Tag: Nablus

by Susan Barclay

I find a few moments to write not because it is something that I even have the time to do, but more because if I don’t write now, I am afraid to lose the precious, tragic stories and sights I have witnessed in the last few weeks.

During the past weeks I lay down to sleep between 2-4 a.m. to the sounds of tanks clunking over the pavement, sporadic shooting – noises of the night that Palestinian ears can distinguish in the flash of a moment — and a mind bursting with thoughts, scenes and stories that keep me from unconsciousness even longer.

The morning begins with laughter as a friend tells me that he likes to watch Tom and Jerry because it makes him smile. “Why do people watch Rambo? We see that everyday—here it is not TV, it is real.” When Internationals first arrive they are often baffled by the military machinery waging this war, but the novelty wears off so very quickly; loss of appreciation frequently goes hand in hand with habit, routine and repetition. Today alone, I saw over 15 tanks, 7 apcs, a number of jeeps, 30+ soldiers armed with M-16’s and a Land Rover full of commandos. This is life here. Children 2-3 years old know the words for soldier, tank, shooting, prison, and death; slowly and surely war creeps into their beings.

The children play “war” frequently. One mother told me the other day—“The terribly sad thing is that they always want to be the Israelis, no one wants to be Palestinian, to be controlled, to be the victim. These little children know who has power.” Another woman tells me of her discussion with a group of children about life, saying that first children talked about problems they are having—not sleeping, nightmares, constant fear—but then the conversation turned toward dreams and desires. In the midst of talk about parks, toys, and summer camp one girl raised her hand and said: “We need some milk and bread.” Despite their disturbing loss of innocence, children still manage to help me leave the mental space of many difficult realities; by playing with my hair, laughing at my Arabic, or simply sitting on my lap, they help me continually find healing, rejuvenation a! nd great hope.

The people of this land are in dire need of humanization. As I become closer to the Palestinians living in Nablus and simultaneously start seeing the same soldiers and developing a rapport of sorts, I can’t help but feel that the situation, this ongoing, long going war is profoundly tragic.

One afternoon we were attempting to get food and medical supplies to an occupied house in an area where the Captain has threatened us with arrest. There is an apc at the bottom of a small hill about 300 feet from the house, where the soldiers demand that the Danish man and I are to stay, while Doctor Rassem and Feras Bakri go to the house to treat the child. Perhaps this is so we don’t see the state of the home, or perhaps they suspect we are journalists, or perhaps it is simply about power and control—in any case, our goal is to care for the child and both Feras and the Doctor feel comfortable going without us. I watch as the ambulance heads up the hill and begin a conversation with the soldiers about “problems” in Nablus and how they feel about being here.

These two young men were insistent on the fact that they want to go home, that they think over 95% of Palestinians are good, that they want peace for their children: “I just don’t want my children to ride the bus in fear” Michel says. They talk about going out, dancing, not having showered in days and sleeping on the floor. They say they only shoot armed people. I ask about a recent death in Balata refugee camp where a 24 year-old was shot in the head by soldiers in a jeep. Maybe he had a gun they say; maybe rocks, I reply.

They share hopes for the future and claim that there is a violent cycle that is incessantly repeating itself here—suicide bombing, invasion, bombing, invasion… I ask how they think they are helping end the problems and they say “By being here—no bombings in 20+ days.” “And when you leave?” I ask. “Or do you plan to stay forever?” They seem completely ignorant of their role in creating further bombings, blind to the fact that they are only rendering a population more desperate, more hopeless, and more deprived each and every day, pushing people towards the “nothing to lose” state that a suicide bomber has invariably reached.

And then it is time to change shifts and three new soldiers pull up in an apc and these two men, Michel and Avi climb into the new apc and head into town to do I can imagine what. These interactions put faces to these monstrous military machines; I think of the apcs that only a few hours earlier terrorized an adjacent neighborhood; during house searches soldiers took one man and beat him for over 30 minutes. I saw him this morning and now I see Michel and Avi beating any one of my Palestinian friends and I am left in total confusion. These are just young men beating, shooting, and terrorizing other young men because they see the “enemy.” Seeing humanity makes the destruction of life seems so senseless, so unbelievable. I think that is part of our work here, each one a tiny thread weaving humanity into hearts, souls, minds, and moments and trying t! o shelter the remaining flickers of hope from the wild wind of war.

One of my dearest friends Khowla was walking by my side the other night, discussing dreams and talking about her youth. “When I was young I had so, so many dreams. I wanted to be a lawyer, to study biology, to go to university, travel, and learn about everything. But Susan, when you see the situation go from bad to worse again and again and again, all your dreams get broken.” She is only 21. There is still so much time, I say as I squeeze her hand.

The director of the Ministry of Education, Juman Karaman, welcomed us into her home a few days ago; she lives in a home adjacent to one that is occupied, where we were headed. She explained how very far behind the students were due to constant closures and called this second term “a complete catastrophe”. Final exams were scheduled for June 17th -July 4th, but Nablus was invaded on June 20th; exams were put on hold and students have been in the state of exam preparation ever since.

When curfew is lifted for a few hours—which has happened for a total of 30 hours in the 42 days (in Israeli prisons the detainees are given more than an hour/day recreation)—students rush to the school and take an exam. They are currently waiting for another curfew lift, to finish their exams, studying now for over a month, and never knowing what day they will have to perform.

Juman believes that education is not really about how much time students spend studying, but rather about quality. With the constant closures and the closing of surrounding villages, teachers were habitually confronting tanks, apcs, and soldiers en route to their schools. She asked us to imagine the state of a teacher who finally arrives at school, after having journeyed 1-3 hours in constant fear, wading through life threatening circumstances; “How well can this person teach?” As for the students, she added: “After hours of shooting, nerves worn very thin, constant uncertainty and fear, how can they possibly learn?”

Over one month imprisoned in their homes—today is the 42nd day of curfew; people are restless, frustrated, lethargic, angry, humiliated, and saturated. They are using the small amount of money they had, unable to make anymore, and the financial situation is ever increasingly dire. I was having tea yesterday with a man who mutters: “Maybe I can carry 10 kilos, 20, or 50, but eventually I will break. Everyone has a limit.”

We are in an occupied house and talking to the man now living in the basement with 30 or so soldiers on the top three floors. These 30+ soldiers mean 5 apcs are parked out front, mesh covers the windows like giant spider webs, and the night reverberates with incessant shooting and loud music—the family has not slept well in over 25 days. The soldiers ask his children how they are, and the children say ‘Not good.” The father says to me, “I want to tell my children about peace, but how can I when we are living like this? They don’t believe it.”

During the last week, the city of Nablus had been rather quiet during the day and many people had been breaking curfew, coming out of their homes to open a shop or buy a few things. The night is still plagued by military operations, the sounds of tanks, gunfire, and surreptitious movement. The villages have been the focal point of the military during the past days, as they claim to be hunting the “terrorists” responsible for this or that suicide bombing or settlement incident. “They use the same stories again and again, killing the same terrorists three, four or five times,” the press tells me a few nights ago. The villages lie to the southwest of Nablus, little clumps of homes nestled in olive groves and rolling hills, accessible only by thin dirt roads.

This week, they spent three days going village to village looking for anywhere between 3-8 men. They killed three men the first day and denied the ambulance access to the bodies. A group of us went out to Sara village and attempted to get the ambulance in just to take the bodies but they told us we had to wait until they had finished their operation. Our refusal to leave was met with physical force: kicking, hitting and shoving 20 nonviolent activists come to simply take the dead.

The next morning I went with the ambulance to get the bodies, as the Israeli army had finally given their okay. We wandered up a hill to an olive grove and found a very large group of men there, being searched and sorted into two groups. They had come to see the bodies and help and ended up being subject to search and arrest. They were separated into two groups, those 15-50 (over 75 men) and the very young and very old (over 45 people). ID’s were taken and the men all sat on the ground waiting as about 20 soldiers milled about and the paramedics waited for the final okay to head up 100m to the bodies. As we watched this process, counting the men and asking the soldiers questions, we saw another group of over 60 men being led down the hill towards the paved road.

We are finally allowed to go get the bodies and as the medical team moves up the hill, the men who had been sitting down get up and follow en masse. We all arrive at three mounds covered by off-white tarps that are removed by the paramedics. People crowd to see who the dead are and chaos reigns as people move from one to the other. One man has a large hole in his head and his brain is literally oozing out. The second has no leg from the knee down and several large bullet wounds in his chest and groin. A third has an enormous hole in what was his forehead, and we all see that his brain is completely missing. No one knows the men, thus they think they must be workers who pass through the villages to avoid checkpoints and soldiers; they are certainly not terrorists. I ride in the ambulance to the morgue at Rafidia hospital, sitting in the back next to the b! odies, overcome by the smell, by death. We return to the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief (UPMRC) center where I sit for a moment, trying to catch my breath and find a few words; awoken from my somber silence by a call to tell me that soldiers have left Sara and are now in Tell. We have to move.

During this time, three internationals have gone with the men, the 60 or so, who were rounded up and kept on the paved road. They had been led through the hills and back roads two by two, all their ID’s taken and eventually large trucks come, handcuff and take the men to a local military base. The three ask to be arrested with them, but the soldiers don’t want any internationals today. They return to Sara village on foot and while talking with locals hours later, hear cheering and find that the large majority of these men have come back. The leave to meet us in Tell, a village 1 km from Sara.

Tell is in the same situation—foot soldiers wandering in the fields, snipers on the hills, tanks, apcs, and jeeps patrolling. I ask a soldier at a tank “What are you doing today?” “There are three terrorists free.” “But you killed three men yesterday….” “There are many.” We continue down the road towards Tell and come across an apc, two large trucks, and soldiers forcing handcuffed Palestinians inside. This is the Tell round up….taking all the local men for interrogation. We walk towards them, but they are leaving, and so we deal with what they have left behind: 9 donkeys, dozens of jars of traditional yogurt, and scattered possessions. We set off with the donkeys and belongings towards Tell to meet the other internationals and the medical team that has gone to deliver vaccinations. The military operation in Tell seems to be coming to a close; the jeeps and apc! s have left and so we return to Nablus, leaving a few behind to sleep in the village.

The next morning, we get news from the next village, Iraq Boreen, 1 km from Tell, 2 km from Sara. The IDF is still looking for their terrorists and has rounded up all the local men at a school/women’s center in town. There are already internationals in the village and those of us in Nablus head off to the village. We begin the long walk out the small dirt path towards the village and see dozens and dozens of soldiers wandering through the olive groves below the village that sits on a breathtaking butte; we are denied entry into the village by soldiers at a junction and told to wait. We do wait, just until a bus arrives for some soldiers; we use this distraction as a chance to walk right past them, despite their echoing “Stop, stop.”

In the village we find that the large majority of the men have been released but the remaining men cannot get their ID’s back. It is clear that one of the three jeeps is ready to leave with the ID’s so volunteers sit on the ground to block its path. We are able to thwart the jeep movements for a while and create quite a scene that the Palestinians support, saying whether we go or stay they will have problems, so we might as well stay. The jeep and soldiers eventually manages to remove enough Internationals to pull forth; they return the ID’s to the men and leave us talking to the Palestinians. We split in two, some staying the village, some walking back into Nablus.

We have been doing a lot of roadblock removals during the last few days. The Israeli army has closed every single village repeatedly and the internationals staying in Iraq Boreen heeded the locals call to remove these road blocks. A group of nearly 40 of us headed out to Tell, Iraq Boreen and New Nablus and removed three roadblocks one morning. It was incredibly beautiful to watch this simple success—working for a few hours and then watching as water trucks, vegetables and taxis begin to pass—encouraged by the sound of our clapping and the smiles of resistance.

Palestinians at the Iraq Boreen roadblock then asked us to come to Salem village, where we helped remove three other roadblocks. We left a few people in the village who called an hour or two later to say that an apc and tank had come and a bulldozer was reported to be on its way. We moved quickly and had internationals there in time to block the bulldozer. 5 people sat on the ground and the bulldozer was unable to re-do the roadblock; the jeeps however did come and the soldiers began threatening arrest. After 30 minutes they begin taking the men, one by one, quick cuffing each one (with plastic handcuffs) and blindfolding them. They were put in the back of an apc and taken to Huwara military base (released hours later from Huwara after refusing to say anything). We stayed in the area until they left knowing they would bulldoze during the night. The day after we! came again to remove the road block and will continue this resistance as long as the Palestinians want to do so.

The quiet has been replaced with the familiar sound of tanks, jeeps and shooting again. The bombing yesterday at Hebrew University in Jerusalem has led to a greater military presence and 4-5 people were injured today from tank machine gun fire, one of them this morning right in front of my eyes in Balata refugee camp. What are they doing? One might think the Israeli army targets certain people, or roams the city with a military aim. The reality is that a very large part of their work is about terror.

This morning in Balata, they came in jeeps and began tear gassing everyone in sight for over an hour. Balata is one of the only places in Nablus that actively resists the Israeli army and succeeds—the children and young boys throw stones and impede the tanks from entering into the camp regularly. Our role this morning was not to negotiate or approach the tanks but rather to be witnesses, and attempt to discourage shooting by putting our bodies on the line. Two tanks are sitting in an open field at the southern entrance of the camp; the children and boys are 50m from them with us. We make ourselves visible and watch as the children and boys throw stones and push the tanks back.

The tanks play cat and mouse for over two hours with the youth, racing forward and shooting in the air, rushing the crowd and letting out huge smoke clouds, then pulling back as the children race back out to throw stones. After over two hours of this we retreat back 3-4 m to some shade and sit as most the Palestinians mill about, seeming tired of these games. All of a sudden there is tank machine gun fire directly overhead us and shrapnel hits a 17 year-old boy in the head. I turn and see blood pouring down this young man’s face, 1m in front of me. Everyone runs with him to a nearby clinic and the Internationals watch them go and turn towards the tanks that begin to retreat. What kind of military operation is this? All day they have been wandering the streets, firing at will and terrorizing. Things are closed again despite the fact that today marks the 14t! h day straight without any lift of curfew—two weeks without even an hour to go outside.

Israeli, American made F-16’s bombed Gaza and we watched Aljazeera news, as the numbers of those dead and injured rose ever higher, reaching over 170 (155 injured and 15 killed) by 2:30 a.m. when the news broadcast ended. I sat with 7 young Palestinian men at the UPMRC center watching the people shift through the rubble looking for more and more bodies, and then flashes of the hospital in total chaos. Horribly, graphic images flashed across the TV screen, especially of children no longer recognizable as human, but I was most touched by the young man next to me, as I watched one tear roll down his cheek, and felt that I too, was going to cry.

Israel had agreed to pull out of the cities in the West Bank as part of recent negotiations and Hamas and Islamic Jihad had just called for an end to suicide bombings that night. Midnight rolls around and Israeli forces bomb an apartment building without any prior warning and with complete and total disregard for the lives inside, with the very intention of destroying them. The morning after, Hamas, Fatah, PLFP, and Islamic Jihad state loud and clear: Israel is not ready for peace, does not want peace. Suicide bombings are sure to follow. Can the world not see that Israel does not want peace? I can only imagine how this horrible incident is being spun in the U.S. Incessant stories about a Hamas member with little to no mention of the entire BUILDING of civilians. I bet no one in the U.S. saw the mangled children being shelved away at the hospital morgue,! the father who went mad as he watched his son die on the hospital bed, the young boy with a severely charred leg, or the mother lying covered in blood, an oxygen mask over her face and child on her lap. What kind of a war is this? “They are trying to make life as unbearable as possible,” a friend tells me yesterday, “Economically, medically, psychologically, and physically.” That night we saw the creation of hell on earth–hatred, evil, fear, and terror. “Where is the peace?” someone says…..but everyone is silent.

This adorable 70 year old man from a nearby village greeted me the morning after. He asked me only: “Did you see the children?” referring to Gaza. I say “Yes” and watch as tears well up in his eyes and continue speaking for him. Imagine everything that he has seen in this lifetime and yet still, the loss of life, the death of innocent people, the killing of children makes small streams of salt-water flow from his soul.

Sharon and the Israeli government are not going to end this war; it is not in their interest to do so, as they may actually be forced to share this land. The cycle of violence seems to have no end in sight. We, all of us in the international community, must put pressure on our governments to TAKE ACTION NOW. There are many ways for you to help wipe this man’s and this land’s tears away. Make one call, send one email or letter today.
The sounds of machine gun fire, tanks and occasional explosions echo through the windows from the streets in the heart of Nablus as I go to send this—it is only 11 p.m. Don’t wait until tomorrow to do something—the time is now. This simply must end.

By Nat

After tea at Abu Fadi’s house, we went to Abu Kamel’s house to have breakfast (there was some competition between these two cousins as to whose house we were to have breakfast at), we had a tour of Salim: the water tower that had been ransacked, the house that had been occupied, the olive trees that had been cut down because they were next to the settler bypass road, and the bypass road which the villagers were not allowed to cross but which divided them from their olive trees and surrounding villages. We had a nice long chat with the IDF soldiers in an APC about the occupation, and we had one Salim resident who spoke good English talk with them as well. The soldiers justified their presence there because of the suicide bombing. They said they didn’t think the bombing would subside or stop if they left the West Bank and Gaza, but they also recognized that being there just created more anger and suicide bombers.

They basically didn’t have much hope for peace. One of them, in a side conversation with Mika (who has been here 3 times and is very good at talking with them) said that if he were Palestinian he’d probably be a suicide bomber and resist the occupation with arms. When we were finishing our conversation, some Palestinians approached us from Salim and wanted to pass, and the soldiers let them pass because they had a doctor’s note (which was forged), and they could get close enough to the soldiers to give them the note because we were there. One of them was pregnant. We then went to the clinic in Salim to investigate a hepatitis A & B outbreak. They said they needed hep vaccines from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in Nablus. The doctor there (Dr. Ibrahim Mubarek) said that more than 20 people with hep had come to the center, and that more had gone to Nablus or don’t know that they have the disease. He said it was caused by pollution, lack of garbage disposal. Hep A is treated in the center, Hep B has to go to the hospital in Nablus.

The outbreak is also in neighboring villages (Beit Fareek and Beit Dajar) which both have clinics of their own. They need special medical personal from the Ministry of Health to administer the vaccines. After phoning the UPMRC with this information, we heard back that the vaccines are being held up because of politics and funding from Israel (West Bank taxes have been withheld by Israel during the Intifada). At the clinic we also met a man whose son had a head injury because of an Apache helicopter attack a few months ago and who had shrapnel in his arm and needed to go to the hospital in Nablus. Another man said he had to go to a hospital in Tel Aviv to have his broken leg checked out (he apparently broke it in Tel Aviv). He wanted us to go to the Hawara military base to help him get permission to go to Tel Aviv. We then went to the UPMRC center in Nablus (United Palestinian Medical Relief Committee) and from there headed out to a house occupied by the IDF near the Rujeib village. This was the first time in the 21 days of occupation that they had had visitors.

The 4 of us came with a doctor from the UPMRC and brought medicine and food and other supplies. When we arrived we negotiated with the soldier to allow all of us up to see the family, and then we heard their story (over coffee of course): ‘Occupied for 21 days. When the soldiers came, they took all the keys. There are 5 families with 15 adults, 30 children, 1 old sick man (who the doctor checked out – he has bronchial asthma). The kids get 30 minutes outside in a patio with guns pointed at them. Nobody else is allowed out except to get groceries every so often (the last time they had been out was 12 days ago). Telephones and electricity were turned off. They occupy half of their house, the soldiers the other half. The soldiers attempted to occupy more space but the family stopped them in some way from doing this. They are farmers and rely on their crops for their livelihood, and according to them all their crops were lost because of lack of watering. They also lost a donkey.

The kids have allergy from the dust created by the soldiers (it’s a training camp for the soldiers and they shoot their guns and otherwise make lots of noise at night). At one point the soldiers took one of the men of the house (Hamud Ali Absun Salan) to another village to be a human shield while the soldiers arrested someone there. The soldiers attempted to take the man’s child as well but the mother successfully resisted. They appeal to the international community to get the soldiers out and expose their story. They are innocent people, none of them are wanted in connection to the Intifada (they are not a family of a suicide bomber), and they want peace and justice for themselves and for Palestine.

They are in area C (according to the Oslo agreements) and are therefore worried that their homes will be taken or demolished in a final peace settlement with Israel. One woman (Maisud) is a student and needs to take her exam in accounting Saturday at the Nablus university (in 4 days). They need more medicine and supplies. It was very hard to leave because we saw how much they appreciated us being there. One of our groups did magic tricks for the kids and made balloon shapes for them, which was a huge hit. The senior man took me aside and pointed to his field, saying “all lost.” When we left, we spoke to one of the soldiers and appealed to him to let the people out and water their crops. He claimed that they were allowed out every day and that the soldiers were giving them whatever they needed. The crops looked shriveled and dead to us. Next we went to another house in Msaken Shabiya where 20 internationals held a vigil and some of us then prepared to sleep next to the house. The commander came out and said that we had to leave and in 15 minutes he would “use power.” 15 minutes later he came out and asked if we could make a deal: if he let the family go out X more hours a day, would we leave. We said 2 more hours, and after he agreed and after we talked with the family to make the situation clear to them, we left.

Wednesday July 31:

We went back to Salim to remove the road block, which went well and we made a road around the 5 foot ditch dug by the bulldozer the night before. It was mostly internationals digging, but we had spades and pick axes this time. Some people stayed behind to make sure the bulldozers didn’t come again. I and 3 others went to the occupied house in Msaken Shabiya to see if the soldiers kept their promise to let the family out twice a day for two hours instead of one. There was a rumor that the soldiers had left altogether, and when we arrived we found this to be true! The family was cleaning up where the soldiers had been, and we got a tour of all the damage the soldiers had done during their 21 day stay: 2 stereos damaged, 1 VCR, holes in the walls, curtains and towels and clothes taken and used to oil the guns of the soldiers, broken drawers, fridge, oven, writing and dirt on the walls, the bed damaged from soldiers jumping in it during the night when they blasted music. TV remote gone. Window screens, 2 fans, and much more damage.

After leaving the family (and the obligatory coffee, tea, soda) we went to Husein’s house in the old city (Nablus) and slept. We then got reports that tanks and bulldozers were heading towards the Salim road block so we headed out to the road block but then heard reports that tanks were invading the old city and came back with all the other internationals. By the time we got back they had left, but we walked around the city to see if they would return. At night the teenagers came out and hassled the women in our group – it’s the time when I’ve seen the ugliest part of Palestinian society – at all other times it is so beautiful and loving. We then went back to our own houses and slept.

Thursday Aug 1:

Woke up in the old city for a planned 9:30am media story on the ISM by a Danish TV group. When they arrived, we got reports that the Balata refugee camp was being invaded by tanks and jeeps. The media crew agreed to follow us there after conducting a short interview with one of us. We headed out, 7 in a taxi, to meet the other internationals staying in Balata camp with families of suicide bombers (these families are often targeted with collective punishment, and their homes are often demolished). When we got to the camp we could smell tear gas and we went into an alley to escape it and also to see kids throwing stones at a tank.

Then we went to the Titi house (where some of the internationals were staying) to group and decide what to do. From there we saw an army jeep hurl tear gas. They retreated and we went outside to where two tanks were in an agricultural field on the edge of the camp. For about an hour the kids hurled stones at the tank and the tank would advance and retreat, firing M16 bullets into the air or the ground which would chase the kids back. We made sure to make our presence known (about 13 of us) and then tried to get away from the kids but still be in a position to witness the situation. An ABC TV camera man showed up and then some of us went to get water and food. When we were away, one of the tanks fired a bullet just above the crowd of internationals and Palestinians, and the ricochet hit a Palestinian in the head. I saw the car speed off with him as we were eating hummus and pita. At that point the tanks retreated and left the camp, and we went back to the Titi house where I took a nap.

After about 2 hours 3 tanks came back and drove on the road outside the camp where they again fired into the ground while kids threw stones at the tanks. Seeing the kids throw stones, I immediately thought about what would happen if the kids sat down in front of the tanks to stop them from entering the city. Maybe they would be fired upon (no different than now), but it would change the dynamics of the conflict immensely. This possibility doesn’t even seem in the realm of possibility based on what I have heard Palestinians say about the conflict: “they are defending their city; it’s an exciting and righteous game for the kids; being passive is giving up their city; they have successfully defended their camp with stones in the past; stones are all they have.”

by Gattu Marrudu

The two taxis full of volunteers proceed slow and scared along “the most dangerous road of Nablus,” climbing up the hill in dusty and tight curves. At each curve stays a local “sentry”, who warns any hazardous wanderer of coming tanks. I guess it’s a job too; like the taxi drivers’, not accepting to stay at home during the curfew without doing anything to do. So they risk as much as they can, raising the price for the run. I guess they feel a little bit like Israeli bus drivers. You have to find the ones who agree to take you there, because not everyone dares to.

The volunteers’ job is simple: three people (maybe relatives or friends of activists – who knows?) have been shot in the village of Sarra, 20 km east of Nablus, and the soldiers won’t let the relatives pick up their bodies. It’s not a new thing: sometimes they kill people and then “arrest” them, bringing their bodies to Israel, putting them in refrigerators and then negotiating with their relatives for their “liberation.”

Denying the burial of a body is always been the most brutal sign of despising the enemy. Ancient Greeks used to let enemy bodies be eaten by dogs and crows, so that the soul would wander under torments, and the Romans wouldn’t let the relatives pick up the bodies of crucified people for burial, letting them rot on the cross. But trading on dead bodies is the ultimate offence to human dignity and definitely a violation of human rights. We just don’t understand why IDF are getting deeper and deeper in this suicidal situation.

The twelve volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement also don’t understand why but they go ahead on foot, from where the taxi can’t go anymore. They’re well trained for such situations: they decide who is willing to get arrested and to stay in first line to make pressure on the soldiers. They arrive in the Tel village, welcomed by the mayor and by dozens of children running, shouting and whistling from all the corners.

The Tell people escort the volunteers until the end of the village, and then we’ve got to go alone. We encounter an Israeli police jeep, inside which are three soldiers, all very young. One speaks Arabic, the other Russian and the third won’t even approach us, standing near the jeep wearing dark glasses and looking away with crossed arms and a tough expression.

The soldiers make signs to go back. The volunteers advance, shaking their hands and saying they want to talk. The soldiers appear quite bored, tired and nervous from a bad day, looks like they would just let us in but they have orders. And they try their best to look as rude as possible. There’s a very short moment in which they even appear to want to negotiate, and ask us where we come from. They look almost scared by those twelve people, mostly older than them, claiming for three corpses. In fact, after a few minutes comes another jeep with four soldiers inside, advancing at full gas on first gear and with its headlights on, making a lot of noise. Such Hollywood film scenes don’t impress the volunteers very much, who just draw instinctively to the sides of the street. The soldiers get out of the jeeps, angry and nervous, and begin to push. A soldier loses two chargers from his pocket while he does this. Some volunteers laugh. It’s a ridiculous scene, they just pretend to beat us. After pushing us back for some hundreds of meters they go back to the jeeps. The volunteers sit down on the street, the second jeep leaves. We receive a call from the ambulance in Tel, they say there are still five people wanted in Sarra, the place is going to get hot. It’s pointless to try again, the volunteers withdraw. The soldiers stay there eating their sandwiches, soon they will end their duty. Hope the ghosts of the three bodies won’t give them too many bad dreams tonight.

On the next day they try it again. Soldiers are all around the hills between Nablus and Tel. They say we’d better not go ahead because there’s shooting everywhere. The people they have shot yesterday aren’t the ones who they are looking for. But these soldiers are nicer (or maybe they’re just allowed to be, as we’re still far from the hot zone) and let us pass. One group stays with the ambulance, the others stay there and wait to be picked up on the next journey. We arrive in Tel, welcomed as usual by kids surrounding us. They want to be photographed. They hold a little bird in their hands, passing it to each other, putting it in their pockets and pulling it out again. Mika and Ethan, two of the volunteers, slept in Tel, and made it to Sarra this morning, though they didn’t manage to let the ambulance in and take the bodies. We wait for the other group to come. The kids are playing again with the little bird, this time without its head.

We wait for hours. The ambulance was stopped by the soldiers and can’t pick the other group. It’s getting late, we decide to head back.

On the way back we encounter the other group coming toward us. The soldiers have arrested some farmers in the surroundings and their donkeys were still around, with their heavy load on their back. The volunteers decided to bring them back to Tel. They still couldn’t pick up the three dead people, but saved ten living donkeys. Let’s call it a good day.

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.