Following an ambulance in the monster's hearth.
We woke up late, after a night spent yelling at the telco which gives conncetivity to the Alternative Information Center.
One of their machines went down and we are without connection. The jow that me and R. are here to do needs a connection to download files needed to install arab language on a laptop, to import some audio from a minidisc, and sound edit to work on the stuff we imported.
At eleven a.m. we move toward Beit Jala hospita, from here a should leave am internationals delegation along with a Red Crescent ambulance to bring some food, water and medicines to the sieged in the Nativity Church.
There are some twenty to thirthy internationals, the last remained in Bethlemm area, and about (if not more) representatives of the official media.
We move slowly on a path of about 2 miles that should drive us to Manger Square. The internationa before and around the ambulance, with Red Cross' flags, signs wich show Geneva Convention.
We move in a silent and desert Bethlemm. The dusty wind sweeps the street and the air is broken a couple times by a rifle gun firing in to the air. The sun warms us and make us sleepy, if thing wheren't so thense. It looks like we are in a unhinabited town, abandoned.Some 50 meters behind the ambulance the journalists, photographers, cameramen. Well distanced from those mad ones who move toward the hearth of israeli operation in this area.
R. and K. squable with official media, the operators when asked to walk closer to the group scornfully answer "they already fired at us", like that didn't happened to us too, and without bullet proof jacket and helmet.
We go ahead.
We arrive at about 100 or 200 meters from the occupied square. In front of us some dozens of tanks and APC, and a couple patrols. The tank in front of us moves the cannon aiming at the ambulance and the delegation. A close shot looks imminent, to try to definitively persuade us of how hard is to joke.
The a six men patrol come closer and stop at some dozens meters from us, with their rifles aimed at us, despite commander's orders. From close roofs snipers shout at us "Hellouuu" e whistle to make us feel their could-be bullets weight.
S. the group negotiator, get closer to the patrol, after having yelled the permission to do that.
He asks if it's possible to bring food and medicines to wounded people in the church. "Are ther wounded people?" asks the patrol commander. Yes, he answers, can we?. No, we are giving them both food and medicines already. Have we got to leave? Yes. Can we go without being menaced? Yes. All the answers are arriving after some minutes after questioning the operation commander. I want you to know that ther are wounded people and that the israeli army is breaking Geneva International Conventions. Yes, thanks.A bulldozer that was closing the street we arrived from moves.
Tension is very high.
We have more qestions to ask.
S. goes back to the patrol commander.
Can some of us go inside and check that everything is really as you said? I mean, that food and water are supplied to wounded people? The patrol commander not even asks his superior. He sharply answers "No, and we are asking to leave the church".
We leave slowly, giving the food we brought with us to some families along the street.
The sky gets cloudy and it starts raining.We hear far away a voice coming from a loud speaker saying "If you come out in peace no one will threat you".
More lies.
And the tanks that we meet on our path and that move back to let us arrive at the hospital won't clear the feeling that the words "we are supllying" are only a bad joke.
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