Reports From Palestine
Rapprochement Media Centre
January 25, 2003
1-The soldiers do not like it when we laugh...hahaha -
Nablus - Palestine 2-Rafah Incursion: 3 Houses
Demolished, 2 Wounded and Electricity Cut – ISM to
Protest Incursion by Dismantling Roadblock
3-Encounters with Children - Nablus - Palestine
4- Articles worth looking at ( Ghassan Andoni )
1-The soldiers do not like it when we laugh...hahaha This is now the fourth day of 24-hour curfew in Nablus - a situation which is expected to continue at least until the elections next week. Curfew means that no one is allowed onto the streets, except possibly people travelling in emergency vehicles such as ambulances. According to a legally knowledgeable Red Cross employee, the occupation force is only allowed to use tear gas to enforce curfew but, as with most IOF operations in Palestine, international law is not abided by. Soldiers and military police regularly shoot live and rubber ammunition at children and adults attempting to make their way to school, to buy bread, to the doctor... These people are seen as potential terrorists, thereby becoming legitimate targets. At noon three days ago, the IOF blocked off Amman Street, one of two roads linking Nablus City to Askar and Balata refugee camps, as well as to villages and exit routes to Jerusalem, Jericho, Jenin etc. The second road, Jerusalem Street, is once again unusable since the army put up two even bigger roadblocks than the ones courageous Nablusians removed two weeks ago. As people in general were unprepared for this sudden military initiative, the road was jammed full of cars and trucks, obstructing the path of ambulances and attracting lots of stone-throwing shebab. After being chased around by hummers and jeeps for a while on Jerusalem Street, occasionally seeking refuge behind the ruins of what was once the Palestinian Authority building , the boys moved up nearer the improvised checkpoint, crouching behind parked cars and belting rocks and bottles at unwitting soldiers, most of them unusually old for Nablus. They of course, in their hard helmets and protective vests, felt extremely threatened by this onslaught of pebbles and proceeded to shoot rubber bullets at the children, later switching to firing live ammunition in the air as night began to fall. The people in the cars, trapped in the crossfire, started to panic and beep their horns. I asked the very macho colonel ("Captain?! I was captain ten years ago!") why he was wasting his time shooting at children when there were peaceful people waiting for his permission to go home. He told me that he had been given orders to stay at the checkpoint for a certain number of hours and hence there was no great hurry. Further prying was dismissed by a haughty "You want me to tell you all the secrets of the IDF? One day, when there is peace, I will tell you why we are here today." I can't wait... Anyway, he eventually returned to his original post at the checkpoint. Yet, instead of quickly letting people past the jeeps and confiscated trucks parked across the road, he started the long process of checking the ID:s of each driver and passenger! This with a rain (or at least a drizzle) of stones still descending upon them and soldiers sporadically shooting in random directions in a futile attempt to put a stop to it. Some people, having waited in their cars for about six hours, decided to take the matter into their own hands - I saw at least four cars rev their engines and whiz past the preoccupied (praise Allah for an incompetent army) soldiers. As the mass of cars started to diminish, the shebab retreated and left were at last only ten Palestinian men aged between 16 and 35 ( a crime not treated lightly by the IOF), a jeep and a hummer. The colonel in the hummer claimed to be checking the men's ID:s. The checking of identification cards is another army mystery. At times it takes about one minute, a glance, a wave of the hand. At other times, it takes several days and needs the expertise of the DCO, located at the not-so-easily-accessible-if-you-are-Palestinian Huwarra military base. A soldier once told me that the check must go through an inefficient number of four people and that the computers often break down, another that the exact procedure is classified information. On this particular evening, the checking took about two hours and was accompanied by the habitual power games, such as pretending to drive away with the oh-so-vital papers only to return twenty minutes later and refusing to hand the ID:s to the men if they did not line up in a, to the colonel, pleasing way. So, this was the beginning of what many fear will be another long period of curfew, a taste of the humiliation and destruction that is to come. Just as the Nablusians were almost starting to allow themselves to enjoy the relative freedom that is going to school (although scarred by tanks) and earning a living, these basic rights are once again snatched away from them. Treated as impostors, living as refugees in their own land, they must once more summon up the strength to face an insidious oppression. That impossible strength that over and over again keeps these malnourished bodies and tired minds from collapsing, seeming to spring from the conviction that they are in the right and that the world must one day bring itself to see and act upon what it sees. Until then, Nablusians are excepted to comply to every new decree issued by the occupying force, even when poorly communicated..."Is there curfew today?" one will soon find out if venturing out onto the street. Either by being shot at or detained by patrolling jeeps (often decorated with bright splashes of paint dealt out by artistic shebab), by being denied passage at an improvised checkpoint dividing the city, or by not being unable to buy bread in the now closed-up cornerstore. "Curfew...it is a call from God it seems!"...exclaims one exasperated man, still laughing after three hours of waiting for his ID. And so it does seem. You are either summoned or you are not. Appeals to human rights organisations are largely futile..."There is nothing we can do. They know there is curfew and should not be out on the street."Hmm, I wonder if she has ever lived under curfew for months at a time. The people of Nablus sure have. And they are resisting, albeit at times only by laughing. You see... "The soldiers do not like it when we laugh...hahaha..." ============================================================================= 2-Rafah Incursion: 3 Houses Demolished, 2 Wounded and Electricity Cut – ISM to Protest Incursion by Dismantling Roadblock
At 10.30 last night Israeli tanks entered the Brazil District of Rafah without warning to destroy 3 houses using explosives and bulldozers. Two members of the Palestinian resistance were wounded resisting this incursion and several houses and shops damaged by the explosions and machine gun fire. Six families have been left homeless as a result of the demolitions, their possessions destroyed with their houses.
The Occupying Army has also cut off electricity to Rafah since the time of the incursion.
The homes were destroyed to create a buffer zone of between 70 and 100 metres between Rafah and the "Security Fence" being constructed along the Egyptian border. 600 homes in Rafah have been destroyed in the creation of the buffer zone.
To protest the ongoing dispossession and terrorism against the people of Rafah the six members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) based in Rafah will attempt to dismantle the military roadblock on Saleh de-Deen Road (the Western Road) between Rafah and Khan Yunis.
The Moraj area, through which the road passes contains an outgrowth of the Gush Katif Settlement (one of the largest in the Occupied Territories) and is where the Israeli Army bases a large portion of the tanks and bulldozers that they use for military incursions and demolitions throughout the cities and refuges camps of the Gaza Strip.
The army has declared the Moraj Area a closed military zone, cutting communications between Rafah and the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis and forcing ambulances to take a circuitous eastern route which extends the journey from 7 minutes to up to half an hour.
The activists of the ISM have chosen the road block as the target for their protest because it represents an outrage of the Geneva Convention, United Nations Resolutions 194 and 242 and the human rights of the indigenous Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip.
The nationalities of the ISM volunteers taken part in the protest are as follows;
2 British, 1 Irish , 1 Swedish , 1 Italian , and 1 American.. For further information contact Olivier on 067 852 036 or 055 874 693 ============================================================================= 3-Encounters with Children:
On Sunday (19/01) the IOF staged an incursion into Nablus. Many tanks, APCs and Jeeps entered the city, and throughout the afternoon they maintained a highly visible presennce at points throughout the city. For a while I watched them re-establish a checkpoint on Amman Street, a site near the Muqatta, where I spent a lot of time on my last visit.
A couple of us then set off to meet an International at the Al-Najar University, which was being evacuated. We wondered into the city, where there reports of scuffles between soldiers and stone throwing children at various points. We came across one such group at the Western end of the city. Soldiers and an APC were located at the bottom of a hill, where they had detained a man and his car. A group of children were further up the hill, rolling tyres down the hill at the soldiers.
Occassionally they would throw a stone, but were too far away to get anywhere near their target. An ambulance arrived and asked us to accompany them to retrieve an injured person from a flat. We ran down an alley with the crew, followed by a second ambulance. In a first floor flat we found a young man who had been shot in the back, with a plastic bullet, he was screaming in pain and seemed unable to move. One of the ambulance crew carried him down the stairs in a firemans lift, and the ambulance roared off. The other ambulance set off to attend a reported shooting near the University. Shortly afterwards the soldiers released the driver they were holding and sped off in their APC. Their presence there appeared arbitrary and pointless.
The three of us began walking back towards town, passing a taxi that had been shelled by a tank, and which had no occupants. At pooints there was a strong smell of tear gas. As we neared Amman Street, we saw a Hammer Jeep speed up to an adolescent boy, who was standing alone on the side of the road. In a split second two soldiers jumped out, grabbed hold of him and bundled him into the back of the vehicle. The Jeep then sped off. When we got to the checkpoint, we saw the same vehicle parked next to a second jeep. The doors opened and the boy, now with a hood over his head and his hands tied behind his back was transferred to the second vehicle, receiving a hefty kick from a soldier in the process. I grabbed my camera and took a quick shot before he was in the second jeep, which then sped off.
We then received a call saying that there was an International alone with three groups of kids, an APC and a tank further down the hill. We rushed down there and saw kids throwing stones and soldiers retaliating with guns. A convoy of jeeps passed and stones rained down on them. The last jeep stopped and a soldier fired out the back door. It was clear that no soldier in any of the heavily armoured jeeps was at any risk whatsoever. A small child of about 11 was hit in the back, and I have a photo of that injury as well, another tow older boys were also injured, all with plastic bulletts. No soldiers received any injuries, neither were they at any risk of doing so.
Our group of Internationals moved further back, away from the tank and APC and the kids began to cluster around us, asking the customary questions and offering us water. We chatted to them for a while, and then produced a football. The group moved onto a nearby vacant plot, and a crazy game of football began. After about five minutes, the tank and APC moved off and shortly thereafter, the kids began to disperse.
It was difficult to see any reason for the soldiers being at the points where we observed them. Their presence excited the kids and who predictably reacted by throwing stones, which the soldiers were only too happy to respond to with plastic bullets. Once the kids stopped being interested, the soldiers just moved off, suggesting that there were no pressing security reasons for their presence at these points.
The checkpoint at Amman street remains now, and there seem to be soldiers all over town again today. Nablus is close to being completely closed down, and there is a real sense of frustration in the air, people had a taste of near normality with the 6pm to 6am curfew that was in place when I arrived. Now that is taken away, schools, shops and workplaces are again shut, and people are left cooped up in their houses, not knowing when next they can resume their jobs and education.
Wednesday saw a completely different kind of interaction with children. The whole group of Internationals went to a "meet the children" day at the newly opened Social Development Centre in New Askar. This centre is the only public facility in a camp of about 4000 people, and is providing an extensive programme of activities, including art, computing, video production, dance classes, and discussion on a variety of topics including "early marriages", a topic which has been discussed with about 200 young adolescent girls from the camp. Plans are afoot to produce a weekly television show for the whole camp.
The Internationals were treated to lunch and a tour of the centre, before going into discussion groups with the children. A friend and I spoke to two groups of boys aged 8 - 13. We explained why we are in Palestine, and the kind of activities we are involved in. They talked about their daily lives, and asked lots of astute political questions about our home countries, our governments links with Israel, and our feelings about suicide bombings and children throwing stones.
The interactions were very positive, and plans are afoot for us to work closely with the children to produce a video about childhood in the camp, which we can show to interested groups back hoime on our return.
I asked the children what they wanted to be when they grew up, and was glad to hear answers like "Doctor, teacher, soldier!, builder, vegetable hawker and decorator". It is good to know that the children still have hopes for the future, despite some of the horrific acts of violence they have witnessed in recent times, including assassinations, house demolitions and the shooting of an 8 year old class mate on the way back from school a few months ago.
What was especially sobering, was that many of these smiling and charming children had spent the morning at the funeral of a 14 year boy from neighbouring Askar Camp, who died in hospital that morning after 10 days in hospital. He was shot by a tank that opened fire in the main road of Askar, in broad daylight on a Sunday morning.
In the UK each of these children would be receiving trauma counselling and help, if they saw just one incident of death. These kids have seen so many. ============================================================================= 4- Articles worth looking at:
1-In the Gaza Strip, a New Generation Wilts from War http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37545-2003Jan24?language=printer
2-Israeli Arabs lose faith in democratic process http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20030124/UISRAM/Headlines/headdex/headdexInternational_temp/1/1/18/
3-Israelis detain hundreds without trial. Kafkaesque nightmare awaits arrested Palestinians http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,881072,00.html
4-Israel to destroy at least 53 more stores in West Bank market village http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/6686f45896f15dbc852567ae00530132/aae549629980959ec1256cb7005a5d17?OpenDocument
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