 whilst other unknown measurements are an unchanging 100, 13 and 37.7
Mohammed, from Askar refugee camp, was shot in the head almost exactly 2 days ago by a rubber coated metal bullet fired from an Israeli military jeep at no more than 20 meters distance.
His Aunt – Am Baker – was at his bedside. Stricken with grief she told us of how this was the second time he had been shot in the head. She said “The first time was much better. He was OK after two days. Now, I think its worse. It’s bad. Yesterday he was better than today”.
In all honesty, I don’t know if this is a bad sign or a good one. Neither, I think, does she.
The aunt goes on to tell us that, if this horrific event wasn’t enough, the boy’s father is in jail at the moment (he’ll be released in 2 weeks) and his brother has cancer. It’s just too much ill fortune to take in.
I ask that Ahmad (our guide in Balata/ Nablus) explain how we – Bjarke, I and others – carried him into the ambulance. She smiles weakly and says, “You helped him. Thank you.”
Then she looks down at his prostrate body with tubes in his arms, mouth, wrist and asks: “How do you see the situation? What’s your opinion?”
Now this really hits home. How on earth can I, with no more than 30 atrociously pronounced words of Arabic to my name, even begin to answer such a question. Even in English I know I’d fail, and fail badly.
All I could reply to Ahmad was a lame “tell her that I hope with all my heart that he pulls through.”
At times like this if I were religious I could make statements about fervently praying to god, shit, I would be praying to god, any and all that I thought conceivably might listen. But I’m not, so I can’t. This is no time for taking refuge in mysticism; human action put him in this condition, and human intervention is his only hope of recovery. But of course I wouldn’t think to say this to his no doubt devout Muslim aunt.
I stay 10, perhaps 15, minutes. Take some photos. Look helplessly at his body and face, feel helpless. Know and accept I am helpless.
Bjarke is upset, what normal person wouldn’t be?
Yet I seem strangely able to deal with the situation. After all I don’t know him, and in Balata, in Palestine these shootings, and worse, are daily occurrences. I mean, the 8 yr kid in the internet cafe where I’m typing this has eagerly shown me 2 videos on his phone of other similarly hideous shootings.
But still in so many ways I wish I wasn’t able to ‘handle’ it. Am I really so cold, heartless? Is there something wrong with me? I don’t know. Am I mistaking some crass idea of being a “professional” with a touch of something of psychopathic?
Then I note that Ahmad seems totally fine, asking if there’s anything else we want or anyone we need to interview. He’s Balata born and bred, and for him death and human suffering is everyday life. In comparison I’m an emotional wreck. Better surely that Ahmad was in tears like Bjarke. Better we all were, if ‘we’ ever got to hear about it.
Oh. God. They killed another one. Another shaheid. Another child martyr. Oh. God. Oh god. Ohgod. His blood. On the rocks. A hole in his head. It was a big hole. He is still alive after an hour from the shooting. But what does a rubber bullet 2 inches inside his brain with multiple skull fractures really offer? Oh god, when will this killing end? And I only just got here. Another mother lost a son. Another sister will cry tonight and every night. Another son only allowed to live 17 years. Prowling the streets, hunting for rocks the size of his hand to hurl at a jeep that would kill him. How does this make sense that this is all that was given to him in life?
But this boy was already free in a way before he was shot. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He stood up to the jeep. He was standing, until the bullet brought him face-down on the rocks. Maybe this is why they shot him, because the Israelis in the armored jeep were threatened by his fearlessness of them. He wasn’t suffering like the hundreds of thousands of people in Nablus from fear of their bullets.
Maybe he no longer wet himself at night dreaming of them burning down his house or killing his grandmother. Maybe he didn’t cower from the jeeps when they rolled down his street, or lose control at the sound of gunfire at close range. He was able to shake off this suffocating fear that I feel, that makes the ceiling descend and the world cease to exist beyond a few steps in front my feet – this is an admirable feat to have accomplished. And this is why he is a martyr.
…well, at least not according to British Airways. I was attempting to enter in my “passenger details” and country of citizenship and residence on their website for a flight I have booked next month (from Cairo, 8 hours and a border crossing away, since the Gaza airport is incapacitated-much like Sharon, and the Tel Aviv airport is off limits to Palestinians), but guess what…I don’t exist!
Palestine/Palestinian Territories (territories, what territories?..maybe “Palestinian bantustans”)/OPT/Gaza Strip/Palestinian Authority..well, none of the above mentioned options are present, and since I am the holder of a Palestinian Authority passport (which one can only get based on having an Israeli-issued ID card, or hawia…) I am a non-category.
Needless to say, I was distrought. Where in the world is Laila El-Haddad (maybe with Carmen Sandiego, hee hee) if not in Palestine, I thought? Certainly not in Israel (as one of many customer relations reps suggested). I immediately sent an email of complaint to BA, humbly suggesting that BA add Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Territories, or Palestine to their list of countries, “since there are several million Palestinians who live here and unfortunately they do not have a category in your list.”
and several days later the reply I received was: “I am sorry, we are unable to assist you with your query via email…For further assistance, please call your general enquiries department on ba.com then SELECT YOUR COUNTRY from the drop down list.”
Um, ok, I realize you don’t need a phd to work in one of these posts, but i assumed it was farily self-evident from my first email that MY COUNTRY IS NOT LISTED in the drop down list. I explained this to “Diana” in a subsequent email, and was told to contact my “nearest general enquiries department” (if I was to take that literally, that would be Tel Aviv).
Instead I opted for customer relations in the UK. My “inquiry” was pushed from one phone operator to the next until I was finally patched through to web support, who, surprise, surprise, “forwarded my request”.
“When can I get a definite answer?” I asked earnestly. “Well, that could be one week or one month, we don’t really know. To be honest we may not get a definite answer”.
“And why not? What is so complicated or conroversial about adding my country or territory or even geographic location to your list?”
“I honestly don’t know” came the reply.
Well, I do. As my friend joked this morning, “there’s no definite answer, because we aren’t definite people.”
Our group was tired out after the large settler attack yesterday and apprehensive about what might happen over the coming week. We were hoping for a quiet day, and we got that. So here’s a description of a quiet day in Tel Rumeida…
International volunteers from EAPPI, ISM and TRP on the streets at 7am to monitor the children travelling to school in case of attacks by settlers. I stay close to Tel Rumeida settlement to watch the children who live close to the settlement buildings and have to walk down the hill past the settlement buildings and two army posts. There have been attacks on these children, stonings and beatings, but this morning there are none.
More internationals monitor the children as they walk down the hill toward the school. EAPPI accompany the children to school and stay throughout the school day.
At about noon the children return from school. Again, internationals monitor the areas close to Tel Rumeida and Beit Hadassa settlements. I watch for the children walking up past the IDF guardpost towards Beit Hadassa. This is terrifying for the children as they have been attacked in this area many times. Today the soldiers are new and stop them, ask them where they are going and search their schoolbags.
EAPPI accompany several girls who live at a house only accessible on a narrow path alongside Tel Rumeida settlement. This Palestinian family have fought a Supreme Court battle in Israel for the right to use this strip of land and won. However the IDF have placed a roll of razor wire across the path. At one point the family could lift the wire to access the path to their house. Then sandbags were placed on the wire to prevent this. Now the children must step over the roll of wire, opposite the IDF guardpost and the homes of violent illegal settlers to access the path home.
This morning the IDF soldier manning the guardpost did not know about the Supreme Court decision and refused the children entry. International volunteers from ISM and EAPPI tried to explain the situation but the soldiers would not be convinced. The human rights workers called the police and army, and during the wait some settlers emerged and told the troops the children were not allowed to pass. This was an outright lie. The settlers called us “Nazis”.
Eventually a jeep arrived with an officer who confirmed that the children were indeed allowed to walk down the path.
As the children stepped over the barbed wire, a settler remarked to her daughter “I hope they trip”.
This incident highlights a reoccuring problem in Tel Rumeida; new army units are not properly briefed when they take over, and so the soldiers have to learn the ground rules, usually at the expense of the Palestinian residents who suffer yet more delays, searches, and ID checks until the soldiers learn the locals are not the problem here.
Calm returns to the area for all of five to ten minutes, then boom! Boom! Two small explosions, one right after the other, from the direction of the Palestinian souk (market) in the H2 zone, just outside the perimeter. The two bored sentries who man a concrete guard position at the top of the hill are suddenly tense and alert, guns levelled, scanning the streets in front of their position for trouble. From the old souk comes a cloud of pale smoke or dust, and the distant sound of car alarms and horns and confusion. Some kind of bomb, or a controlled explosion on a suspected bomb? We have no idea, and neither have the soldiers, who gradully relax as the cloud dissapates in the gusty air.
The EAPPI workers go off-duty and as always we’re sad to see them go. An hour or two passes and we’re mostly sat at the curbside enjoying the warmth of “sunny intervals” as the BBC would call the mixture of clouds and sunshine. Occasionally we take a stroll down the hill, past the soldiers, and down to the checkpoint. Then right onto the main street, as almost always eerie and deserted. We try to monitor both streets because of possible settler attacks.
Later in the afternoon we see three young settlers walking down Tel Rumeida hill. They seem innocent enough but as they pass they whisper “I kill you”. They meet a Palestinian child near the bottom of the hill and lunge towards him. We shout “Stop” and begin to film, they look at us and quickly move on.
The rest of the day is quiet but as we are crossing the checkpoint to buy food for supper a member of the team is detained and told they will be “arrested”. They are kept there for an hour before being released.
