Category: Journals

by Ellen O’Grady

Since July 26 I have been living in and witnessing the effects of the Israeli military closure on the village of Iraq Bureen and its 900 inhabitants. Iraq Bureen is located three miles outside of the city of Nablus on top of a terraced mountain 880 meters above sea level. Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and more forcefully since the Israeli invasion into the West Bank, Israel has imposed a closure on Iraq Bureen which impedes movement into and from the village. The closure of the village, which is implemented through military outposts, checkpoints, road blocks, physical barriers, tanks, planes, and helicopters, enables the Israeli army to completely control and restrict movement of people and goods.

The road leading from Iraq Bureen to the surrounding towns and the city of Nablus is closed by a six foot tall rock and dirt barrier constructed by the Israeli army. The road and the surrounding valleys and mountain paths are constantly watched over by an Israeli military camp and military posts on the neighboring mountains. Those who risk breaking the closure by walking around the roadblock or through the valleys risk both being arrested and being shot at. Many take the risk in order to care for and support their families. For example, people break the seige in order to transport food to Nablus for the needed income, to work in neighboring villages for the needed income, to transport water and food and fuel from Nablus to Iraq Bureen, and to go to Nablus to receive medical care.

MEDICAL CARE DENIED
Over 70% of the Palestinian population live in rural areas, such as Iraq Bureen, which do not provide hospital services. Closure therefore severly restricts the population from health care facilities. The inablitity for the people in Iraq Bureen to reach hospitals and clinics has severly affected pregnant women, sick children and people requiring treatment for things such as cancer, kidney failure, and diabetes.

On the night of August 6 Hiyam Q’s baby died while she was in labor in her home. It was a late pregnancy, the baby was very big and could not be delivered vaginally. Had she had access to a hospital a ceasarean section could have been performed and most likely the child’s life would have been saved. (The UNWRA reprts that among its patients there has been a 58% increase in the number of still births since the military closure. Other medical organizations reprt a 100% increase in home deliveries.)

In the past two weeks I have accompanied Palestinians breaking the closure in order to help them reach medical care safely. I have walked with three sick children and their families to reach hospitals and clinics in Nablus. And with Salwa an old woman with sores on her hands and face who is suffering from untreated Diabetes. Doctors at St. Luke’s hospital in Nablus report a 49% decline in general patients, a 73% decline in specialty services, and a 53% decline in surgeries.

KILLED FOR BREAKING THE CLOSURE TO WORK OUTSIDE IRAQ BUREEN: THE STORY OF ADNAN AND MAMOUD
After six months without any work two laborers from Iraq Bureen, Adnan and Mamoud, and a friend and co-worker of theirs from the village of Tell broke the closure to work in a town North of Nablus. They worked for two weeks painting and putting down tile. Before their expected return Adnan called his sister to tell her they would be leaving the next day and be home in two days. The day after the phone call was made the three men were shot and killed by the Israeli Occupation forces in a field in a nearby town. They lay in the feild for two days without being discovered. On the third day the Israeli media reported the killing of the three men, claiming in the report that the three were suspected terrorists, a claim that has no evidence to support it. An ambulance was permitted to reach the three bodies and take them to a hospital in Nablus. The bullet holes were as large as fists suggesting they were fired upon from a plane or tank. Adnan had a large hole through his stomach and eight bullet holes through his right leg. Mamoud had a bullet through his mouth and the top of his head had been cut open. Both of their faces were blue and pocked with gravel from being dragged from the location of the killing. Nothing supports the claim that the men conducted violent activites against Israel. All evidence supports that they were laborers returning from work. I visited and sat with the two families in Iraq Bureen. The family of Mamoud showed me the interior decorating work he had done on their home, including a relief of painted roses on the ceiling and a border of flowers painted on the wall.

The families of Mamoud and Adnan fear that the Israeli military will soon come to destroy their homes. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have partially or wholly demolished close to 10,000 Palestinian homes. Often these house demolitions are used as punitive measures (e.g., against the families of suspected terrorists). Nearly every day in the past week we have heard the explosions and demolitions of homes in Nablus and the village of Tell. There has been increased tank activity around Iraq Bureen; people here fear there homes will be next.

AGRICULTURE UNDER SEIGE
The majority of the people in Iraq Bureen depend on the sale of cactus fruit, milk and yogurt to support their families. These past eleven days the cactus fruit should have gone to markets in Nablus. Because of the closure and a strict curfew on Nablus there has not been access to markets and much of the fruit is beginning to rot. The small amount of fruit that has reached Nablus has been carried in buckets by farmers and their donkeys who were able to evade the military blockade. This is getting more and more difficult as the presence of tanks and military blockades around Iraq Bureen and Nablus has increased over the past two weeks.

I have spoken with nine farmers who had been trying to get to Nablus with their cactus fruit this past week and who had been stopped by Israeli soldiers and forced to sit with their faces bowed down to the ground for more than four hours in the hot sun and never permitted to sell their fruit.

I have spoken with seven farmers who in the past four weeks have been detained by the Israeli occupation forces for attempting to transport milk, yogurt and fruit to Nablus. Two of those detained, Mohamed and Said, brought me to the place they had been taken by the Isreali soldiers and showed me the broken glass yogurt jars that had been thrown to the ground and broken by the soldiers who had detained them.

From the top of Iraq Bureen I have watched tanks stop and turn back farmers and their donkeys on the road leading to Nablus.

HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION
As a direct result of the closure there are families in Iraq who have no food or money and are surviving on olive oil. I sat with the mothers of two families, Iman and Miriam. Iman has a husband who suffers from a mental illness (dissociation) that is treated through medication. However since the closure he has not been able to recieve his medication. Since the invasion the medication is not even available in Nablus, only in Israel. As a result he has been mentally unstable and unable to provide for the family. The husband of Miriam also suffers from a mental illness. Until the seige, the family of her husband had been providing for her. Now, the family of her husband has little money for themsleves and so Miriam’s children go without food and sleep much of the day to try to escape their hunger.

Many families in Iraq Bureen are getting by just on bread and olive oil and are suffering from malnutrution. The Palestine Bureau of Statistics recently relased a survey on nutrition and found that 63.8% of those surveyed faced difficulties on food supply since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. 45.5% are suffering from chronic malnutrition. 36.9% are suffering from mild chronic malnutrition.

WATER UNDER SIEGE
Iraq Bureen is one of many villages suffering from a severe water shortage as a result of closing the Palestinian territories. There is no water source in Iraq Bureen so the village depends on water tankers to come and fill people’s wells. Normally water tankers come every week during the summer months. Under the closure they cannot reach the villages. This forces people to break closure, bring donkeys down to a river and collect what little water they are able to with plastic containers.

POWER SHORTAGE
Iraq Boreen is one of over 130 West Bank villages that has electricity supplied for only a fraction of the day. Electricity in IB is generated by a motor powered by benzine. Normally the motor runs for seven hours. Under the seige there is often only enough diesel fuel to run for three hours a day.

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Closure is in direct violation of internationl humanitarian law. Under the conditions incurred by the closure, people of Iraq Bureen and throughout the occupied territories are suffering from a lack of access to food, fuel and water and access to basic health care. Breaking the closure puts people at risk for being detained and arrested as well being shot at and killed. The people here are in a state of emergency. We must do everything we can to end this seige and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

by Karl Dallas

The Battle of Nablus
tune: English traditional, “The Bold Princess Royal”

On the last day of June in two thousand and two
In the city of Nablus the pleasures were few
The Israeli army had invaded the town
And the people were terrorised by the tanks roaming round.

We were ten internationals come into this land
To see what was happening and perhaps lend a hand.
We were Christians and Muslims and atheists and Jews
And all were determined to see what we could do.

For eight days a curfew all day and all night
And anyone on the streets could be shot on sight
But the people determined to reclaim their streets
And so we marched with them the curfew to beat.

Next day in the morning we woke from our dreams
To hear that the army was invading the homes
Of many brave fam’lies who had done nothing wrong
And so we decided to see what could be done.

We went to a house where the soldiers had gone
And twenty or so people they confined in one room.
We found a way in and we banged on the door
Saying we come in peace and in the name of the law.

Outside in the street while the folk gathered round
Some more of our number from all over the town
They gave us a warning that a tank was in view
So they sat down to stop it and they saw what they should do.

All the time in the house we persisted to try
To speak to the soldiers but they gave no reply
Instead they fired tear gas and exploded grenades
But our comrades were steadfast Though none could came to their aid.

They were only five people, brave vessels of light,
Confronting without weapons all the enemy’s might
The soldiers took hold of them and dragged them away
And one of their number was taken that day.

At length in the house the soldiers did say
We will take our leave if you’ll go away.
We consulted our comrades to see what to do
And at eight in the evening we decided to go.

Despite this small victory we should never forget
That the invading army oppresses them yet
Even while all our hearts with joy did abound
They were killing two young men elsewhere in the town.

The statesmen are weeping salt crocodile tears
At the plight of this people for so many years
But remember the teargas and the tank on that day
All carried the trademark: Made in USA.

By Adam Shapiro

The first thing you notice at the entrance to the Balata Refugee Camp is the overturned, burned out car stuck in a huge man-made crater in the ground. But this was the battleground of the previous three days, as the Israeli Army sacked the camp and destroyed homes, cars, property, and lives with wanton abandon and without much purpose. Other than to attack and terrorize a people who have nothing in this world and who have already been made homeless – and who have remained refugees for over 50 years. Inside the camp, this alleged “hotbed of terrorism” the group of us eight internationals were met and greeted by the residents with inquisitive looks, “salaam aleikum” shouted from time to time, and lots of little kids running up to us to see who were these strangers. All tried to make us feel welcome and when they learned that we were there in solidarity with the people of the camp and wanted to take pictures to show the world, we were pulled in many different directions at once to witness what the Israelis had done. What they had done was obvious, and it was all over the camp. Immediately noticeable, at eye level, was the black spray paint on the walls – arrows, numbers, Hebrew writing and stars of David, markings the soldiers made to allow themselves to navigate through the crowded camp. Permanent markings of the three days of hell the camp endured. We later found these markings inside people’s homes as well, painted on the walls.

Thirty homes were destroyed in the camp, but hundreds more effectively ruined and damaged. The camp is densely populated and some alleyways between the buildings are barely wide enough for me – an average sized male – to pass through. Other structures are just built wall-to-wall. When the Israeli army took down a building – allegedly looking for weapons or rockets (no evidence of any found) – it meant that the neighbors’ buildings also were damaged. The first place I visited was a destroyed home. Next door, the building was still standing, but upon walking in, I discovered that the neighbor had lost his wall. The home was also damaged by the demolition and the home utterly unusable. If each house demolished results in the two or three neighboring buildings also being damaged beyond use, then the result is between 90 and 120 structures affected. Each structure contains at least two (and usually more) apartments, housing anywhere from 10 to 40 people. Therefore, at minimum, 900 people were left homeless by the home demolitions in the camp – this is the calculus of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people.

Walking through the streets of the camp, destruction was all around us. Peering down alleyways, we inevitably spotted the chunks of stone, the twisted metal and the broken piece of furniture that indicated a home was demolished. Cars had been set ablaze and riddled with bullet-holes – the carcasses lay in the streets as added testimony to the siege. Every house we visited had a story to tell. Some were simply shot up, others had tear gas thrown inside, while others were invaded and occupied by the soldiers. We visited one home that had been occupied during the entire siege by Israeli soldiers. Upon entering the house, the soldiers offered to allow the family to leave, but promised them they would never come back to the house. The family stayed – three children (aged 4 to 9), two young women (one pregnant) and an elderly woman. The man of the house – PLC member and leading figure in the camp, Hussam Khader – was not home for fear of his life. The soldiers forced the family into one room – approximately 8×10 feet – and made them stay there the entire three days. For the first twenty-four hours, not a single person was allowed to leave the room at all – not for the bathroom, not for food, not for water. The soldiers ransacked the entire place – taking money and computer disks, breaking furniture and emptying drawers, ripping apart passports and overturning children’s beds. We knocked at the door of the home when we arrived. As we entered the sitting room, we heard child whimper – little Ahmed (four years old) was afraid we were the Israelis coming back to the house. He is traumatized by the experience and needs to be near his mom and aunt constantly. But he is tough, and before long he was playing with my camera. He told me to follow him upstairs and there he showed me how the soldiers had ransacked his room. He was amazed by the sight and asked me why the soldiers did this to him.

The last home we visited in the camp was located on the main street, near the cemetery. A ground floor apartment was located adjacent to a store. The main gate of the store was blown apart and the glass from the window lay in the street. The back wall of the small store was torn down and you could see directly into the apartment behind – but there was not much to see. Walking into the house we were unable to step on the floor directly – it was covered with clothing, broken dishes, broken furniture, etc. The electricity was cut, so we had to poke around in the diminishing light until a portable fixture was brought in. The lit room revealed the full destruction – even the washing machine was not safe from the brutality of the soldiers. A fully veiled young woman (only her eyes showed) boldly came up to me and asked if I spoke English. I replied that I did and that she could speak to me in either English or Arabic. She explained that she was the oldest of four children in the house – 14-years old – and that her father was dead. She led me over to where the kitchen had been and searched in the broken glass for something. Finally, she pulled up a picture frame with a photo of her father in it and explained to me that Israeli spies had killed him in 1994. In a flash she was back in the pile on the ground looking for another photo – that of her grandfather, also dead. Now holding both pictures, this young Muslim woman, proud to know English and proud of her family, calmly explained what had happened when the soldiers came – how they had to flee and spend the night outside the camp in the nearby fields. For more than fifty years they had been refugees, and now Israel wanted to attack them again. But, she told me, struggling with her emotions and her sense of dignity, “they must know we are strong children and we won’t leave this land, my grandfather’s land. We will return to the land which they occupied in 1948.”

These refugees, like those in the other camps, have lost everything and live with virtually nothing. Now, day after day, the Israeli army is going after them in a pogrom deliberately designed to provoke and to strike terror in the hearts of an entire people. Like little Ahmed Khader, the world must ask, why are the Israelis doing this?