Shooting at Kites; Bulldozing Schools

by Sam Messier and Jill Dreier

This morning the military pulled out most, but not all, of its presence from Nablus. Though still officially under curfew, many people started coming out into the streets and opening their shops. Internationals, including the two of us from Colorado, purchased several bags of food to distribute to families who were still too frightened to leave their homes during curfew.

While purchasing bread, the internationals witnessed two APC’s pull up outside the bread shop. As the shop-owner hurriedly closed up, the internationals shielded him and his customers from the soldiers and escorted the remaining customers to their nearby houses. A Molotov cocktail was thrown from an alleyway at street level. It grazed one APC, but caused no injury to the soldier inside. The soldier immediately began firing into the surrounding buildings, not just where the Molotov was tossed from but into upper floor apartments. The internationals shouted for him to stop. After a brief stand-off, the soldiers backed away and left.

Less than an hour later, the soldiers returned to this area with reinforcements, more APC’s and a tank. Internationals stood on the street between the soldiers and the Palestinian civilians, including many children on the street. Several Palestinian boys threw rocks in the direction of the tank and APC’s. Others chanted and shouted. Some of the soldiers got out of the vehicles and took aim with their guns as they stood behind corners. The tank made a show of raising and lowering its gun at us.

After about 5-10 minutes, the soldiers advanced in their vehicles. Without the media present and being a small number of people, the internationals decided to stand aside and let the vehicles pass but followed them and then worked their way between the soldiers and the Palestinian boys in a narrow street. The situation grew very tense, and the internationals made the decision to move into an alleyway where the soldiers on foot wanted to move to take up position to fire their guns. With the internationals in the alley off to the side, rocks and live fire were exchanged. The Palestinian boys ran away after the shooting started. After about 10-15 minutes, the soldiers retreated. Three internationals with first-aid training went to check to see if any Palestinians were injured, but fortunately everyone was OK. The entire event was videotaped.

After this, the internationals participated in several activities – including an investigation of occupied houses and houses under threat of demolition. Internationals also accompanied relief workers to distribute food and medicine. Earlier in the day a Palestinian relief volunteer was arrested from the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees center. The reason given was that he was wearing a medallion with the photo of a martyr around his neck.

Internationals accompanied the relief workers all afternoon as they delivered medicine to sick children and infant formula and some staple food supplies. Infant formula is not available in the shops in the old city, and the only way people can get it while under curfew is for these volunteers to deliver it. One of out deliveries was to a house being occupied by soldiers. We had to pass the formula through a small hole in the wall because the door was barricaded.

During our deliveries, we were asked to go and intervene in an arrest under progress. About two blocks away, two Palestinian men, a taxi driver and passenger (recently there are almost no taxis out and about), were handcuffed and were being placed in a military vehicle. One male international attempted to intervene but was roughly forced away by the soldiers. Next we approached the soldiers.

They told us to stop, but we kept walking with our hands out to our sides. They fired into the air. We slowed down but kept walking. They then lowered a gun to aim at us, but we continued walking. Then they started walking towards us very fast so we stopped. When they reached us they demanded that we leave. We calmly explained that the people at the other end of the street had asked us to come and inquire about these men because they were quite concerned about them. The soldiers said that they were being arrested and taken to the detention camp. By this point they had been placed inside the vehicle with the door closed. We tried to get more information, but were told that we were in no position to be asking questions of soldiers. I disagreed of course, but as they were becoming more aggressive and were only two internationals we left. I can only hope these two men are OK.

Palestinians keep asking me where I’m from. When I say the United States, they always respond with “You are welcome”. One of the relief workers told me that she thinks the people in the United States are good people, but they don’t know the truth about what is happening in Palestine. When they understand the truth, she says, she thinks they will support the Palestinian people and the occupation will end.

The truth is that after two invasions this year, the beautiful city of Nablus is littered with rubble that was once people’s homes. One school was destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again since April. Mosques have been desecrated. Young boys have been shot in the head simply for throwing stones at tanks or for simply being outside when the army doesn’t want them to be. People cannot buy food or medicine because they can’t leave their homes, and relief workers need international escorts to keep from being detained and arrested.
And when they get bored or just angry, the soldiers shoot at the kites – the one beautiful symbol of freedom left in Nablus. Every single person in the old city has a story of a home vandalized, a family member injured, a friend being killed. I have stopped going into homes to photograph damage done by soldiers because it would literally consume all of our time.

———-
Sam Messier and Jill Dreier, with the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace are in Palestine joining hundreds of internationals with the International Solidarity Movement in nonviolent direct action to end Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine. More on their trip at: www.ccmep.org/palestine.html

Two Days in Bethlehem

by Chris and Carl

Our affinity group members, Mike, Ronise (who is deaf) and Jennie went to the Deaf School in Bethlehem. The school serves boys and girls from 6 months to 15 years old. It was a well equipped modern school run by the Catholic Church. The school is currently closed because of the clamp down of the military occupation. The Italian nuns that work there showed our team bullet holes around the school and in a student desk. It makes you wonder what worse target the Israeli army could pick to shoot.

Our group had a meeting to discuss our future. We decided to leave the Dheisheh Refugee camp on Tuesday morning. Part of the group will be staying together after leaving Dheisheh. Sherri said goodbye. She will be leaving the camp in the morning and leaving Palestine on Tuesday. On Sunday night we heard a speaker at the Ibda Community Center in Dheisheh. Narsir Al-Laham, is a Palestinian journalist who was jailed for 6 years during the first intifada. He has some interesting observations about the struggle against occupation and the search for peace. Here are few thought-provoking quotes:

  • “Everyone has a story.”
    – speaking of the suffering that ALL Palestinians have gone through
  • “If Barak promises us 98% of the land, we guarantee him 98% security, if Sharon guarantees us 42% of the land we guarantee him 42% security.”
    – speaking of peace negotiations
  • “Who makes war makes peace, no one else.”
    – speaking of bringing the fighting parties to the negotiation table, not just the ‘peace camps’
  • “Palestinians did not kill Arafat because of Oslo. In Israel they killed Rabin because he said Gaza was Palestinian.”

A few Israeli army jeeps came into the camp on Sunday night. They weren’t around for long. While Samir, the brother of Ayaat (the female suicide bomber) and Chris were up watching for signs of military activity they started to talk about politics, suicide attacks, and the families’ situation. Samir told Chris the story of his sister.

He said that he would have “broken her foot” if he had known she was going carry out a suicide attack in Israel.

Monday, August 12, 2002

Carl and Suzanna came over to the Abu Samir house to meet the family for the first time. The teenage sisters of the Abu Samir family were ‘intrigued’ with Chris from before and were laughing and giggling at both of us together. It was pretty awkward given the conservative nature of Palestinian culture and the age of the girls. Nonetheless it was flattering.

Tonight is our last night in Dheisheh camp. We hope that the new International Solidarity Movement activists will be willing to take our place. We’ll find out tonight. We are leaving so we’ll have the opportunity to do other things while in Palestine and because some members of our affinity group will be leaving soon.

Report on Recently Demolished Homes in the Tubas Region

Prepared by: Members of the International Solidarity Movement in Al-Fara’ Refugee Camp.

Town of Ak-Kaaba: Masri Home

Ezzeddine Masri was a member of Hamas who made an operation killing himself and 22 israelis at the Sbarro restraunt in West Jerusalem on August 9th 2001. His action was in retaliation to an attack on a Hamas Office in Nablus on August 1, 2001. The public office was exploded by apache missiles. 8 people, 2 Hamas leaders, 4 office staff and 2 children (ages 6 and 8)walking by on the street, were killed.

The Israeli Occupation Forces arrived at the Masri home at 2am on Sunday, August 4th 2002, nearly 1 year after the operation in West Jerusalem. Their force consisted of 2 tanks, 8 jeeps and more than 200 soldiers. The soldiers kicked in the door to the house awaking Ezzeddine’s parents and 4 children (each under 4 years). They asked a neighbor to knock on the door of the adjacent house. The Occupation Forces arrested Ezzeddine’s father and three brothers. The family had 20 minutes to leave the house and the soldiers asked all of the neighbors to leave the area.

The house was exploded at about 5am. 4 neighboring houses were damaged by pieces of the house and by the concussion from the explosion itself. A large piece of the roof from the house flew over 50 meters, landing on the roof of a neighboring house and smashing a large hole in the roof. Doors were shaken from their frames, a car was destroyed, windows were shattered and there were holes in the exteriors of the neighboring houses. The stable of the Masri house was also completely destroyed leaving 20 sheep dead.

“What is our crime?” Ezzeddine’s uncle asked.

The Red cross visited the house and promised a tent which has yet to arrive.

The father and three brothers were released after 4 days of detention in Ofr detention camp, a newly established prison camp that consists of large tents. They were beaten and interrogated. One of the brothers, who showed us marks from beatings and lacerations from handcuffs, estimated that there were about 7000 palestinians held in Ofr currently.

Town of Tubas: Fukha Home

Mazen Fukha, 28, a member of Hamas was arested by the isreali occupation forces on Tuesday, August 6th 2002 under the auspices that he was suspected of helping bombers. His family has not been in contact with him and does not know where he is being held until the date of this report.

36 hours after Mazen was arrested, 4am on Thursday, 8th August 2002, the Israeli Occupation Forces came to the Fukha Home, owned by Mazen’s father. They arrived with 16 jeeps and more than 200 soldiers. They told the 9 people in the house (Mazen’s father, mother, sister, wife, brother and 4 children) to exit the house immediately. The people refused because some of the women were without proper clothes. The soldiers entered the house and told the family that they had 20 minutes to leave the house.

As they tried to save some things from the house, neighbors offered to help, but were scared away by shots fired in the air. Both Mazen’s father, Muhammad Sulieman, and his 18 year old brother, Ma’an, were arrested. The women of the family and many of the neighbors were told to go to the municipality building 500 meters up the road.

At 5:45 am, the army exploded the house with dynamite. Rubble from the house landed hundreds of yards from the house. All of the glass in the neighbors houses shattered and many of their door frames were broken from the blast.

Some neighbors were still in their homes and a man who did not understand what was happening approached the house after the soldier had left. He was knocked to the ground by the blast but did not sustain serious injuries.

The family was surprised by the operation because their son has not even had a trial following his arrest. He has not been convicted of anything let alone his entire family.

Mazens mother said: “I was born here and my grandfather and his grandfather. Why do the people from Europe and Russia have the right to live here and we do not? How does someone from Russia have the right to explode my house?”

The Red Cross visited the house and gave the family a small tent. The family does not know where either Mazen, his father, or his brother are being held.

Witnessed By:

Colm Breathnach, Dublin, Ireland
Matt Horton, Los Angeles, USA
David Jarmula, Brooklyn, USA

————————-

After staying in the camp for a week without incident, we were called back to Jerusalem for assessment and planning. It was painful and caused us to question our usefulness as internationals. We cant be with a community forever, so are we only delaying the inevitable? Is it even worth it to begin with? If anything, i guess we made beautiful friends, learned a lot and at least our Irish comrade got the issue into his country’s media.

We left the camp at 5am this morning through Tubas and down to Muasker Tiaseer (Tiaseer Army Base) where we parked in a line of cars to wait for the road to open at 5:30am. When the time came around, we were searched, questioned, passed and continued down the mountains toward Jerhico en route to Jerusalem. From the Tubas region down to the Jordan border there was nothing but military bases, beduin camps and settlements. When we reached the border, i was surprised that it was not heavily fortified (at least compared to the San Diego-Tijuana border i am used to) and i guess it is naive, but that we were close enough to see jordanian villages from the highway.

We passed two checkpoints on the highway to Jerhico where we pulled to the side to allow cars with yellow ‘israeli’ license plates to pass freely while we, with white plates, waited inspection and questioning. After turning on to the road to Jerusalem (al-Quds), we were stopped by a police jeep who also searched and questioned us.

The taxi took us to Qalandia checkpoint, between al-Quds and Ramallah, where we got another taxi to take us into Al-Quds. When we reached the checkpoint into the city, the soldiers looked at us internationals, checked our passports, didnt check any of the palestinians, and turned us around. 20 creative minutes later through residential streets, we arrived at the old city.

I am not sure how long i will be here or where i will go, but i will keep yall posted when i have the chance. Thank you for all of your letters and i hope you are all well. If you cant reach me by email, feel free to call: 011-972-6-734-9442

Matt Horton

Internationals Help Deliver Food & Stop Bullets

By Jill Dreier

What the UN refuses to do in Palestine: Internationals Help Deliver Food & Stop Bullets

‘No here we have nothing to live for, so we don’t care, but YOU, you have to return to tell the world what is happening here,
so YOU take care”

So, before I get started about yesterday, let me say that while Sam was dodging rubber bullets, tear gas and sound bombs at the demonstration today (courtesy, of course, of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)), I didn’t have one gun pointed at me or any shots fired over my head today. For the first day since I have been here in Nablus.

Ok, yesterday: while Sam, Merna and I were buying bread for families, two Israeli armored personnel carriers (APC’s) pulled up and shut the bread stand down. Then as one APC pulled away, a kid in the alley right next to the APC threw a Molotov cocktail and scored a hit on part of the APC.

So the Israeli soldiers FREAK out and start shooting into the apartment building, in the completely wrong direction. We SCREAMED at him and he stopped, but the other APC heard the fire and came back around the corner for ‘support’. We de-escalated the soldiers and then one said to me, “go and bring me the map.” (y’all will like my Israeli accent).

So I walked down the street looking for a map. Now, meanwhile the people on the street have emptied and they are all hiding in the alleys and coves and such. So I walk down and several are yelling to me, ‘what does he want?’ Of course I don’t understand until someone yells in English, but I had the gist already and was saying, ‘who the hell knows?’

I picked up some paper trash and called back to him, ‘is this it? Is this it?’ — it’s good to play dumb, of course. So, they pulled back and left. Well, I needed a breather after that one, so we left the scene for about five minutes. Moments later we get a call, that now there are tanks, APC’s and some jeeps in the same area, as well as 12 international activists — could we immediately go there?

Due to a horrible lack of communication, no one had any idea what we had just been thru when we arrived. Of course from OUR end we had gotten the word out about what happened. So, long story longer – Palestinians started throwing rocks and since this is about their only form of resistance, we stepped back. This of course let the IOF be able to fire their guns (hard to explain without seeing the street). Two jeeps even pulled up right in front of us and opened fire. Of course we were screaming and then they stopped and took off.

The cool part is being in the streets with the Palestinians and feeling their energy as they clap and chant (they get loud — they chant ‘god is great’) and stand with us, knowing the tanks and such won’t fire at them with us there. There aren’t ANY women of course, and that sucks….

Digressing a bit: three or four nights ago, Sam and I walked down the road into the Balata Refugee Camp and stayed at a martyr’s house. Stressed out family. Since then I have been with a few more martyr’s families and realized that that family was an exception, according to my experience because these families were like all the rest of the families here, kind kind kind. I swear I have never drank so much coffee and tea in my life.

Another woman, Serena, stayed at the stressed out family’s house the next night and told us the following morning that the family actually got into a fist fight (yeah, the wife and daughters too!) with their neighbor.

So today, most people went to a demonstration at the Huwara Checkpoint, an hour walk, but I decided to stay in Nablus. I hung out with four Palestinians relief volunteers and delivered milk to babies. Yeah, parents do not have milk for their babies/young children.

I heard today that Palestine has the largest growing population in the world, over 50% is under the age of sixteen. That was chill enough, but the workers want escorts for ‘security’ and since another volunteer was taken from the center the day before, they were a little more nervous .

Mohammed, the one taken yesterday was wearing a martyr necklace and the IOF ripped it off his neck (the pendent is of a photo of his friend, a martyr). A martyr, for those who do not know, is term used for a suicide bomber AND anyone who has been killed during this intifada. Mohammed was released today, but they beat him up pretty badly, so he is home for a bit. No reason for detaining him at all.

So, after walking around delivering milk several internationals decided that they wanted to check on an apartment building on the hill where the soldiers were staying and occupying. After getting another international, the 6 of us headed up the hill to check on these families. I figured that they occupied that building strategically.

A few of us went in (women) and chatted with the Palestinian families and got their needs noted, foods and medicines. The apartment was 5 floors, 2 apartments on each floor. The soldiers had one complete floor and all them were shirtless, hanging out, playing guitar, like they owned the place, while 3 families were terrified for their lives. The other apartments were empty (it seemed like a brand new building, not fully occupied with residents).

So after that, we split into 3 groups of 2 to get the food and medicine. My partner was Fadi. A pretty resourceful guy, before I knew it he had gotten a ride in a big flatbed truck to Balata, where the UN warehouse is. Remember it is curfew, so NOTHING is allowed on the streets, let alone driving out to the outskirts of town. Curfew here has meant the last 40 days, 24 hours a day with tiny windows of precarious time to fetch food.

We made it and just after pulling in, a tank and a bulldozer showed up to close the road since cars were driving around. The UN warehouse is a joke. FOOD is everywhere, sitting around. The UN is a joke. Thousands of poor people with NO money to buy food in Nablus and WE hitch a ride, pick up food and deliver it ourselves.

On the way back, we saw a tank driving pretty fast on the parallel road but we beat it and got back to Nablus alright. Then we separated the food and got ready to go. Well, Fadi, wanted to get the one and only ambulance from the center to load the food to take up on the hill. But it wasn’t around, so we used his van — sketchy, eh?

Though we made it up there alright, the soldiers had switched out and all bets were off for us going back inside to deliver the food ourselves. After biting my lip and talking to the soldiers, they got one of the Palestinians to come out to bring the food in. The whole situation and bargaining and discussing is crap, although the soldier was talkable, if you know what I mean.

So during all of this, the soldier says, ‘you don’t remember me, do you?’ “oh, from before …..here right?” “No,” he replied and then I knew he was the guy looking for the map yesterday, in the APC.

“Oh yeah, I remember,’ I quipped back. He said, ‘So you didn’t help me yesterday, why should I help you?”( I was trying to get into the house and possibly spend the night there with the families.) I said, ‘What more could I have done, I walked down the street and looked for the map, geez?’

Talking to them is difficult and one must stay calm to help prevent retaliation against the Palestinians, believe me, whether there are soldiers who don’t ‘agree’ with the occupation or ‘hate’ when a Palestinian is killed, they all have a choice to refuse, and therefore, NO SYMPATHY from me.

One last thing. As we were walking back (dusk, I’m no longer too hesitant to walk in the dark, except for snipers) today a woman pulls up in a car and says, ‘aren’t you afraid to be on the street?’ I said, ‘no, not really, they recognize us now, they know who we are and why we are here.’ She said, ‘ take care’ I said to her, ‘aren’t you afraid to drive now?’ (many people sneak around in cars), and she said, ‘no here we have nothing to live for, so we don’t care, but YOU, you have to return to tell the world what is happening here, so YOU take care” and she drove off.

So many times during the day, I just want to release a little and cry but I don’t, and this was one of those times, for sure. I can only kind of get choked up, not cry, probably because I am so angry and not sad.

* Jill Dreier is one of two Coloradans from the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace in Palestine joining hundreds of internationals with the International Solidarity Movement in nonviolent direct action to end Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine.

Leaving Balata

by Amanda D.

I’m on the plane home. Much as I want to see people I’m not sure how to talk to them. Much as I wanted to go home and do laundry and take a bath I’m figuring out how and when I can get back. I was sad yesterday to leave the family I had been staying with in Balata. I was sad to leave both because they are wonderful and I’m not sure if I’ll ever see them again and because I can leave. I can pack up and go home to my own bed where I no longer am afraid to sleep at night because there are not tanks on the street outside, and my house has not been spray painted with arrows to lead the Israeli military right to it so they can destroy it with tanks or explosives. The family I stayed with cannot even go to the neighboring city, Nablus.

Balata is a refugee camp with 20,000 or so refugees in it. These are people who have been displaced since 1948 and cannot get out of the West Bank to return to their cities or villages in what is now known as Israel. There are three families in Balata who have requested that internationals stay with them because they are afraid their houses will be demolished. The Israeli government has a policy of demolishing the homes of “suicide bombers” or other fighters. The people here call the snipers or bombers “martyrs.” But some call anyone who has died for Palestine a martyr. So, for example those nine children killed recently in Gaza are martyrs as well.

In the last few months, Balata has had several martyrs. There have already been house demolitions, and also areas that were bombed from F-16s or Apaches. The name of the son who died in at the home where I am staying is Mohanned. He was 18 years old when he died, I saw his picture. His family is still grieving. He has 9 brothers and sisters. If the military were to demolish his house they would displace his entire family who are ALREADY refugees from Jaffa. His younger sisters love doing my hair at night. I don’t speak Arabic, and a few of the siblings understand English but only a little. Still, we got to know each other through charades. They have opened their home to us, feed as very well and laugh with and at us. One of the sisters taught me a card game called five. The oldest brother, Mohammed, loves music and he fixed up the family’s stereo. We had a little music exchange- they listened to our American music and played Arabic music for us. The biggest hit was Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ which I happened to have with me. Mohammed likes love songs (his little brother made fun of him) and so he played a few by Egyptian and Lebanese artists. The idea of this family losing their home is infuriating and heart breaking.

One of the problems is that the military doesn’t always evacuate the other homes, or warn the neighbors of a demolition. Again this is in a refugee camp, the houses are all really close to one another. This can mean neighboring houses also go down- with people in them. The brother of the family some of the other New Yorkers are staying with had the first floor of his home destroyed by tank shelling. He and his son were inside. His son was okay but he broke both of his legs and was wheelchair-bound, now he has canes.

Nablus is under its 41st day of 24 hour curfew today (Monday). I feel like I haven’t adequately explained curfew. All the stores except a stray one here and there are closed. Schools, factories, offices- closed. Nobody can work or go to school so there is no money being made or exchanged. Ambulances can run, but some of the neighboring villages can’t be reached by ambulance because of road blocks and (when I say this I mean 6-9 feet piles of big rocks, stones and gravel sometimes dug out of the road itself and pushed to form a pile that all over the road and on either side so you can’t drive around it) or snipers. Sometimes you see men in the street, children, and every once in a while women. The doctor at UPMRC and a friend pointed out that this is harder for women and children because they are in the house more.

But, in the airport in Switzerland I saw in an article that the population of Nablus had ignored curfew today and the whole city had opened up as if there was no curfew. The only sort of Palestinian resistance we see in the news is sensationalized “suicide bombers” or when snipers attack settlements or settlers that are misrepresented as civilians or villagers. Friends saw people in kuffiyehs passing out communiqués on Friday. They were told that the people were from Fatah. When my friend asked them what it was they said it was ‘for the children.’ The second time they asked about it they were told it was a message to people to open up the city and resist the curfew. I always knew terrorist was not the right word to describe these people or their struggle. After seeing the activities of the Israeli military here, that characterization is insane. The Palestinians are facing the 4th or 5th largest army in the world (!) and according to international law, the occupation is illegal.

And further in the international law department- it is illegal under the Geneva Convention (I’m told, I need to double check but I know it is illegal) to occupy homes where people are living during wars. It’s also illegal to use hollow point bullets, which both the Israeli military and the New York City Police Department use. But I met this man who had his house occupied 5 times in the last 12 months. He said, “The Palestinian people are not terrorists, the Israeli soldiers are terrorists, they occupied my home.” This family has a beautiful house with a panoramic view of the valley and Nablus. We went Saturday to try and get a statement about the occupation of their house. I guess because of its position and view, the army decided it would be one of its bases of operation.

The family: husband, wife, 2 teenage girls and 2 younger boys were welcoming, although we didn’t meet the mother. She’s been ill since the occupation, she has a heart condition and was sleeping when we arrived. They said the noise of tanks and helicopters at close range sets off her heart and too much stress could be fatal. After sharing lemonade and coffee with all of us, we sat on the family’s porch to talk. The house is empty of furniture except for beds. Because the soldiers move all the furniture and stain it, it’s all stashed away, piled up in one of the small rooms. The father says they’ve spent nearly $100,000 repairing the damage after the soldiers left. That’s why the walls have not been repainted and the furniture waits in a room- so when the soldiers return they won’t be able to destroy anything. They also paid the electricity and water for the times they were kicked out and the soldiers were there, they have received no compensation from the Israeli government.

They spent 12 years building the house and lived in it for one week this December before the soldiers occupied it the first time. The girl, 17, tells us each time they come it is the same, but we focus on the most recent occupation. In December, the soldiers were there for five weeks. They were there in February twice, April, and then this last time starting on June 20th for 32 days. At 8 a.m. on the 20th, when 10 family members were there, they heard 20 tanks, 10 APC’s and 1 Apache helicopter overhead and coming up the hill to their house. They all threw themselves on the floor, but then heard loud knocking. From past experience they knew if they didn’t open the door the soldiers would break it down. The father opened the door and 40 or 50 soldiers with machine guns streamed into the house. The family refused to leave and all ten of them were forced into a small bedroom on the first floor. This, the fifth time, they were allowed to use the bathroom and the kitchen. The other four times the Red Cross brought them food and tried to make sure they could use the bathroom.

The soldiers brought in all kinds of equipment and guns. The family sent the younger kids to stay with a neighbor or a family. The soldiers shot out of the windows down into Nablus and killed two men just down from the occupied home who had been standing on a little porch outside their window. One of the worst things, according to the family, is when the soldiers would bring groups of 3 or 4 Palestinian men handcuffed and blindfolded to the house. The family could hear the men being beaten in the next room. Sometimes the soldiers would throw away their I.D. cards, the father said he would go out and look through the trash for them later on and try to return them. After 10 days the family was forced to leave. 22 days later the soldiers left their homes. So they are now with no furniture waiting. They say it is hard to sleep-especially for the kids- who have nightmares about the soldiers and the beatings.

We’re getting closer to New York now, I haven’t finished my customs declaration yet. I wonder what will happen if I put Occupied Palestine for #9 “Countries visited on this trip prior to U.S. arrival.” My friends saw the video that Jihad (whose family my friends stayed with) and Mohanned (whose family I stayed with) did before they died on T.V. in Balata. Both of them mentioned that the Palestinian people were going through so much, and internationally people were silent and that no one comes forward to help the Palestinians. I am furious that my money is paying for the occupation, and that those are our weapons the Israelis use.

Time to get a little sleep.