IOF enter Balata Refugee Camp 3:30am with heavy machine guns and shells on main street

International Solidarity Movement
[Nablus] 27th November 2002
1.IOF enter Balata Refugee Camp 3:30am with heavy
machine guns and shells on main street.

2.Collective Punishment As Usual For Curfew Resisters
Of Nablus.

1. At 3:30am this morning, 27th November, a tank and IOF
footsoldiers entered Balata refugee camp firing M16s,
heavy machine guns, and shells, down the main street.
The tank stopped just outside the house where ISM
activists were sleeping for thirty minutes, shaking
the building with the frightening and sleep depriving
sound of the guns and shells. In the morning residents
of the street surveyed the new damage to walls, doors,
and electricity poles, and continued their normal
daily business. No one was reported hurt.

2. Today, 27th November, in the usual checkpoint area
between Aman Street and Jerusalem Street, Israeli
Occupying Forces spent all of the morning detaining
people in the sun. At one point they fired live
ammunition at schoolboys who showed their defiance by
congregating close to an army jeep and throwing paint
at it.

A headmaster and his schoolteachers that I spoke to
told me that the exams set for their students in two
weeks would most likely be failed by all of them since
they had only been able to teach one of the ten units
of the course. This was due to the unpredictable
curfews, the constant disruption and instability
caused by the Israeli occupation.

As many as 50 men and women had their ID cards taken
away for 'five minutes'which stretched out to five
hours.

When the soldiers refused to speak to me I called
every Israeli Army Office number I had. I was told by
one that since the people were breaking curfew they
had to be punished, and it was better to punish them
this way than shoot them. When I asked why there was a
curfew, he said they were protecting Israel. If he
wanted to protect Israel why didn't he go back there I
asked. This is Israel he said. We were here three
thousand years ago. But what about the people before
the you, I asked, what about say four thousand years
ago. The world had not yet been created then, he said.
Read the bible.At which point it was time to preserve
the units on my phone card

A line of thirteen men of all ages including a doctor
and an ambulance driver were lined up, face to the
wall for four hours desribed by the soldier as suspect
terrorists. We spoke to the detained men and one said
he needed medication. The soldiers dismissed the claim
saying that if he 'really' needed medication then he
would think about it again later. The soldier got
angry with me in particular, saying I made him
nervous.
This is a Closed Military Zone, he said, go away, but
he would not confirm if this was just where we were
standing or included the whole planet.

Soon afterwards he pushed,the face of one of the men
who had turned to look behind him,up against the wall.
I didn't want to anger him any more while these people
were being held with him in charge. I backed off to a
place where I could watch.

Another commander played humiliating games from his
gun turret with crowds of schoolgirls returning along
Aman Street to their homes around 1pm. He repeatedly
let them pass, then stopped them again.

One detained man had his sweatshirt taken off his back
because it had a Hebrew insignia on it, and therefore
'must have been stolen.'The soldiers were very excited
by the shirt. It seemed to be evidence enough for them
that terrorists were everywhere.
The army eventually left Aman Street leaving at least
four men without ID cards for the whole day.

ceri 067572952

cerigibbons@yahoo.com

END.