1-ISM report from Raffia-Gaza 2-ISM report from Nablus 3- Swept Clean -Annie C. Higgins- Jenin 4- Azmot Check point Direct action-Nablus 5-Swedes call for boycott of Israeli goods 6- A Letter to Bush from the Mother of a Slain Palestinian from Jenin

1-ISM report
from Raffia-Gaza

Although smaller in numbers, we have been continuing our presence in
Raffia via tents, pitched on the front line of the boarder patrol where
Israeli tanks drive up and down all day and night shooting, both sniper
style and blanket fire into houses. The tents allow us to place
ourselves between the people and the tanks, and also give us a visible
and clear vantage point from which we can obsearve the continuing
violence.

At 10:30am today, An Israeli sniper shot a small boy in the head from a
boarder patrol tower called Zorob. The boy was playing football in a
feild where children normally congregate. The shooting was completely
unprovoked, and is a good example of the rampant Israeli terroism that
Raffia has been subject to, especially since construction began nf a 20
meter steal wall to separate Raffia from Egypt. Thankfully, the boy
survived and is now in stable condition.

At around 1pm, we were in the midst of planning a demonstration at Zorob
to oppose the murder of children, when we heard that shots we'd heard
minutes ealier had killed a man in Block O, one of Raffia's many refugee
camps. It was a targeted sniper shooting of a man Israel believed to be
involved in Isamic Jihad. We immediately went there to demonstrate, and
moved our Zorob demonstration to tomarow. We held banners and shouted at
the tower responsible for the killing (Israeli soldiers shot our
megaphone a few weeks ago). It was a powerful image for the media to
document, and good for the Palestinian people to see that someone is
speaking up for their rights. It was also good for the soldiers, high in
their armored tower, to see that they are being watched, and know that
they will not carry out this violent oppression without resistance.

We are down to 3 people here now, and it's one of the hardest hit areas
in Palestine. The more people we have, the more tents we can pitch, the
less blanket fire is possible, and the more innocent lives could be
saved. We hope that the world has not forgotten about Raffia.
=============================================================2-ISM report
from Nablus

So what has been happening in Nablus? A lot, but at the same time nothing
as dramatic as the situation seemed in Rafah. Since the summer the
Israeli hold on the area has tightened, but at the same time the will of
the people to resist has strengthened. Everywhere local people seem to
be thinking of creative ways to resist the occupation.

The situation for the villages of Asmut, Salim and Deir Yatab has
worsened so incredibly since the summer. I'm doing early checkpoint
watch, and I seem to be spending most of my time there, in the villages
and with the less lovely soldiers. Salim especially, is one of the most
beautiful places I have ever seen. Its high up, surrounded by mountains
covered in olive trees. The soil is incredibly rich and the fields are
full. The only problems are the settlements nearby; thus the ditch that
has been dug around the three villages, the settler road and the
incursions by the jeeps and tanks.

This morning we arrived at the roadblock/ checkpoint/ muddy mounds that
constitute a break in the ditch and sewage/ chemical waste pumped into
the rivers and fields to find that the soldiers had nobody to check.
Everyone was going around the checkpoint. So the soldiers went across
the mud to the dirt and stopped all the traffic and took the car keys
and IDs. When I asked them to give them back they laughed, told me to say
they would be back in 15 minutes, welcomed me to Israel, swore in Hebrew
and drove off. A slightly better group came back an hour later, but with
the line that no students or teachers were allowed to pass today.
Because it was Shabat. On the Jewish holiday no Palestinians can go to
school, apparently.

Further up the road a jeep of military police were blocking the road
people had to cross if they took the way around the checkpoint.
Unsuprisingly most of the hundred or so people sheltering form the rain
under the olive trees were carrying books and were young. I talked to
some girls, they asked how old I was, 19, the same as us, they said.
They were trying to go to university. On both occasions this morning the
pretence that this was about "security" was not even kept up, as the
army detained people and then drove off, allowing everyone who still had
their ID to pass anyway.

But still the resistance of the people is amazing. One of the girls I was
talking to this morning stayed at the checkpoint an hour and a half
after she was told she coiuld not go to university. The soldier came and
told her to go home, she wants to stay I told him. Well she should wait
over there at least, he said, gesturing some twenty feet away. What if I
don't? she asked looking up at him, and he didn't have an answer.

Last night they blocked Arman street, Nablus is now split in two again.
The army established a checkpoint today, but crowds of stone throwing
shebab (youth) drove them away. The army shot a lot, but noone was
injured (that we saw).

Yesterday in Masakon Shabia we opened a road that had been closed for six
months. Old men, young men and women and girls helped dig. Someone from
the community got a bulldozer, at great risk to the driver because it is
so close to the occupied house. The community want the internationals to
come back and help them do more actions against the restrictions in the
area.

The cost of the occupation will be much greater if it is constantly
challenged as a part of everyday life. If every road is opened, again
and again, so the army cannot just block every road it feels like
without doing it again and again. If people keep their dignity at
checkpoints and refuse to follow soldiers arbritary orders which have no
authority. For this to be even the slightest bit safe internationals
have to be in Palestine, and not just in Nablus but in the other, more
neglected areas, where the people are not yet as trusting and welcoming.
============================================================3- Swept
Clean -Annie C. Higgins- Jenin 18 January 2003

The idea of Sharon with broom in hand is comical enough, but the
suggestion that he sweep the rooms of the Islamic Center that his
soldiers left in shambles made me laugh. My friend, who conducts
Qur'anic study sessions, always manages to find humor in the midst of
the bleakest conditions. Her laughter itself is a resistance against the
gravity of oppression. The Center's rooms have chairs, a cabinet with
copies of the Qur'an, and floors full of dust. The Army appropriated the
computers that had been donated for the advancement of the Refugee Camp
community. Still the ladies come to learn, to consider new ideas,
compare interpretations, and especially to address issues relating to
martyrdom, remarriage of young widows, visiting graves, handling grief,
and pondering heaven. I take my turn with an infant who is energetically
doing calisthenics on my lap, and I comment on his strength. "That's
because he is from the Camp," beams his mother, articulating the
resiliency of Camp identity.

At home, the Qur'an teacher laughs as a sock attacks us when a coil of
wire it is caught in springs out of reach. "Sharon doesn't want us to go
visiting on the holiday/eid; he just wants us to work at home." Later,
neighbors chide me for not visiting during the three-day holiday of Eid
al-Fitr, but how could I abandon my friend whose house was raided as
soldiers searched for a "wanted" family member? Instead of holiday
baking, we face oil in the salt and sugar, and the pantry's many
treasures mixed with pots, pans, lamps and implements. The kitchen is
picture-perfect compared with the bedrooms knee deep in clothes,
clothespins, dismembered notebook pages, shoes, jewelry, framed
pictures, manicure sets, and artificial flowers all swirled together in
heaps. We concentrate on the kitchen, with her daughter Maryam expelling
us to do the final clean sweep, swooshing plenty of water with a
fan-shaped hand-held broom.

Sweeping is part of the rhythm of home life. After a meal you gather the
fragments of bread, just as Jesus' disciples did following the
post-sermon meal on the hillside, and then you sweep up the crumbs. Dry
sweeping, wet sweeping, inside sweeping, outside sweeping seem almost
like reflexes, and assure a constant orderliness in the home and on the
street. The Israeli soldiers are acquainted with the manners and methods
of the people whose lands they occupy. The incredible messes they so
frequently produce, for no security reason, seem to be a physical and
spiritual attack on hearth and home.

But sometimes they too fall into the rhythm of local order and
orderliness. A family in Jenin city tells that when soldiers left a
building they had been occupying, they disposed of their garbage and
then swept all of the apartments in the building. During that period, one
of the homeowners had passed by an alley after the evening/maghrib call
to prayer, and saw an Ethiopian soldier in uniform clearing the ground
to pray. He confided to the local Jenin resident, "Shhh, I am Muslim.
Don't tell."

One day on an ambulance mission, we yield as a house-toppling Caterpillar
bulldozer passes through the Saha area near the Camp's entrance. It is
escorted by a tank in front, and an armored personnel carrier behind.
The flat top of the last vehicle is littered with stones, with an empty
cola bottle where you would expect a headlight. And there, tucked into a
crevice on top, is a handle-less broom. To clean up after the
destruction? This little reminder of home economics looks so foreign in
the heaving parade of metallic hardware, and so innocent with its blue,
yellow, and red fringes. It is quickly lost in the black smoke spewed out
to mask the vehicle and cause confusion.

Another day brings more tanks on a street nearby. Amidst the detritus the
tank has sucked into the street is a broom which has become part of the
clutter it might clear away. I restore its mission, walking toward the
tank and sweeping the street with ritual, rather than practical,
motions. This has little effect on the rubble in the steet, but delights
the children who cheer this gentle defiance of the tank's bullying. I
hope that the tank's soldiers will not burst a bullet hole in my bubble
of whimsy, but there is no guarantee of their sense of humor. Very soon
the boys, who have been fearlessly lobbing stones and trash at the
tanks, call me back with uncharacteristic urgency. They report excitedly
that an international friend has been wounded. I think they are joking
but they insist that some of the boys carried her to safety on a
home-made stretcher. She was getting a few small children off a street
when a tank sniper shot her. A local journalist confirms the news, and
we find her in the Emergency Room at the hospital. Minutes later,
another foreigner is wheeled in, and we learn that UNRWA's Jenin Refugee
Camp director, Iain Hook, has been killed.

The escalation of violence calls for heightened security measures, so I
go back into the street where tanks are facing off with children, and
walk toward the lead tank. The hatch is open, and I call out to the
soldier, "Don't shoot! They are children!" Am I expecting him to read my
lips? The noise of the tank is deafening, and behind it a mega-machine
is idling with a bass roar. It is the first time I have encountered a
monster-size tank. The soldier in the hatch waves me aside, but I remain
like a fly on the windshield. The monsters lurch forward and I take a few
steps back, still facing them, then pick up my pace, jogging backward.
With both tanks coming toward me in high gear, I take refuge against the
wall of a house. I realize it was a poor strategy to come close to the
tanks and leave the children behind. The tanks brush by, churning up
more mud in a dirty sweep.

Clean sweeps and holiness are related in Semitic tongues. In Arabic, a
church is called "kanisa/swept place," just as a Jewish holy place is
called in Hebrew, "bayt kaneset." The same word is found, with modified
transliteration, in the familiar name for the Israeli Parliament, the
Knesset.

The morning prayer on the Eid al-Fitr holiday closing the month of
Ramadan was held on the barren ground of the former Hawashin
neighborhood, alarmingly obliterated in the April invasion. When I heard
of the prayer plans, I realized that the boys I had seen collecting
stones were not resupplying their munitions, but making a clean-swept
place for this holy day.

The image of Sharon sweeping an Islamic center in a Refugee Camp is
still comical. But elections are coming up. Perhaps the Knesset could
use sweeping.
================================================================4- Azmot
Check point Direct action-Nablus, Friday, january 17

Today, ten activists with the International Solidarity Movement in Nablus
(Occupied Palestine) traveled to the Azmut checkpiont to protest the
occupation and the collective punishment of palestinians using this
checkpoint on a daily basis. ISM volunteers from Sweden, England and
Paletine, IL (U.S.) poured blood on the israeli APC. They also dyed water
red to sombolize palestinian blood shed during the occupation.
Yesterday, a local man was hospitalized due to a beating by IOF (Israeli
Occupation Forces) at this checkpoint. Shortly after the protest, IOF
soldiers withdrew from the checkpoint after they were unsuccesful in
their attempt to arrest the woman that threw blood on the APC. Local
media were ordered not to record the demonstration.
Photos of the action:
http://www.leenus.com/palestina/demo_at_checkpoint.jpg
http://www.leenus.com/palestina/stoppa_terrorn.jpg
http://www.leenus.com/palestina/coloring_water.jpg
=================================================================5-Swedes
call for boycott of Israeli goods

By The Associated Press. Published in Haaritz (Jan. 18)

An archbishop, an ambassador and the leader of an ex-communist party were
among 73 Swedes calling for a boycott on Israeli goods from occupied
Palestinian territories Saturday. "To buy and trade with Israeli goods
from occupied territories is to actively support the illegal Israeli
occupation," said the authors of an opinion article in newspaper Dagens
Nyheter.

The article was signed by Karl Gustav Hammar, archbishop of the Lutheran
Church of Sweden; Carl Tham, Sweden's ambassador to Berlin; Left Party
leader Gudrun Schyman and dozens of journalists, writers, economists and
politicians. The article also called for a UN peacekeeping force in the
Middle East and urged the 15-member European Union to withdraw from a
trade treaty with Israel. "Israel has consciously destroyed the
Palestinian authority's infrastructure and undermined the autonomy on
the West Bank," the authors said.
=================================================================6- A
Letter to Bush from the Mother of a Slain Palestinian from Jenin

"I have a son named `Amid `Azmi Ratib Abu Hasan, aged exactly nineteen
years and seven months to the day at his death .."

By Raida Rafiq Abu Hasan

To the Honorable President George Bush President of the United States of
America.

We hope that you can give us a little of your valuable time so we may
clarify for you how we are suffering from Israels persecution and
oppression, and from the systematic terror and state terrorism they are
carrying out. We hope that you will give this letter the attention it
deserves, and take note of the complete facts herein.

Mr. President, I am a teacher at a United Nations Relief Works Agency
(UNRWA) school. I have a son named `Amid `Azmi Ratib Abu Hasan, aged
exactly nineteen years and seven months to the day at his death. He left
our house to join his friends on April 10, 2002 after the invasion of the
city of Jenin and Jenin Refugee Camp. Our house is in the city about a
mile from the Refugee Camp.

We were startled when an Apache helicopter pummeled our home for more
than five minutes with heavy machine gun fire. When the shelling
stopped, it became clear that my son and his companion had been killed,
and another child was critically wounded, as was an adult.

My family and I would like to clarify the following points for you:

1. The neighborhood where we live had not been the site of any militia
activity or a single armed individual. 2. My sons execution, and that of
his companion, was in cold blood. Their execution was by means of
helicopters in a place where the Israeli Army could have easily arrested
them if it felt they were suspicious. 3. Is execution the appropriate
punishment for going outside when the Army forbids movement by means of
one of its "curfews?"
4. The Army prevented ambulances from approaching and transporting the
wounded. 5. In your opinion, is my son, the one who had no weapons, the
terrorist? Or are the Israeli Army and their leaders the terrorists?

Mr. President, human rights organizations have documented this event and
can arrive at the true facts. We are prepared to send additional
information if you would like to know the truth. I hope that the
investigation into this subject will be complete, and that the killers
sentence will be a just punishment.

With the highest respect,
The mother of the martyr `Amid `Azmi Ratib Abu Hasan
Mrs. Raida Rafiq Abu Hasan,
Teacher, Jenin Primary School for Girls, Burqin Street -
Jenin, Palestine