Fii shahid (There is a martyr)"; the morning conversation in the taxi to the checkpoint is brief and unambiguous

And Another One Died.

International Solidarity Movement
[Nablus] November 27th, 2002

Fii shahid (There is a martyr)"; the morning conversation in the taxi
to the checkpoint is brief and unambiguous. I finally wake
completely at Amman street checkpoint to a tank and apc; soldiers who
yell aggressively at the Internationals and literally run after young
girls in uniform who are fighting for nothing more than their right
to education. This is a typical morning. I wonder why the have no
shame as they chase the girls away and why they feel so threatened by
these 14 and 15 year-olds.

A martyr is anyone who dies due to the Israeli Occupation. Age, sex,
and manner of death are irrelevant. A martyr is someone who dies for
a cause, and the cause in Palestine is freedom. Frequently
associated with religion in the Western world, a martyr in Palestine
can even be an atheist. Yesterday, everyone spoke of the 8 year-
old "shahid"---martyr—a child who lost his life to the M-16's, apcs,
jeeps, and tanks of this brutal military occupation that the world is
blind to. "This would be an outrage in the Western world; no one is
even talking about him," one Palestinian said on the radio last
night. Yes, it would be, I think as I silently search for one good
reason for an 8 year-old to die. Then I think of the pregnant woman
in Beit Sahour today who was forced to wait at a checkpoint just long
enough to lose her baby girl. Another shahid that wasn't even yet
born.

And today's shahid. It is Ramadan, a month of fasting, and the
morning is rung in by "he who helps the people wake and eat"; a man
who circulates chanting phrases from the Koran and playing drums to
let all the people know that it is time to eat before dawn. This
morning, as this young 24 year-old man was walking through New Askar
refugee camp, the IOF shot him in the side, the leg and the head. 3
shots and then they left him to bleed to death for over 2 hours while
they maintained an intense presence in the area, driving around
announcing curfew, as if the people didn't know. The IOF thus
prevented any ambulance, or any person from getting to this man's
body and let him die a slow, agonizing death in the street, and they
knew it.


"I want to add something" a strong Palestinian woman tells me: "They
didn't kill him, they killed his children; they killed the honest way
that he is making a living." For the men who do this work, who wake
the people during this sacred month, are often the poorest. They get
a few shekels from all the people at the end of the month. I stop to
think about what his children will do and how many little hearts
broke last night. Another Palestinian died; another cry that goes
unheard in the silent night in an unjust world. When will the world
say 'enough'? How many have to die?

Hussain: +972-59355404
Susan : +972-59877091
Saif : +972-59335271 / +972-67328536