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[Excerpts from Ramadan in the West Bank, 2007, Eva Bartlett]
It is 10 pm and the blistering desert-like heat has dissipated into an evening cool which sees the residents of Palestinian Susiya, in the South Hebron Hills, wrapped under heavy covers on their sleeping mats inside weathered tents. Most went to bed two hours ago, and only the stars and the bright spotlights of the illegal Jewish colony over the hills compete for attention.
Across a horizon of cacti silhouettes, larger forms are moving, creeping towards the tents. From the shadows, shapes take form: 8 fully-armed Israeli soldiers from the neighbouring military base, bee-lining across the land of the family I am sleeping with. post continues
Huwara Checkpoint: Wire Fencing Erected to Obstruct Passage
The Huwara checkpoint controlling exit from Nablus is notorious for long lines and hours-long delays, particularly on holidays. This roofed and turnstiled checkpoint, in place since the start of this Intifada, governs traffic flowing to Ramallah, as well as to the many nearby villages outside Nablus. It is one of many checkpoints within the Palestinian West Bank which severs Palestinians from surrounding Palestinians, towns from towns. University students, workers, and people seeking medical treatment or coming for shopping must cross Huwara, many on a daily basis. It is an established routine for Israeli soldiers to close the checkpoint or greatly delay checking IDs of the many waiting to cross through. [see B’Tselem: Checkpoints and Forbidden Roads and Information on checkpoints and roadblocks]
On Saturday, November 10, leaving Nablus I arrived at Huwara, around 2:40 pm, to lines which crammed and extended metres beyond the tin-roofed checkpoint area. On a good day, the lines would run a third to half the length of the area. The side passage, between the roofed area and the wire fence, is normally reserved for women and children to pass through for ID checking.
Thirty minutes after I arrived, the lines of waiting Palestinians had not moved; instead, they had grown, extending yet numerous meters further. Palestinians reported they had been waiting since 12:00 to pass through the checkpoint. At approximately 3:10, I called Machsom Watch to report the checkpoint problems. About 10 minutes later, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers began removing some additional wire fencing which had been strung across the outer passageway normally reserved for women and children. The fencing crossed from the outer wire fence to the iron rails of the checkpoint building itself.
After removing this fencing, this ‘flying checkpoint’ within a checkpoint, IOF soldiers finally began checking IDs of the waiting Palestinians. During the period between 12:00 and around 3:20, upwards of 300-350 civilian Palestinians were made to wait, some for 3 hours or more, their day disrupted by the arbitrarily-imposed blockage. The timing of the closure coincided with the return of many university students to their homes outside of Nablus, as well as the return home of those who had gone to Nablus for shopping and other needs.
The Significance of a Huwwiyye
Following the line-ups at Huwara, the taxi I rode in did as many taxis do when approaching further lineups like those at Zatara checkpoint less than 10 minutes down the road: it cut out of the Palestinian lane into the Israeli-only lane (a.k.a. the Express Lane) and then back into the Palestinian lane after passing some of the backed up cars. While this is a matter which would surely aggravate other drivers who had waited their turns in line, it is nonetheless a matter for those drivers to resolve or not. Instead, upon arriving at the soldiers’ booth, a soldier who had seen our taxi cut back in took all the huwiyyes (IDs) and, not returning them, ordered us to go back and rejoin the line at the end. With little choice, ID-less, the driver complied, returning about halfway then cutting back in. Again, upon arriving at the same soldiers’ booth, we were ordered aside, this time to the inspection lot (where cars are routinely disassembled in order to thoroughly search the vehicle and its contents). We were soon joined by two more taxis, then another, all having committed the same faux-pas.
The IOF soldier’s explanation was that driving in the Israeli-only lane endangered Israeli drivers and, thus, could not be tolerated. He refused to consider the reality of the long lineups, which plague the checkpoint daily, and their effect on Palestinians daily lives.
The Commander echoed the soldier’s explanation, also refusing the consider that these checkpoints which sever the West Bank at so many points serve the illegal Israeli settlements.
With my passport safe in hand, I had the freedom to leave if I chose, a freedom reiterated by the soldiers. Yet the Palestinians I traveled with had no such graces and were at the whim of the soldiers. The power of the ID, the ID not recognized outside of Palestine, is pervasive and an effective means of control.
**elderly man, ill, made to wait in the parking lot, a collective punishment for the taxi driver’s hopping lines.
I visited with a family in Nablus’ Balata refugee camp who awoke at 2 am to Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers’ firing from the street at the walls of their 3-story home. The November 7 IOF invasion of Balata left one two-story home destroyed by IOF-detonated explosions and another home damaged by random shooting and a grenade. Local sources further report that several homes in the camp were also invaded and ransacked by Israeli soldiers. Witnesses report up to 40 military vehicles having entered the camp, ending the siege with the detention of 25 Palestinians.
As with most of the homes throughout Balata, the family which I visited has suffered numerous IOF attacks over the years, evidenced by the grandmother’s testimony as well as the testimony of the walls themselves. The grandmother and one granddaughter pointed out deep pocket marks on the balcony off the living room, from the IOF shooting days before.
Similar bullet holes, even deeper, punctured the outer cement wall of a bedroom on the same side of the house. Off that wall, the balcony’s wrought iron railing was twisted, deformed from an IOF hand grenade tossed up from the road. The explosion further cut into the concrete side of the balcony.
Back inside the living room, a curtain pulled back from a window revealed a bathtub-sized hole in the neighbouring house wall, from 2002 IOF attacks. Aged newspaper stuffed into gaping holes in the wall betray further evidence of earlier Israeli attacks.
In addition to the collective punishment of the entire family, three of the grandsons have directly suffered at the hands of the IOF and the invasions. One grandson was imprisoned at 17.5 years old and kept for 1.5 years in administrative detention. This is a technical term for being kept in limbo, without being charged with anything. It is a form of detention which can last for years, the detained not even granted the basic rights prisoners are supposed to receive. The boy was finally released, still without charges. During his imprisonment, he was moved, suspected of being a leader in prison, and consequently kept for months in solitary confinement. When he was eventually brought before an Israeli court to again extend his administrative detention, even the judge saw the absurdity of his detention and thus, finally, ordered his release.
His younger brother walks with a limp, unable to completely bend one of his legs as the knee still suffers from being shot by an Israeli soldier years before, his entire leg bearing the marks of shrapnel wounds and broken bones from IOF shelling. A third grandson, arrested 17.5 years, is currently imprisoned for an unknown duration, accused of resistance activities.
Upstairs, the granddaughter pointed out where ISM activists had lived, where they’d stayed for years, a permanent presence which for one entire year served to prevent imminent demolition from IOF caterpillar bulldozers. One victory. At least 5 other homes that ISM activists were aware of were demolished in Israel’s ongoing policy of punishing families collectively for knowing or being related to Israel’s “wanted men.”
Buckling Walls and Homeless in the Rain
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, after 5 hours of searching and ransacking the house, the IOF exploded the back room of the ground floor, concurrently damaging two neighbouring houses’ walls, as well as the upper floor of the bombed house. The targeted home houses 15 family members, who are now homeless as a result of the collective punishment. They were lucky: they were herded out of the home at 12:30 am, at gunpoint, before the 5 am explosion which took out the bedroom and damaged the weight-bearing walls. The neighbours in the home 2 meters behind were still asleep when the bomb shattered their window and damaged their own wall.
The family, now staying in 3 different neighbours’ homes, have put up support poles in efforts to compensate for the weight-bearing walls which are buckling and cracked from the explosion. According to the family, it will cost a minimum of 30,000 JD [~=$42,355] to reconstruct the house. Appraising the 2nd floor rooms, also ransacked and damaged from the invading soldiers and explosion, the father admitted the house would likely have to be demolished and completely reconstructed.
The 30,000 JD to repair the house does not include the loss of furniture, appliances, belongings, all of which were either damaged and broken in the initial IOF ransacking or later demolition. The sons in the family work as laborers, taking what work they can get. Meeting their new financial demands will be a difficult task, one which they stand to bear alone.
The pretext for this collective punishment was the IOF hunt for one of the sons, 23, a student at university who has been wanted by Israel for the last 2.5 years for alleged resistance activity with Islamic Jihad.
This is the case with many such destroyed homes and collectively-punished families, as with the October 16th IOF invasion in a neighbourhood west of Nablus’ Old City, which ended with the assassination of three men –one a 70 year old resident at home at the time—and the damage and destruction to homes of numerous residents of the attacked area.
Upon leaving the Balata camp home destroyed three days ago, the owner similarly expressed his wish for the world to know, thanking me repeatedly for showing interest in his family’s loss.
His thanks echoed the sentiments of others I’ve met, who’ve suffered from too many IOF invasions and the destruction which comes with them.
My friend Abed was martyred.
Martyr is a loaded word in many Westerners’ understanding: it often has a negative connotation, or insinuation of an extreme ideology or lack of love for life. In reality, a martyr refers to anyone who has been killed while not sacrificing their beliefs, and in Palestine and Lebanon, these are people who have been murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Abed loved life, and this was evident in his words, actions, his dreams. He told me once he would love to sleep at night, to walk freely in the hills that surround Nablus, to travel to other countries…
He was one of Nablus’ resistance fighters, living in and defending the streets of the Old City. They do not receive the same glorified status as that of the invading soldiers, instead tagged with negative undertones: ‘militant, extremist…’ Yet, as the new commander of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades related in a recent Ha’aretz interview: “We don’t attack civilian targets, we aren’t dispatching suicide bombers. The army wants to get us mainly because of our actions against forces that enter the city. But it is our obligation and our right to hit soldiers who come to Nablus, and we will continue doing so.”
The Humanity of Abed
Sami had known Abed for years and held him like a brother. He later related to me some of the conversations they’d had. I asked Sami, an avowed pacifist with a vocal distaste for guns, whether he and Abed had ever discussed being a resistance fighter. They had, Sami questioning Abed about his pre-resistance-fighter days which had been just years earlier.
Sami: “I asked him: ‘you are a kind, beautiful man. Why do you fight?’ Abed told me, ‘I lost my cousins –two cousins –to the IOF, and I want to continue their resistance. My family and neighbours are constantly harassed and never feel safe. I have to do something; I’ll never feel good if the soldiers are always entering the old city and I’m not trying to prevent them from invading homes, kidnapping, and killing people.’”
Sami told me more about Abed. “He was a good man, the children in the old city all knew him and loved him. They used to make drawings and write letters for him: ‘Mohammed loves Abed. Please don’t die.’ Abed always asked about the poor in the area: Did they have food, milk…? He and Qadaffi were always on their mobiles saying: ‘If people need anything, they should go to my house.’ He wasn’t rich, but he cared about his neighbours.”
Sami told me Abed loved to meet foreigners, which perhaps explains why he was so quick to trust and get to know me. Sami said Abed was always telling him: “if you have a foreign friend, bring him to me.” We met before Sami could introduce us.
Chance Encounter
Months ago, during one of my first days in Nablus, having heard three building-shaking explosions in the late hours of the night, I went looking the following morning in the old city for the consequences of the night before. I had been told that the IOF had laid explosives at the concrete blocks barring IOF jeep entry to the old city streets. These blocks, so often seen barring Palestinian entry to Palestinian roads, in this case serve to hinder or delay IOF vehicles. So the IOF often bombs them.
I’d also been told nearby buildings suffered damage from the explosions, and so went to see. At the north end of the old city, I came to one bombed roadblock section. It was there that I met Abed, leaning against the concrete blocks with two friends. He explained that this was where the IOF had been the evening before, and we got talking, in broken attempts at one another’s language.
He wasn’t what one expects of a resistance fighter, after hearing the words ‘militant’ and ‘member of the extremist group X’ tossed about so freely, slurred, in the press. He was slight, average height, neatly bearded, well-groomed, handsome, and nearly always grinning, inevitably teasing someone.
In the course of my time in and out of Nablus over the months, I often met Abed and his family in their home off an Old City alleyway. They invited me continually to stay the night, but I was usually en route somewhere or had work to do later on. I shared some meals with them, Abed teasing, his little sister defiant and holding her own, his mother likewise punchy, his pretty young wife welcoming, gracious, translating our mixed Arabic-English efforts… In later meetings, their newborn boy was present, tiny, quiet, sleeping or being coddled by Abed or his wife.
He was keen to improve his English, and would try to speak in English with me, becoming shy when other Palestinians with a better grasp of English were around. Sometimes he’d type out English phrases on his computer, misspelled but discernible.
His mother always speaks in a loud voice, constantly defiant. That is her way. Once, discussing the effects of living in Nablus under constant siege, she described how she and her family were affected. Weeks would pass without seeing her son, Abed, he in hiding from another IOF kidnapping or assassination attempt. Abed’s mother pulled either side of her robes out like a fan, showing how spacious her dress has become because she’s lost so much weight. She is nervous all of the time, doesn’t sleep well at night, always worries about her son, Abed, and consequently has dropped many kilos.
His 11 year old younger sister, Laila, speaks French. Miraculously, she traveled outside of Palestine, taking part in an exchange to France one year, she being a bright student. However bright, her school efforts are now suffering, her attention ever-distracted, her energy fatigued like so many Palestinian children suffering from the trauma of occupation and invasions. Still, she is feisty and holds –held –her own with her big brother, Abed.
When the Army Invades…
I worried each time I heard the IOF had invaded Nablus again, worried about Nablus residents caught, collateral damage, in house searches and army random firing, as with the young woman struck by an IOF bullet, while in her home, during the same raid which killed “Qadaffi” and inevitably killed Abed. I worried about Abed and his friends, knowing they were the target of such raids. Worried also about their families, knowing they suffered house raids and relentless interrogation, irrespective of age, sex, or health.
Four months ago, we’d rushed from Hebron to Nablus, hearing the IOF had invaded again and imposed curfew. We’d met with volunteer medics and joined them on the streets to do whatever we could: deliver bread and food, negotiate passage and accompany people to off-limits homes. All the while I’d worried about Abed. The next morning, visiting houses which had been invaded, ransacked, and exploded, I came across Qadaffi in an alley, who assured me Abed was still alive, and passed to him a quickly-scribbled note for Abed, wishing he and his family safety.
Honouring the Fallen
A resistance fighter’s funeral is a morning filled with masses of reverent people gathered in the streets. The procession progresses from the hospital where the body, cleaned and dressed in a Palestinian flag, is carried on the shoulders of the closest friends, down the streets to the city centre, and beyond through the old city streets. With Qadaffi’s funeral two weeks ago, the numbers were quadrupled, the procession slow, and the air even more clouded with gunfire smoke. Shots are fired into the air out of respect, rapid-fire and deafening, filling the void with protest, an homage to the silenced fighter. Mourners sing songs about the fallen, songs about his strength and struggle.
As Abed’s procession moved, in my head I urged for more and louder fire, louder songs, to honour this young man whose life was cut off at 24, leaving behind a months-old baby and young wife.
The procession moved from the hospital. Sami had taken me to the morgue where Abed’s body lay blue-grey, his handsome face grotesque in death. Other resistance fighters and close friends guarded his body, as they had while still alive and in critical condition in hospital. I’d visited him two weeks ago, the day after he was hit by the Israeli rocket which tore apart Qadaffi and left Abed minus his left leg. They had been on an old city rooftop, resisting the latest Israeli army invasion, the IOF this time attacking a neighbourhood above the Old City in the early hours of the morning, in search of a man on their wanted list. [The man was also on their recently-pardoned list, included in Israel’s latest not-honoured gesture of goodwill.] Abed’s wiry frame, unconscious, was small and discoloured amongst hospital whites, unnaturally quiet amidst hospital beeps, and mottled with wounds over his chest, arms, face…
Sami, a volunteer medic, who had carried the slain body of Qadaffi, had witnessed the various stages of Abed’s deterioration, from post-rocket-strike to hospitalization, to being transferred in his last hours from hiding in the old city to a hospital anew. Three days after his injury and hospitalization, he had been moved underground from hospital care due to very real concerns of the IOF raiding hospitals in late night hours, to finish their assassination operation. With his sudden worsening hours before death, Sami was called with his ambulance to re-transfer Abed to hospital care, too late.
Today’s procession passed through the alleys of the Old City, passed the entrance to Abed’s home. I strayed from the funeral march to visit Abed’s family. Neighbouring women and female family members, in black, wept for the loss. Tough Laila sat with her mother and sisters in the dining area, Laila slumped in her chair and sobbing loudly, weak from despair. Abed’s mother sat stonily, miles away, eyes vacant and clouded with loss. Abed’s pleasant wife lay unconscious on their bed, passed out, briefly revived by concerned family, and passed out anew from grief. Their raw pain tore into me, past the protective barrier one begins to acquire when surrounded by Occupational tragedies.
Adnan saw me today in the same alley, reminded me of having met at Abed’s one day when Abed was teasing me, taking my phone and handing it off to his mother for hiding when I said that I had to leave to work. Abed had tried to coerce Adnan, a poet, to recite his poetry in English, but he’d declined, the translation too difficult, the meaning would have been lost.
He told me today that Abed spoke of me everyday; I had no idea that he valued our friendship so. Perhaps it was more the sense of a connection to the outside world, that people outside of Nablus were aware of and concerned about the IOF invasions and kidnappings of Palestinians in Nablus. This makes it all the more difficult to process Abed’s sudden death. While very aware of his night life and the associated risks, the reality of his assassination is too large to comprehend.
Recalling again our first encounter, Abed had seemed to test me at first, testing my political views, testing my thoughts on resistance. Did I think he was a terrorist? Did I support the media’s twisting of, ignoring of, the facts of the Occupation? What did I think of the hajizs (military checkpoints), or the Wall…?
He was quickly trusting, though, perhaps a detriment to a freedom fighter in a caged-in position where collaborators are rife and deadly, and where anyone could potentially be that collaborator. I was surprised, but pleased, now honoured, by his trust and friendship.
I was also surprised that he felt comfortable introducing me to friends and family. Having stumbled across Abed, I look back now grateful for this chance to know his humanity, the humanity of someone in his position, to glimpse a fraction of the desperation and loss Palestinians know so intimately. It will never be my own struggle, my own story, but knowing it is important, as is telling it.
To the west of Nablus, neighbouring the village of Jit and the illegal Israeli settlement of Quedumim with its neighbouring Israeli military base, Sarra sits on a crossroads between Palestinian territory and a militarily-annexed road and land. From Nablus to Sarra it would be a 5 minute drive were it not that the Israeli army designated the road “a closed military zone.” As a consequence, villagers must take a circuitous route, via Tell, along winding mountain roads, rendering the trip a 35-40 minute detour.
At the end of August, 2007, villagers came together with Israeli and international activists to remove the concrete blocks which bar entry onto the closed military road, a road which aside from being so-designated is a Palestinian road. The successful removal of the road-blocks was promptly followed by their replacement, with an additional barrier of earth piled on top. This was followed by the arrest of us activists.
Collectively Terrorized:
Sarra has long been a village collectively terrorized for a few reasons: its proximity to the road, one which is a main back entrance to Nablus when the IOF invades; its proximity to the illegal Israeli settlement of Qedumim and the military base neighbouring it; and recently, its defiance of IOF arbitrarily-imposed closed zones and harassment.
In 2000, at the beginning of the 2nd Intifada, IOF soldiers took over and occupied the top floor of one home for 11 months. The house sits on a hilltop overlooking the militarily-closed road and provides an excellent vantage point of the entire surrounding area.
The house residents said that after the Israeli soldiers had finally left, they could no longer recognize the 2nd floor apartment, which had been intended for a son and his new wife to begin their family life together in.
Cut Off From it All:
The hilltop house, amidst its expanse of agricultural land and olive groves, is in reality cut off on 3 sides: to the west, their lands and the road is off-limits by Israeli military decree, and to the north and northeast, roads are inaccessible, also by Israeli military decree. Villagers tending trees and farmland alongside the road are routinely interrupted and harassed by passing Israeli soldiers, who threaten villagers and order them off of their land.
Jit village lies approximate 2 km away from Sarra but might as well be 30 km away. Rather than being permitted to travel the militarily-closed road, or even the Palestinian land alongside the road, Sarra residents must travel back to Nablus, through Beit Iba checkpoint, and return back in the direction they have come from along a parallel road, a detour which amounts to an hour’s detour.
“This is my house, my land. Why can’t I go 2 minutes to my family’s home? I have to go to Nablus, go around.” The son’s question is valid: these are just normal people, who have family members and land down the road. Jit, in addition to sitting across from the illegal settlement, Qedumim, lies at the road leading both to Ramallah and Tulkarem, an additional reason banned access is a painful reality for Palestinians in the region.
*[Israeli army base near Jit and Qedumim settlement]
Even the Rooftop is Dangerous:
As he related the story to us, standing on the roof, the son suddenly moved back from the roof’s edge and asked us to do likewise: “Israeli soldiers told us if they see us on the roof, we will have ‘problems’,” he explained. The reference was clear, having heard about recent problems.
In the past three weeks, Sarra has near-nightly been invaded by the Israeli army, usually entering in the evening and harassing villagers. Between 6 and 8pm on October 18, two Israeli military vehicles, with approximately 6 soldiers each, entered via a dirt road leading from the militarily-closed road. Soldiers drove up and down village roads, chasing children and adults.
Israeli soldiers overturned a pan of hot frying oil on one restaurant owner, who was just barely able to jump backwards enough so that the oil burned his legs rather than his face and entire body. Another shop-owner reports Israeli soldiers entering and stealing candy and cola, while a Najah University Masters student was chased along a street by soldiers throwing rocks. Israeli soldiers also attacked and pushed a 10 year old boy to the ground.
Two weeks prior, in another Israeli army invasion, soldiers without reason shot at one villager’s car, deflating the tires, riddling the car body with bullet marks, and shattering the windshield.
Olives and Land:
This is a village surrounded by olive groves and agricultural land, much of which is inaccessible due to Israeli military orders and closed military zones. The District Coordinating Office (DCO), the Israeli body which deals with military-annexed land and related problems, this year gave permission for only 3 days of olive harvesting on lands cut off from villagers, for a task which should take nearly 2 weeks.
Harvesting olives should be a relaxed time of enjoying communal work, seeing the year’s efforts of tending trees pay off, picnicking between bouts of collecting, and relaxing on the land. The reality for the majority of Palestinians whose land lies near illegal Israeli settlements or military bases is one of harassment, of being attacked, and of rushing through work which should be savoured. That is if they attempt to harvest their olives. The intimidation of settler violence puts many Palestinians off of working or harvesting their olive groves.
A settler attack on Palestinians and internationals harvesting olives near Tell on October 16, during which one Palestinian was seriously wounded on his head, and numerous others suffered injuries from the pelting of sizeable rocks, resulted in the commonly-accepted spin of the facts: settlers reported that Palestinians came up the hill to their settlement, throwing rocks and attacking the settlers.
Even with four of us activists to corroborate the Palestinians’ account of the settler attack, the settler version still holds weight with the Israeli military and police. The following day, two Rabbis for Human Rights volunteers were accused of arson in the settlement, despite international and Palestinian witnesses who testified to their presence at the olive harvesting site.
The attacks, physical and legal, are designed to run Palestinians off their land, as is the case all over West Bank, as seen in Susiya, as successful in Susiya, and to deter international and Israeli supporters from defending the Palestinians’ rights to the land.
“A Palestinian farmer was seriously injured on Tuesday afternoon when a group of Israeli settlers from Yizhar settlement, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, attacked him while he attempted to harvest olives from one of his fields.
Palestinian medical sources stated that thirty-five-year-old Abdul Fattah Hindiyya, from the northern West Bank village of Tell, was wounded.” [source]
This, while accurate, does not convey the truly horrifying nature of violence and blind hatred the settlers showed, nor of the tragedy that even the simplest of tasks are sabotaged. The olive harvest should be a time of rejoicing in gathering olives, communal working… In Palestine it is a time of planning, fear, awareness of very potential savage attacks by colonists, and some desperation to get the job done as quickly as possible.
Just outside of Nablus, 6 masked Israeli colonists viciously attacked local Palestinians harvesting their olives. They slung, via large slingshots, hefty stones, whipped at our bodies and heads.
The attack lasted about 40 minutes.
One of the six attackers slung a large rock at me. Hitting my camera hand, the rock missed my temple. One of the farmers, on the other hand, was not so fortunate, with severe gashes on his head from multiple stone strikes.
At the same time, the city of Nablus was under yet another Israeli invasion.
Explosions began as early as 3 am, with the invasion of Israeli military jeeps and vehicles into the old city and surrounding neighbourhoods.
Early on in the morning, a key resistance fighter was killed, slaughtered by an array of metal bits erupting from a specialized shell. A Palestinian volunteer medic later confirmed his death, explaining his body had been severed in two by the force of the shell shrapnel. Two of his co-fighters, by his side, were injured, one losing a leg to the fire and suffering various wounds over his body, dying two weeks later.
These are men who have not chosen their fate; the occupation of Palestine has chosen them.
Discussing our mutual roles one day, one resister affirmed what I had said about my role here: “You take photos, I fight invasions, my mother is a mother, my sister goes to school.” A simple summary of the many roles we are given or put into, but further poignant by his declaration: “I want to sleep during the night and go for walks in the hills. I want to have a normal life.”
His little sister, 10 or 11 years old, is already a tough cookie, with a quick wit. Yet she is also a little girl, who surprised me one day carrying a Barbie like doll and acting in a girlish contrast to her normally defensive ways. I cannot begin to imagine what she has seen or how many times she has faced soldiers invading her neighbourhood, her home, in the city.
She also wants to live a normal life. In recent years, her mother told me, she has failed at school, despite her obvious intelligence, suffering like many Palestinian children from the stress, uncertainty, and trauma of living in an occupied land, in a city regularly under invasions and ‘curfews’.
The invading forces also chose an old man, a bystander, and shot him fatally. Neighbours confirmed that the man, 70 years old, had answered the knock of an Israeli soldier. Upon opening the door to his courtyard, he was shot directly with at least 3 bullets to his stomach. He died, shortly after, in his nephew’s hands.
The same house was ransacked, shot up, its contents destroyed. One young man explained how Israeli soldiers had entered the home around 2 am, entered shooting. Soldiers surprised the family in their beds, shooting in bedrooms occupied by sleeping residents. The approximately 25 residents in the multi-storied building, members of the same family, were eventually made to leave, sent to another location. Israeli soldiers searched and ransacked the house, then left and sent a rocket from a nearby rooftop through the window of the parents’ bedroom, hitting the ceiling.
The apparent reason was in hopes of killing the resistance fighter they sought, never in that house. The rest of the damage was inflicted by Israeli soldiers while conducting their room to room search.
A woman sitting in her home down the street was shot in her back, one of a spray of 20 bullets from Israeli soldiers outside the home, according to local witnesses. The bullet lodged near her heart, requiring her immediate transfer to hospital, according to a medic on the scene.
Returning from the olive harvest outside Nablus, we joined internationals already in the affected area as human rights workers, accompanying medical teams.
Our luck in getting civilians beyond barricades waned later on when, attempting to acquire permission to pass a military jeep stationed in the centre of the road, soldiers within instead unleashed a series of tear gas canisters and a sound bomb in successful efforts to disperse us. The same soldiers then prevented passage of an ambulance who sought to give medical aid to people trapped within the blocked off area.
One neighbour recounted how when told he and his mother to leave their home, he refused, protesting his mother’s ill health and difficulty walking. Eventually the soldiers’ order stood and he left, joining others from the floors above on the street. They were given no food or water, and were not permitted to use the toilet for most of the day.
In the aftermath of another Israeli invasion, talking with residents whose homes had been demolished by explosions, or greatly damaged by neighbouring homes’ demolitions, I recall the faces. The old woman who repeatedly gave thanks to God that she was still alive, though her home had been invaded again and greatly damaged yet again. The father who explained how his son had survived the imploding floor by hanging on to a window ledge still intact. Also, the young medic who was kidnapped, blindfolded and cuffed after escorting a woman to her home and subsequently giving his ID to the soldiers for inspection. They kept the ID, and him as well. His colleagues testified to his good nature, his non-involvement in politics.
Like the older woman from the previous invasion, Abdullah’s grandmother, surrounded by broken, shot, and damaged evidence of the IOF’s presence, made clear her feelings for non-Palestinians, non-Muslims: “After all Israel has done to us, we still just want peace.” She followed with a request: “We are not asking for financial support from you, just for justice, for people around the world to know the truth.”
Following the Israeli army invasion of Deir Istiya on October 7th, during which the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) imposed a curfew on the village, one which officially continued throughout the next day, we (ISM) visited with families who had been subjected to IOF house raids and arrests.
Not surprisingly, the families were welcoming and gracious as ever to visitors, despite all they had just been through and all that some are still enduring.
The IOF entered homes during this latest raid on the northern West Bank village of 4,000, an otherwise serene and impressive village with intact old homes and alleyways. In one home, Occupation soldiers entered the home and seized three children, ages 11, 15, and 16, taking them out of the home to a nearby schoolyard to interrogate them. The youths were accused of having thrown stones at the invading IOF forces from the rooftop of their home. An hour of interrogation, during which soldiers kicked the youngest boy, resulted in little more than harassment of the youths, the army realizing that they had no reason to hold the youths, returned them to their house.
The soldiers had arrived in three military jeeps, approximately 20 soldiers of whom remained outside while four soldiers proceeded to search and ransack the house, from bottom to top, before leaving.
The family reports that soldiers returned two hours later, parked in front of the home and waited for a while before again leaving.
IOF soldiers later went to both boys and girls schools, interrupting students in their classes. Although the schools were opened, the curfew was still imposed and officially remains so as of the evening of October 8.
As we visited with friends of a long-time International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) volunteer that evening, the family reported hearing sounds bombs going off around 8 pm that evening, just an hour prior.
Earlier, we also visited families who had suffered from Israeli army violence just over a week ago when they invaded.
During that invasion, at least 3 youths were kidnapped by IOF soldiers.
One family recounted how approximately 20 IOF soldiers had come to their home 8 days prior after 1 am while the family was sleeping. One daughter had been sleeping in the front room when she heard noises outside. Calling her parents in the next room via her mobile, the family soon learned that their home was surrounded by Israeli soldiers. While the soldiers did not demand entry, they instead proceeded to throw stones at the two entrances doors in the front and the windows around the house. Later inspection revealed the IOF soldiers had broken a window in one front-facing room, as well as a window in the family vehicle around the back of the house.
After waiting for the soldiers to cease stoning the house, the father finally opened the door to ask what they wanted. The father and mother report that 4 soldiers entered the home, and beat the father and one daughter, 23 years old, and his wife all over their bodies.
The family of 8, including three children under 18, was made to leave their home and were kept outside, guarded by soldiers, while 4 soldiers searched and ransacked the home for approximately another 45 minutes. The father managed to gain entry into his home and accompany the soldiers as they went room to room, damaging the home and their possessions.
A tally of the damage and acts of IOF violence during the house raid includes:
• A side panel was ripped off of the computer and internal damage was done to it
• The frame of a bed was ripped apart
• Several cupboard and cabinet doors were broken and torn off their hinges
• Outer doors damaged by stones
• The cassette door of a stereo was ripped off its hinges
• Many items from the kitchen were broken; as well, many belongings and personal items were torn out of cupboards and off shelves, left broken or on floors
While these acts of collective punishment are common in occupied Palestine, adding yet further misdeeds to a litany of IOF misdeeds to civilians, the family’s greatest sorrow that day was the kidnapping of their son: the youth, 19 years old, is a student at Salfit University and is not involved in political activities. He was taken during this house raid, in his underwear as he had been sleeping. Soldiers would not permit his mother, desperate to clothe and help him, to give him a shirt and pants. The youth was taken blindfolded from the house and dragged down the street nearly a half kilometer away. At one point, the mother recalls, he was pushed from his standing position and kicked while fallen on the ground.
The family was given no information on the whereabouts of their son, and have since been making all efforts to locate him, without success. As one ISMer summarized, putting the family’s situation in real terms: “Our son was ripped from his bed in his underwear. And we haven’t seen him for 8 days, and we have no idea where he is.”
Not a great Ramadan event, or one for any other day for that matter.
Two other youths, ages 18 and 19, were also kidnapped by IOF soldiers that evening.
Another village resident, Dr. F, a professor at a local university, mentioned that it is common for the IOF to raid villages throughout the year, but particularly around Ramadan and the Olive Harvest season, when families are especially keen to avoid problems from either soldiers or settlers. He feels that the increase of attacks by both settlers and IOF soldiers is part of a greater plan long put into practice of dividing society at all levels, economically and communally.
The levels of occupation go deep. As referenced earlier, were it not for the repeated and ever-looming presence of IOF soldiers, Deir Istiya would be a charming and inviting village.
Domed roves and crooked alleyways beckon and flowers burst in colours and fragrances. Celebrating iftar with families was special, sharing food, tea, coffee, nargila, and even trying our hand at baking the round flatbread I grew to love so well in the South Hebron area of Susiya. Here, while the making is similar, the baking is an ingenious modification of a traditional taboon with convenience and necessity: an oil drum-come-wood-burning stove with a sliding shelf in the side serves the purpose. Stones are laid on this shelf, and the bread dough again spread over those stones as in a traditional oven.
And as down in Susiya, my efforts were better in intention than in result.
Such warm experiences mixed incongruously with the purpose of our presence in that village –the Israeli army invasion…
October 7th, 2007: Deir Istiya, West Bank
The residents of Deir Istiya, population 4,000, were sentenced to confinement in their homes shortly before breaking fast for the day. At around 5:10 pm, a convoy of between 10 to 12 Israeli military jeeps, manned with Israeli border police, entered the northern West Bank village near the city of Nablus announcing over megaphones: “everyone must go home. Deir Istiya is under curfew and you will endanger yourselves if you break curfew,” post continues
**accompanying Palestinians to their homes and attempting to negotiate with IOF soldiers.
Three days ago, we rushed north to Nablus which had been placed under “curfew”, aka lockdown. The army had taken over the old city, nothing new, rendering it dangerous for anyone to move about in the old city streets. Officially, all of Nablus was under lockdown.
Jeeps and military vehicles parked in front of schools, hospitals, and other buildings around Nablus, preventing passage to even serious emergency cases and hospital staff. In the old city, snipers positioned themselves inside houses at strategic points, soldiers occupied numerous homes, shoving residents and neighbours into undersized rooms, detaining them for anywhere between 7 hours to up to 2 days without food, water, or access to the toilet. Soldiers desecrated homes, urinating on floors, tearing apart rooms, digging holes in floors in search of weapons and tunnels.
Following the Israeli army invasion of Nablus, from late Wednesday evening until early Friday morning, in which hundreds of Israeli troops in dozens of armored vehicles and bulldozers invaded the city and the Balata refugee camp, taking over numerous buildings and homes, blocking entrances to hospitals and schools, taking over radio stations, and eventually demolishing three homes in the old city, Human Rights Workers (HRWs) inspected the old city, visiting sites of IOF-demolished homes.
Several houses in the old city were demolished using explosives. The residents of the homes were not given warning of the impending demolition, and in some cases were prevented from leaving the home. One resident, a Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) medic described climbing out the 2nd story window and hanging onto the ledge in order to escape the collapse of the floor resulting from the demolition of the adjoining house.
The father of a family whose home was demolished by explosives described how the IOF invaded the home around 5:30 pm on Thursday, collecting family members in one room and interrogating the sons on two occasions. The 2nd interrogation session took place in a bathroom, where the sons were badly beaten. Two young men of the family, ages 20 and 24, were arrested. The house was demolished shortly before midnight.
The neighboring house, sharing a wall with the demolished home, also lost a 1st story ceiling-2nd story-floor due to Israeli explosives. Additionally, the weight-bearing wall was badly damaged, further endangering inhabitants sharing this wall. The mother of the family explained they had only just finished re-building after the last invasion. She further explained that had her sons been standing a few meters further away, they would have been killed in the collapse of the floor.
**formerly a floor/ceiling
**serious structural damage to the weight-bearing wall.
In the Safadi home, 3 sons were arrested. The house was thoroughly trashed: Israeli soldiers burrowed into the kitchen floors in search of tunnels and weapons, and additionally ransacked the rooms of the home. While occupying the house, snipers were installed in windows strategically overlooking the alleys outside. The family was used as human shields while the IOF occupied the house.
The Asali household suffered similar injustices. IOF soldiers also dug into the floor, opening a well and exploding a shared-family storage room on the ground level. Soldiers occupied the home from 8 am Thursday until the IOF left Friday morning, again placing snipers in the windows. Upstairs rooms were completely ransacked. Six Palestinians were kept captive in the house, as human shields, during the entire time of occupying the home.
At 3 of Nablus’ hospitals —Al Watani, Rafidia, and Nablus Specialty Hospital—at least 2 Israeli military vehicles blocked entrances from Wednesday night until Friday morning, with soldiers preventing doctors, hospital staff and patients alike from entering, despite the urgency of doing so.
According to Al Watani hospital staff, the army shot at the hospital with machine guns on 5 different occasions. IOF additionally delayed delivery of critical supply trucks like those bringing oxygen, as well as those with supplies for dialysis machines—most patients cannot survive long periods without dialysis, and further prevented delivery of food.
*boring into walls for explosives, this new hole is a health risk, an invitation for rodent-infestation
The day after the army pulled out, we visited the home of one Nablus old city resident who was held captive in one room of her home, along with approximately 40 other family members and neighbours, from Wednesday evening until Friday morning. In another room upstairs, approximately 50 neighbours were held, and a further 15 were kept in yet another room of the house. All were held under similar conditions. During their captivity, residents were neither given food or water, nor were they permitted to use the toilet, instead having to hold themselves or urinate in the room in which they were kept captive. Numerous elderly, children, and one pregnant woman suffered greatly under these circumstances. One elderly man was unable to take his vital medicine for nearly two days as it needed to be taken with food. Both the elderly woman and man developed severely swollen legs from remaining seated for nearly two days, needing to be carried out of the room when finally released from captivity.
When relating the details of their captivity, the woman expressed her sorrow and frustration: “Why have they done this to us again? What have we done to them? We love everyone—Jews, westerners, everyone… That is what God taught us. Give us our freedom. But oppress us and you will lose this love.” She related how when one soldier had fallen down the stairs she involuntarily exclaimed: “Be careful!” The soldier, surprised by her concern and humanity, began to cry.
This same extraordinary woman greeted us with the broadest of smiles and loud “al Hamdillah” (praise be to God) replies when we said hello, further adding: “we have visitors from the PRC (Palestinian Red Crescent) and blessings from God today.” In the course of relating her story, she moved from this shining smile to raw, sobbing grief at she and her husband’s repeated suffering: “He has been beaten over the head and shocked on the genitals. He is but a shell of who he was,” she explained, citing previous invasions and interrogation. Yet upon leaving, this gracious woman sent us on our way with bananas and more smiles.
While occupying the home, soldiers urinated in the rooms as well as ransacked the house. Upon eventually leaving the home, one soldier tossed a hand grenade into the 2nd story window of the house still occupied by about 100 unarmed civilians, fortunately not resulting in any deaths but nonetheless adding to the damage done by the soldiers.
This house-occupation was not an isolated instance. Numerous homes in the old city were appropriated and occupied, residents crammed into small rooms together and held without food, water, or visits to the toilet.
The army was allegedly looking for “wanted men” (resistance fighters). The action of occupying homes and holding residents captive equates to using the civilians as human shields during the military invasion, a practice which is internationally recognized as illegal.
In one instance on Thursday evening, soldiers took captive a Palestinian Medical Relief (PRM) volunteer who had been part of a group escorting civilians to their old city homes. Initially detaining the medic by asking for his ID, the soldiers further detained him by keeping the ID. Soldiers took the medic into the home they were occupying, holding him inside for over 30 minutes before he reappeared blindfolded and handcuffed at the door of the building. He was then made to squat in front of the building for approximately another 20 to 30 minutes while soldiers changed shifts.
During this time, another volunteer and then myself attempted to secure the medic’s release, citing the soldiers’ violations of international law in arresting and using the volunteer medic as a human shield. Our inquiries and requests were met with refusals to release the medic and by the soldiers’ statements that they were not obligated to disclose the reasons for the medic’s detention. After numerous attempts to negotiate the medic’s release, HRWs had to leave the scene. It is unknown whether the PRM volunteer was harmed during his initial or later detention, though there is a high probability he was interrogated and beaten, as in other instances.
**Me attempting to negotiate medic’s release; daylight scene of captive Palestinian volunteer medic and occupied house.
The targeted arrest and detention of medics is common and is a form of collective punishment for these volunteers providing essential emergency services to wounded Palestinians. Volunteer medics typically are young Palestinian men, who the IOF routinely accuse of having involvement with militant groups. When not arrested, medics and ambulances are still routinely denied access to emergency areas, denying the wounded emergency attention, a tactic which can result in the deaths of the injured. On Friday morning, one paramedic, age 23, was shot in the shoulder while on duty.
During this latest invasion of Nablus, at least 60 reported cases occurred as a direct result of the IOF army presence and actions. A further 15 routine but serious medical cases required the attention of the PRC whose movement was greatly restricted by the presence of the IOF. Injuries resulting from rubber bullet wounds numbered 48 in the span of 16 hours—these were only the injuries which were reported to and attended by the PRC. Among these cases, one 23 year old man was shot 4 times in the back and once in the chest with rubber bullets. There were also two reported cases of injury by live bullets. It is worth mentioning that these were all cases which the PRC was alerted to and do not include the injuries unreported to the PRC.
Following a brief absence during the day on Friday, the occupying army re-entered the old city Friday evening and again Saturday evening, as happens on a regular basis in the Israeli military-surrounded city of Nablus.
[Journal thoughts]
Morning after the menace:
This morning, Nablus’ streets are empty, both of Nablusi and of army vehicles.
Post-invasion, I cannot imagine the damage that lies in the old city—at least 3 houses were demolished, 8 arrested, unknown wounded, and at least one killed.
[later] The streets are alive again, hours after the army pull-out. People are stocking up on supplies, just in case. Yet, remarkably, it is not an atmosphere of despair or overwhelming mourning, as one would expect. There is joking, kids playing, shops open with clothes and good dangling, waiting to be bought.
[later] Incredibly, the night after the latest curfew and latest havoc, there is a party in the area. Music and clapping overshadow the traffic, along with festive cheering.
Having seen the soldiers occupying corners, alleys, buildings, hospitals, and houses in and around the old city, having seen Palestinian Relief Medics been taken hostage, arrested for being volunteer medics, knowing that countless families will have had their homes invaded, guns pointed at their heads, abuse shouted and showered on them, I am again amazed at the blaring spirit Palestinians demonstrate in so many ways.
[later]
A call from someone on the edge of the old city reveals that the army has just now again invaded and is roaming the streets of the old city. No widespread curfew has yet been called, but it is not yet midnight; there’s still time.
[Saturday morning]
Back at the Cultural centre in Nablus, my spirits were lifted by the sounds and sights of mostly male youths practicing Dabka. Their enthusiasm is extraordinary. They danced, performing the traditional movements of Dabka and breaking out into incredible imitations of sexy women dancers. These are no pampered youths; they live in the Asgar refugee camp and know the value of their few possessions.
**back to life, between invasions
…One of the largest military invasions in recent months. At least 30 Palestinians have been kidnapped by the Israeli troops. The military force sealed off most of the city and surveyed the area with helicopters. The operation is still under way with troops currently breaking into private homes.
I have done some English work in Nablus, a city in northern West Bank which has long suffered under regular nightly invasions and kidnappings. People there were quite kind, not surprisingly, but have seen and suffered through a lot. From that work, I met some Nablusi and got to know some of their stories about living under occupation and under frequent curfew.
The second time in Nablus, I stayed one night with a friend in his relatives’ home on the edge of the old city. Army jeeps still go down their road often at night, as it is a bit wider than other roads. There are concrete blocks at the end, meant to delay jeeps. But those can easily enough be blasted away by the Israeli army.
His home is a typical old city house: thick stone walls, high multi-arched ceilings, and a rooftop space ideal for laundry, potted plants, picnics, enjoying the starscape… While his roof is used for laundry and plants, the latter two activities are virtually impossible: from either of the hilltops which surround Nablus, the Israeli military can see quite clearly such rooftops, meaning any nocturnal rooftop activity becomes suspicious and thus dangerous.
While “factional fighting” around West Bank has decreased significantly and ceased altogether in Gaza with the Hamas resurgence to power, with the Fateh government working on stabilizing West Bank, Israel has yet again found a sensitive time in which to invade and disrupt, cause chaos, obstruct approaches to calm. And with it, the inane comments like “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” that dreadfully inappropriate and over-used phrase which pretends to summarize the current situation and Palestinians problems in general. That expression which prefers to ignore the numerous factors leading up to and setting the stage for the current situation.
How can one seriously discuss the violence in Gaza and place the blame solely on those two warring factions who cannot cease their lust for power? Can any intelligent person honestly not consider the economic strangulation of over one year of an international boycott on Palestine–one which effects the civilian population severely, more than mere rhetoric about “sanctions against terrorist groups” alludes to? Or overlook the absence of control of their very own borders, and in turn lack of control over the import of basic necessities like food and medicine?
Despite the gross distortion of events related to Palestine in the international media, even reading local news outlets within Palestine frightens me when I learn of an Israeli invasion in Nablus or Jenin, or more settler violence in the Hebron area. Being away from the affected area leaves you wondering if the person you met, let alone Palestinians’ loved ones in other cities, are alive, detained, affected.
Often the day after sounds of shooting, I’ll read the answers to my questions: Israeli army invaded and killed a ‘wanted man’ or a ‘militant’, who may very well just be a young man belonging to one of the offshoot political parties, or may be a resistance fighter, fighting against the army which has again invaded his city, threatened his family, shot up his home… And considering that many I have met here have been imprisoned for baseless reasons, have lost loved ones to army invasions or targeting, I can see how many would choose to join a resistance group, not that I want to see any violence or deaths anywhere. But even those who are members of some political group are not necessarily fighting with guns, perhaps just supporting the political ideas. But because of that label X group, they can they be dubbed ‘militant’ or ‘member of X extremist group.’
The media can render things so impersonal, so inevitable and justified. Sure, X militant had to be killed because he was a militant and threatening the soldier. In reality, perhaps he was a butcher, a by-stander, caught in the soldiers’ fire at another ‘wanted man’—which was actually the case here a couple of weeks ago. Yet, Israeli press reported the dry, biased version.
Amazingly, after everything, after occupation and “internal fighting” and economic sanctions and stacked odds, there are still weddings and celebrations; fireworks and celebratory gunshots still ring out.
At a packed hangout in Ramallah weeks ago, a friend summarized his drive: “My friend was assassinated last week. I was sad, of course; he was my friend, we went to school together. But I can only be sad for two or three days, then, halas, enough, I have to go on, we have to go on.”
Yet their truly tragic and unjust plight has me depressed, repeatedly sad at the repeated inevitability of the tragedies and sorrows inflicted upon them.
The youths of Bil’in protest and resist the Occupying army the way that youths over Palestine have done since before the 1st Intifada: with stones. Yes, that stereotype of Palestinian children—and adults—throwing stones is alive and well. This is their resistance. They don’t have the weapons that their armed Occupiers do.
But as I watched them do their part to resist yet further encroachment of their already ravaged, dissected, divided, and controlled fragments of lands, I feel sorrow and admiration. Admiration at a spirit which will not be quelled, no matter how many times trodden upon, locked up, abused… It still brims, rings with the no-to-the-Wall chants, shines with the smiling invitations to tea, and is proud despite the turnstile checkpoints and ceaseless questions designed to dehumanize, demoralize and discourage. “Am I am man or an animal?” one man bantered, stuck in the Huwara checkpoint turnstile.
Checkpoint. Curfew. Security fence. Roadblock. Israeli Defense Forces. These terms all sound perfunctory, innocuous, standard and necessary. These terms all fail to accurately render the reality.
Checkpoint. Machsom in Hebrew. Although it may sound like a glorified toll both, a checkpoint is no simple place where IDs are verified and passage is okayed. Checkpoints are points of humiliation, undue waiting, aggression, racism, segregation, and the re-iterating of just who is in power. They are not about “ensuring Israelis’ safety” but are instead about ensuring Palestinians know who gives the orders and has the blind, deaf, and incredibly dumb international friends. Checkpoints are so notoriously terrible that Israeli human rights groups like Machsom Watch stake them out on a daily basis, reporting human rights violations and attempting to ensure that Palestinians can pass through, are not abused, and are not detained and/or arrested. It is an uphill battle, though the women are strong and conscientious warriors of justice.
Curfew. Sounds like what many western teenagers begrudgingly endure. It really entails a complete lockdown: no one on the streets, windows blacked out, and soldiers often taking over advantageously-located homes as security posts. Families in such incursions stay imprisoned inside for however long the ‘curfew’ is declared: a day, days, a week, weeks. Curfews are sudden, without advance warning, without, thus, time to stockpile food and necessities. Curfews disrupt work, study, religious practice, life. People on the streets when a curfew is imposed often find themselves sheltering in the nearest place, away from family. Food becomes scarce during the longer curfews, as transportation has ceased and store stocks are not maintained. Curfew.
Nablus is under curfew now.
**army jeep blocks road in Nablus. Civilians cannot pass to return home.
**vegetables, left as stall owners abruptly
returned home with the imposed curfew.
The last time I was in Nablus, I met with the resistance fighter I had met the previous time. Again, he invited me to coffee with his family. They are normal people. They’re not normal people, actually. Their home has been invaded more times than they can count, their children have had guns pointed at their heads, they have been verbally and physically abused, they have lost loved ones, friends, they never know when the next invasion will come.
But aside from that, they’re normal. The little girl has long hair, is sometimes shy sometimes proud. The young man, the resistance fighter, would like to go hiking, or travel, or sleep at night, or not have the army invade on a regular basis. The mother. She cooks and pushed food on guests like any mother. And doesn’t sleep at night, in between worrying about her son and unwillingly hosting the occupying forces in her home on a regular basis.
And I wonder about his, their, safety now that this new curfew has been imposed.
And I wonder about the safety of my young friend, an enthusiastic red crescent volunteer who served during the invasion in 2002, who has seen such loss and horrific bloodletting at the hands of the invading army and of senseless infighting alike. He overflows with energy, hopes, exuberance. He is volunteering today, and the army doesn’t cut the red crescent much slack.[**update: he was arrested while on duty, along with other members of his volunteer medic team. He was later released, without charges. This type of detention is a common tactic: both collective punishment for resisting–volunteering as a medic, even, is resistance–and a way to make like more hellish. The wounded are spared no delays.]
So that is a more personal view of Nablus, in case you read in international or Israeli media that X militants were killed in a Israeli army act of defense.
In Asgar refugee camp, youths enjoy international volunteers’
artistic efforts, games, lessons, company.
I am completely impressed by the people I have met here. I cannot internalize how a person can undergo such tragedies, such losses of loved ones, such daily humiliation, segregation, delays and annoyances, and still brim with life and humour and goodwill to a perfect stranger. The number of people who have insisted I sit down for a tea/coffee with them, a meal with them, who don’t know me have any other reason to except it is in their nature and tradition to be hospitable… it is astounding to me. I know it isn’t exclusively a Palestinian trait, but the fact that it happens and comes from a people under decades of occupation, suffering, and abuse…That is what is impressive.
Ramallah. I was initially quite surprised at how low-key and seemingly unstressed the Ramallah area is. People in the West Bank city still face those daily grievances of checkpoints and some kidnappings, and the wall eating their lands and dividing everything it should not. But they don’t face the intense violence of Gaza (from within and from Israeli Occupation Forces’ attacks), nor the nightly raids of Nablus or Hebron. I am glad, for Ramallahians, that they don’t now have these severe problems… but at the same time, it is surreal to know I am in Palestine, in this small land, and am in a relatively safe area, compared to the hell of Gaza and the raids of Nablus and northern areas.
In Nablus, I was surprised that people can get on with their daily lives and put the nightly incursions aside. They must, so they told me. But what strength and perseverance. My kind university-appointed guide, a young man of 22, made every effort to show me the beauties of his city, including architecture, cultural interests, foods…
Courtyard of a private home. Walking past, I caught a glimpse of the windows, the weathered walls, the light. The older woman who lives here received my prying eyes without hostility, with a genuine welcome instead.
coffee bean roaster
old-time fridge. hand mill.
But he also informed me of the problems they’ve suffered from under occupation, particularly from 2000-2003. He is a Red Crescent medic, and has seen so much blood and so many deaths. Yet he is more optimistic, cheerful and radiant than I can ever be. Astounding.
While I’m thoroughly impressed by the people I’ve met here, I’m also thoroughly depressed by the deaths and chaos in Gaza, the result of their having been strangled economically, culturally, physically, and emotionally, for so long. I was in such pain when I first read that Israel had begun airstrikes on Gaza weeks ago. It was a horrifying moment. It is still horrifying, and I hate the feeling of inevitability that the media tries to instill in us with the repeated rhetoric that Israel doesn’t want to get involved in Gaza’s problems but has to defend itself. Bullshit. I also hate the feeling of uselessness and of being in a safe place while my friend in Rafah describes the bombs which are raining down. It is absurd and surreal.
Interestingly, even being here in the West Bank I feel clueless and useless, particularly given Gaza has been so hard hit. When I talk with my Rafah-based friend on the phone, I usually feel utterly inept. Oddly, it is he who often re-directs the conversation from morbid thoughts to diversions on language or reminiscences of his encounters. When talking with him, I feel like my life has been so good, virtually problem-free, and that any efforts to empathize might either seem trite or naive. I’ve even prefaced our calls with that warning.
The strange thing in this situation is that where I am now is relatively calm. In fact, Ramallah is one of the more liberal and westernized Palestinian areas: people dress and behave with more freedom. When I was first in Nablus a few weeks ago, though, that appointed guide and escort (a young university student with the amazingly optimistic personality) would not let me out of his sight (nor would he let me pay for anything). He is an open guy and was visably crushed when our plans to bike to a mountain lookout were quashed because his neighbour said it wasn’t good for a woman to be bicycling, particularly not alone with a man. But traditional beliefs aside, people were very welcoming there, and very giving, though it has been one of the harder hit areas in the West Bank.
site of demolished family home.
life-sized baby doll was not spared.
Cramped kitchen space where the Aunt and Uncle have been repeatedly caged in while IOF soldiers occupy strategic window positions overlooking a public space below; a vantage point for shooting at resistance fighters.
Nablus rooves
[Handala]
oPt 