Palestinians imprisoned in ar-Ram by Israeli Apartheid Wall

The massive gate dis-connecting Ar Ram to Ar Ram [Ar Ram and Dahiat Al Barid] was already closed two days ago when I returned after weeks away from the Palestinian neighbourhood between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The gate, a sliding, sturdy metal cage door, prevents Palestinians from accessing Palestinian areas on either side.

Before the Land-Theft Wall, to which the gate is attached, was erected in this area in September 2004, families might have crossed imaginary, non-existent boundaries on a daily basis. They may have done so in the course of going to work, visiting family and friends, shopping, living…The concrete slabs of the Wall set root on the main street, severing the community as well as the economy.

Since the closure, life in the community has come under increasing strain as the neighbourhood is split into tighter ghettos. What used to be a five minute walk has turned into a nightmare journey that requires Palestinians to travel west along the Wall, cross the hellish fortified checkpoint of Qalandiya, and then track back east to their community in Jerusalem. [Stop The Wall]

Now the Wall divides, restricts access or transit to work, prevents these daily visitations.

It is no “Security Fence”. It is a vast cement and razor wire Wall purely designed to inconvenience and to debilitate. And it certainly does that well.

I asked around. The gate has been closed for 2 weeks now. This is not unusual, for a Palestinian. I hadn’t seen this closure here before, so to me it was new.

The irony is overwhelming: they try to go to Jerusalem for work, if not for study, families, health care, life…but are prevented by unattainable permits, “Checkpoints” (read: hostile and humiliating barriers), and the Wall.

In Ar Ram the Wall isn’t quite finished. It serves the purpose, its purpose, of causing Palestinians to re-route their travels via long detours, or to simply not be able to move about at all, due to time, finances, other “Checkpoints.” But it will be finished soon.

Near a shared taxi on one side of the gate, a handful of Palestinians stood talking. The driver told me that some men had been detained by the Israeli army a little while earlier, on the other side of the Wall.

Finding no one at the back Dahiat Al Barid checkpoint, I moved back towards the gate. Standing, squatting, sitting at this side of the gate, about 15 men, and one woman, well-dressed, waited for their opportunity to scramble over the cement and barbed wire Wall. Security Fence… It is possible, and most of those standing around do it nearly daily, going back from work to their homes cut-off by this Wall.

“If we are caught, we can be arrested, put in prison for 6 months, fined 5,000 shekels,”

one man told me. He lives and works in Ramallah but had two days work in Jerusalem, if he could get there.

Another man wanted to see his wife, who lives in Jerusalem. Being a West Banker without an Israeli ID, permit unattainable (“I’ve been in prison”), this is his best option, and what a poor one at that.

Being in prison doesn’t have the same stigma as it might have in other countries: it is estimated that every Palestinian has one or more family members, or is friends with someone, who have been imprisoned or kept in administrative detention. What might raise eyebrows or provoke wary glances elsewhere is just another “fact of life” here for Palestinians.

I watched an older man, perhaps late 60s, squat awaiting his chance to breach the fence. One of the English-speaking men beside me clued me in:

“See that man. He is 50. He has 6 kids he needs to feed. He needs to cross the Wall to get to and from work.” Then, gesturing to a young man of 22, “You know, elsewhere in the world, young guys like this are playing video games, watching movies…He is thinking about how he can get over this Wall, find work.”

The man to my right, from Ar Ram, walked off and came back with a coffee for me.

The single woman kept re-approaching a break in the concrete slabs, peeking through to see if her time had come to hoist her long skirt and climb over. I recall seeing a young mother and father piling over months before, their baby being passed with care over the Wall, being introduced to its future role in the system of Segregation and life under Occupation.

Eventually, the occupation soldiers on the other side of the Wall must have had enough of watching the 15 or so Palestinians watch them, awaiting their chance to break over the Wall. A jeep circled around the Wall barrier and revved down the road, Palestinians already having scattered. The few that chose to go into the drainpipe below (“we go through it like rats,” the English-speaking man had said) didn’t go quickly or far enough. Israeli Border Police jumped from their jeep seats to run down to the pipe.

Shots rang out. I yelled at them to stop shooting at these civilians, who were clearly unarmed and running away.

They took two men, one of them the coffee-giving man. His nonchalance of earlier was replaced by a look of panic.

The jeep lingered, left, and 10 minutes later returned with the two men inside. When asked what crime exactly the two men had committed by sitting by the Wall on Palestinian land,  one border policeman replied: “They were trying to break into Israel.”

The older man was released and escorted to the drainpipe by the still-wide-eyed novice border police, while the younger man was kept. Border police: “He said that he was going to see his mother in the hospital. But he didn’t have a permit. [virtually unattainable] He was trying to do something illegal.”

Perhaps I’ll read about it in the news tomorrow, their lying version of reality: two Islamic Militants apprehended at Ar Ram.

The sad saga of people trying to vault the Wall, to get wherever they needed to go, became sadder thus. Their relief for today: escaping arrest. But they were still on this side of the Wall when I left; their obstacle still remains.

 

Further Ar Ram Wall Info:

The area has been a crucial social and economic centre over the last few decades, where merchants from all over Palestine met to trade. The Wall has had an enormous impact, destroying the livelihoods of thousands of people. Today, 40% of businesses have closed and many small factories which provided vital employment have shut down. 10,000 people have already deserted the area and over 20% of the houses are now empty. [Stop the Wall]

B’tselem

Some 60,000 people live in the North Jerusalem suburb of ar-Ram, just outside of the city limits. About half the residents are Jerusalemites who left the city due to the overcrowding and high real estate prices that result from Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian urban development. Ar-Ram residents are dependent on Jerusalem in all aspects of daily life. Most work in the city, or elsewhere inside Israel. Five thousand children from the town attend schools inside Jerusalem.

The Barrier surrounds ar-Ram on three sides. A 23-foot high concrete wall runs down the main street, cutting off ar-Ram from Jerusalem. To get to work, to school or to the hospital, people have to travel a circuitous route and pass through the Qalandiya checkpoint. They can do so only if they have the necessary permits. Whenever Israel closes the checkpoint for any reason, these people are cut off from all necessary services.

In addition to being cut off from Jerusalem, ar-Ram is separated from five neighboring villages, among them Bir Nabala, by a system of fences and walls, leaving only one way out, to the north. Residents in the Bir Nabala enclave are also completely dependent on Jerusalem for services, and have close social and family ties with neighboring ar-Ram and Beit-Hanina. Bir Nabala, for example, is only a short walk from ar-Ram, yet now to go from one to the other requires a journey of over twenty kilometers, and passage through at least one checkpoint.

I live with my family in ar-Ram, and all four of us need to get to Jerusalem every morning, my husband and I to our jobs and my kids to their preschools. Since ar-Ram was disconnected from Jerusalem by the wall, it has become extremely difficult to get to work on time, and you can never tell how long it will take.

I have an Israeli ID so I took the Israeli lane, which is much shorter, but after the soldier saw that I am an Arab, he wouldn’t let me through. He claimed that the lane is in fact only for those with special passes and foreign aid workers. I made a u-turn and went back to Qalandiya. I got to work at 10:15.

–Suhair Abdi-Habib Allah, 32, married with two children, Human Rights worker, resident of ar-Ram

source: B’tselem

Further Info on the Israeli Prison System:

Over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners currently detained by Israel. Of these prisoners, approximately 125 are women and 400 are children, while an estimated 780 are individuals detained under administrative detention. In addition, numerous Palestinian government officials are currently being arbitrarily detained.

–-al Haq

Palestinians are tried within Israeli military courts located within Israeli military centers in the OPT. These military tribunals are presided over by a panel of three judges appointed by the military, two of who often do not have any legal training or background. These tribunals rarely fall within the required international standards of fair trial.

–Adameer