” …I arrive here having been forced, along with 8 fellowpeace activists from the United States, France and Ireland,out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We werephysically assaulted and abducted by armed gunmenfrom Israel’s para-military Border Police in theheart of the West Bank. Our fate is that of anincreasing number of foreign doctors, reliefworkers, journalists, observers and others insolidarity with the Palestinian people. We facedeportation and refused entry when trying to helpthe Palestinian people, even as Israel escalatesits war against them.
This government of Israel does not wish the world tosee or know of what its forces are doing in thename of occupation – for silence is the greatestasset of oppression.
In this conflict, all are suffering. I have seen the horrorand carnage wrought by both sides. But in this conflictthere is only one occupation.
The occupation must end now.
We can be silent no longer. “
Statement given by Adam Shapiro of the ISM upon his arrival
at JFK Airport, NY
The following 2 accounts are quite lengthy, butwell worth the read. The first is actually datedtwo weeks ago, but things don’t change…..
Susan Barclay in Nablus
Thu, 1 Aug 2002
I find a few moments to write not because it is something that I even have the time to do, but morebecause if I don’t write now, I am afraid to lose the precious, tragic stories and sights I havewitnessed in the last few weeks.
During the past weeks I lay down to sleep between 2-4 a.m. to the sounds of tanks clunking overthe pavement, sporadic shooting – noises of the night that Palestinian ears can distinguishin the flash of a moment — and a mind bursting with thoughts, scenes and stories that keep mefrom unconsciousness even longer.
The morning begins with laughter as a friend tells me that he likes to watch Tom and Jerrybecause it makes him smile. “Why do people watch Rambo? We see that everyday—here it is not TV,it is real.” When Internationals first arrive they are often baffled by the militarymachinery waging this war, but the novelty wears off so very quickly; loss of appreciationfrequently goes hand in hand with habit, routine and repetition. Today alone, I saw over 15tanks, 7 apcs, a number of jeeps, 30+ soldiers armed with M-16’s and a Land Rover full ofcommandos. This is life here. Children 2-3 years old know the words for soldier, tank,shooting, prison, and death; slowly and surely war creeps into their beings.
The children play “war” frequently. One mother told me the other day—”The terribly sad thingis that they always want to be the Israelis, no one wants to be Palestinian, to be controlled, tobe the victim. These little children know who has power.” Another woman tells me of herdiscussion with a group of children about life, saying that first children talked aboutproblems they are having—not sleeping, nightmares, constant fear—but then theconversation turned toward dreams and desires. In the midst of talk about parks, toys, andsummer camp one girl raised her hand and said: “We need some milk and bread.” Despite theirdisturbing loss of innocence, children still manage to help me leave the mental space of manydifficult realities; by playing with my hair, laughing at my Arabic, or simply sitting on mylap, they help me continually find healing, rejuvenation a! nd great hope.
The people of this land are in dire need of humanization. As I become closer to the Palestiniansliving in Nablus and simultaneously start seeing the same soldiers and developing a rapportof sorts, I can’t help but feel that the situation, this ongoing, long going war is profoundlytragic.
One afternoon we were attempting to get food and medical supplies to an occupied house in anarea where the Captain has threatened us with arrest. There is an apc at the bottom of a smallhill about 300 feet from the house, where the soldiers demand that the Danish man and I are tostay, while Doctor Rassem and Feras Bakri go to the house to treat the child. Perhaps this is sowe don’t see the state of the home, or perhaps they suspect we are journalists, or perhaps it issimply about power and control—in any case, our goal is to care for the child and both Feras andthe Doctor feel comfortable going without us. I watch as the ambulance heads up the hill andbegin a conversation with the soldiers about “problems” in Nablus and how they feel aboutbeing here.
These two young men were insistent on the fact that they want to go home, that they think over 95%of Palestinians are good, that they want peace for their children: “I just don’t want mychildren to ride the bus in fear” Michel says. They talk about going out, dancing, not havingshowered in days and sleeping on the floor. They say they only shoot armed people. I ask about arecent death in Balata refugee camp where a 24 year-old was shot in the head by soldiers in ajeep. Maybe he had a gun they say; maybe rocks, I reply.
They share hopes for the future and claim that there is a violent cycle that is incessantlyrepeating itself here—suicide bombing, invasion, bombing, invasion… I ask how they thinkthey are helping end the problems and they say “By being here—no bombings in 20+ days.” “Andwhen you leave?” I ask. “Or do you plan to stay forever?” They seem completely ignorant of theirrole in creating further bombings, blind to the fact that they are only rendering a populationmore desperate, more hopeless, and more deprived each and every day, pushing people towardsthe “nothing to lose” state that a suicide bomber has invariably reached.
And then it is time to change shifts and three new soldiers pull up in an apc and these two men,Michel and Avi climb into the new apc and head into town to do I can imagine what. Theseinteractions put faces to these monstrous military machines; I think of the apcs that only afew hours earlier terrorized an adjacent neighborhood; during house searches soldiers tookone man and beat him for over 30 minutes. I saw him this morning and now I see Michel and Avibeating any one of my Palestinian friends and I am left in total confusion. These are just youngmen beating, shooting, and terrorizing other young men because they see the “enemy.” Seeinghumanity makes the destruction of life seems so senseless, so unbelievable. I think that ispart of our work here, each one a tiny thread weaving humanity into hearts, souls, minds, andmoments and trying t! o shelter the remaining flickers of hope from the wild wind of war.
One of my dearest friends Khowla was walking by my side the other night, discussing dreams andtalking about her youth. “When I was young I had so, so many dreams. I wanted to be a lawyer, tostudy biology, to go to university, travel, and learn about everything. But Susan, when yousee the situation go from bad to worse again and again and again, all your dreams get broken.”She is only 21. There is still so much time, I say as I squeeze her hand.
The director of the Ministry of Education, Juman Karaman, welcomed us into her home a few daysago; she lives in a home adjacent to one that is occupied, where we were headed. She explainedhow very far behind the students were due to constant closures and called this second term “acomplete catastrophe”. Final exams were scheduled for June 17th -July 4th, but Nablus wasinvaded on June 20th; exams were put on hold and students have been in the state of exampreparation ever since.
When curfew is lifted for a few hours—which has happened for a total of 30 hours in the 42 days (inIsraeli prisons the detainees are given more than an hour/day recreation)—students rush tothe school and take an exam. They are currently waiting for another curfew lift, to finishtheir exams, studying now for over a month, and never knowing what day they will have toperform.
Juman believes that education is not really about how much time students spend studying, butrather about quality. With the constant closures and the closing of surrounding villages,teachers were habitually confronting tanks, apcs, and soldiers en route to their schools.She asked us to imagine the state of a teacher who finally arrives at school, after havingjourneyed 1-3 hours in constant fear, wading through life threatening circumstances; “Howwell can this person teach?” As for the students, she added: “After hours of shooting, nervesworn very thin, constant uncertainty and fear, how can they possibly learn?”
Over one month imprisoned in their homes—today is the 42nd day of curfew; people are restless,frustrated, lethargic, angry, humiliated, and saturated. They are using the small amount ofmoney they had, unable to make anymore, and the financial situation is ever increasinglydire. I was having tea yesterday with a man who mutters: “Maybe I can carry 10 kilos, 20, or 50,but eventually I will break. Everyone has a limit.”
We are in an occupied house and talking to the man now living in the basement with 30 or sosoldiers on the top three floors. These 30+ soldiers mean 5 apcs are parked out front, meshcovers the windows like giant spider webs, and the night reverberates with incessantshooting and loud music—the family has not slept well in over 25 days. The soldiers ask hischildren how they are, and the children say ‘Not good.” The father says to me, “I want to tell mychildren about peace, but how can I when we are living like this? They don’t believe it.”
During the last week, the city of Nablus had been rather quiet during the day and many people hadbeen breaking curfew, coming out of their homes to open a shop or buy a few things. The night isstill plagued by military operations, the sounds of tanks, gunfire, and surreptitiousmovement. The villages have been the focal point of the military during the past days, as theyclaim to be hunting the “terrorists” responsible for this or that suicide bombing orsettlement incident. “They use the same stories again and again, killing the same terroriststhree, four or five times,” the press tells me a few nights ago. The villages lie to thesouthwest of Nablus, little clumps of homes nestled in olive groves and rolling hills,accessible only by thin dirt roads.
This week, they spent three days going village to village looking for anywhere between 3-8men. They killed three men the first day and denied the ambulance access to the bodies. A groupof us went out to Sara village and attempted to get the ambulance in just to take the bodies butthey told us we had to wait until they had finished their operation. Our refusal to leave was metwith physical force: kicking, hitting and shoving 20 nonviolent activists come to simplytake the dead.
The next morning I went with the ambulance to get the bodies, as the Israeli army had finallygiven their okay. We wandered up a hill to an olive grove and found a very large group of menthere, being searched and sorted into two groups. They had come to see the bodies and help andended up being subject to search and arrest. They were separated into two groups, those 15-50(over 75 men) and the very young and very old (over 45 people). ID’s were taken and the men all saton the ground waiting as about 20 soldiers milled about and the paramedics waited for the finalokay to head up 100m to the bodies. As we watched this process, counting the men and asking thesoldiers questions, we saw another group of over 60 men being led down the hill towards thepaved road.
We are finally allowed to go get the bodies and as the medical team moves up the hill, the men whohad been sitting down get up and follow en masse. We all arrive at three mounds covered byoff-white tarps that are removed by the paramedics. People crowd to see who the dead are andchaos reigns as people move from one to the other. One man has a large hole in his head and hisbrain is literally oozing out. The second has no leg from the knee down and several large bulletwounds in his chest and groin. A third has an enormous hole in what was his forehead, and we allsee that his brain is completely missing. No one knows the men, thus they think they must beworkers who pass through the villages to avoid checkpoints and soldiers; they are certainlynot terrorists. I ride in the ambulance to the morgue at Rafidia hospital, sitting in the backnext to the b! odies, overcome by the smell, by death. We return to the Union of PalestinianMedical Relief (UPMRC) center where I sit f!
or a moment, trying to catch my breath and find a few words; awoken from my somber silence by acall to tell me that soldiers have left Sara and are now in Tell. We have to move.
During this time, three internationals have gone with the men, the 60 or so, who were rounded upand kept on the paved road. They had been led through the hills and back roads two by two, alltheir ID’s taken and eventually large trucks come, handcuff and take the men to a localmilitary base. The three ask to be arrested with them, but the soldiers don’t want anyinternationals today. They return to Sara village on foot and while talking with locals hourslater, hear cheering and find that the large majority of these men have come back. The leave tomeet us in Tell, a village 1 km from Sara.
Tell is in the same situation—foot soldiers wandering in the fields, snipers on the hills,tanks, apcs, and jeeps patrolling. I ask a soldier at a tank “What are you doing today?” “Thereare three terrorists free.” “But you killed three men yesterday….” “There are many.” Wecontinue down the road towards Tell and come across an apc, two large trucks, and soldiersforcing handcuffed Palestinians inside. This is the Tell round up….taking all the local menfor interrogation. We walk towards them, but they are leaving, and so we deal with what theyhave left behind: 9 donkeys, dozens of jars of traditional yogurt, and scatteredpossessions. We set off with the donkeys and belongings towards Tell to meet the otherinternationals and the medical team that has gone to deliver vaccinations. The militaryoperation in Tell seems to be coming to a close; the jeeps and apc! s have left and so we return toNablus, leaving a few behind to sleep in the village.
The next morning, we get news from the next village, Iraq Boreen, 1 km from Tell, 2 km from Sara.The IDF is still looking for their terrorists and has rounded up all the local men at aschool/women’s center in town. There are already internationals in the village and those ofus in Nablus head off to the village. We begin the long walk out the small dirt path towards thevillage and see dozens and dozens of soldiers wandering through the olive groves below thevillage that sits on a breathtaking butte; we are denied entry into the village by soldiers at ajunction and told to wait. We do wait, just until a bus arrives for some soldiers; we use thisdistraction as a chance to walk right past them, despite their echoing “Stop, stop.”
In the village we find that the large majority of the men have been released but the remainingmen cannot get their ID’s back. It is clear that one of the three jeeps is ready to leave with theID’s so volunteers sit on the ground to block its path. We are able to thwart the jeep movementsfor a while and create quite a scene that the Palestinians support, saying whether we go or staythey will have problems, so we might as well stay. The jeep and soldiers eventually manages toremove enough Internationals to pull forth; they return the ID’s to the men and leave ustalking to the Palestinians. We split in two, some staying the village, some walking back intoNablus.
We have been doing a lot of roadblock removals during the last few days. The Israeli army hasclosed every single village repeatedly and the internationals staying in Iraq Boreen heededthe locals call to remove these road blocks. A group of nearly 40 of us headed out to Tell, IraqBoreen and New Nablus and removed three roadblocks one morning. It was incredibly beautifulto watch this simple success—working for a few hours and then watching as water trucks,vegetables and taxis begin to pass—encouraged by the sound of our clapping and the smiles ofresistance.
Palestinians at the Iraq Boreen roadblock then asked us to come to Salem village, where wehelped remove three other roadblocks. We left a few people in the village who called an hour ortwo later to say that an apc and tank had come and a bulldozer was reported to be on its way. Wemoved quickly and had internationals there in time to block the bulldozer. 5 people sat on theground and the bulldozer was unable to re-do the roadblock; the jeeps however did come and thesoldiers began threatening arrest. After 30 minutes they begin taking the men, one by one,quick cuffing each one (with plastic handcuffs) and blindfolding them. They were put in theback of an apc and taken to Huwara military base (released hours later from Huwara afterrefusing to say anything). We stayed in the area until they left knowing they would bulldozeduring the night. The day after we! came again to remove the road block and will continue thisresistance as long as the Palestinians want to do so.
The quiet has been replaced with the familiar sound of tanks, jeeps and shooting again. Thebombing yesterday at Hebrew University in Jerusalem has led to a greater military presenceand 4-5 people were injured today from tank machine gun fire, one of them this morning right infront of my eyes in Balata refugee camp. What are they doing? One might think the Israeli armytargets certain people, or roams the city with a military aim. The reality is that a very largepart of their work is about terror.
This morning in Balata, they came in jeeps and began tear gassing everyone in sight for over anhour. Balata is one of the only places in Nablus that actively resists the Israeli army andsucceeds—the children and young boys throw stones and impede the tanks from entering into thecamp regularly. Our role this morning was not to negotiate or approach the tanks but rather tobe witnesses, and attempt to discourage shooting by putting our bodies on the line. Two tanksare sitting in an open field at the southern entrance of the camp; the children and boys are 50mfrom them with us. We make ourselves visible and watch as the children and boys throw stones andpush the tanks back.
The tanks play cat and mouse for over two hours with the youth, racing forward and shooting inthe air, rushing the crowd and letting out huge smoke clouds, then pulling back as the childrenrace back out to throw stones. After over two hours of this we retreat back 3-4 m to some shade andsit as most the Palestinians mill about, seeming tired of these games. All of a sudden there istank machine gun fire directly overhead us and shrapnel hits a 17 year-old boy in the head. Iturn and see blood pouring down this young man’s face, 1m in front of me. Everyone runs with himto a nearby clinic and the Internationals watch them go and turn towards the tanks that begin toretreat. What kind of military operation is this? All day they have been wandering thestreets, firing at will and terrorizing. Things are closed again despite the fact that todaymarks the 14t! h day straight without any lift of curfew—two weeks without even an hour to gooutside.
Israeli, American made F-16’s bombed Gaza and we watched Aljazeera news, as the numbers ofthose dead and injured rose ever higher, reaching over 170 (155 injured and 15 killed) by 2:30a.m. when the news broadcast ended. I sat with 7 young Palestinian men at the UPMRC centerwatching the people shift through the rubble looking for more and more bodies, and thenflashes of the hospital in total chaos. Horribly, graphic images flashed across the TVscreen, especially of children no longer recognizable as human, but I was most touched by theyoung man next to me, as I watched one tear roll down his cheek, and felt that I too, was going tocry.
Israel had agreed to pull out of the cities in the West Bank as part of recent negotiations andHamas and Islamic Jihad had just called for an end to suicide bombings that night. Midnightrolls around and Israeli forces bomb an apartment building without any prior warning and withcomplete and total disregard for the lives inside, with the very intention of destroyingthem. The morning after, Hamas, Fatah, PLFP, and Islamic Jihad state loud and clear: Israel isnot ready for peace, does not want peace. Suicide bombings are sure to follow. Can the world notsee that Israel does not want peace? I can only imagine how this horrible incident is being spunin the U.S. Incessant stories about a Hamas member with little to no mention of the entireBUILDING of civilians. I bet no one in the U.S. saw the mangled children being shelved away atthe hospital morgue,! the father who went mad as he watched his son die on the hospital bed, theyoung boy with a severely charred leg, or the !
mother lying covered in blood, an oxygen mask over her face and child on her lap. What kind of awar is this? “They are trying to make life as unbearable as possible,” a friend tells meyesterday, “Economically, medically, psychologically, and physically.” That night we sawthe creation of hell on earth–hatred, evil, fear, and terror. “Where is the peace?” someonesays…..but everyone is silent.
This adorable 70 year old man from a nearby village greeted me the morning after. He asked meonly: “Did you see the children?” referring to Gaza. I say “Yes” and watch as tears well up in hiseyes and continue speaking for him. Imagine everything that he has seen in this lifetime andyet still, the loss of life, the death of innocent people, the killing of children makes smallstreams of salt-water flow from his soul.
Sharon and the Israeli government are not going to end this war; it is not in their interest to doso, as they may actually be forced to share this land. The cycle of violence seems to have no endin sight. We, all of us in the international community, must put pressure on our governments toTAKE ACTION NOW. There are many ways for you to help wipe this man’s and this land’s tears away.Make one call, send one email or letter today.
The sounds of machine gun fire, tanks and occasional explosions echo through the windows fromthe streets in the heart of Nablus as I go to send this—it is only 11 p.m. Don’t wait untiltomorrow to do something—the time is now. This simply must end.
From Beit Fureek, near Nablus:
August 13, 2002By Adam Stumacher
The town of Beit Fureek lies a mere seven kilometers from Nablus, but under military curfewthey might just as well be separated by an ocean. According to Atef Hanini, the town’s mayor,not a single resident of this town has been to Nablus for two months now. Previously much of thetown’s working population was employed in Nablus, so they are now unable to get to work (thoughof course were they by some miracle able to get to the city, they would find all shops andbusinesses closed due to curfew as well). However, the real crisis in Beit Fureek is notunemployment, but water.
Every ounce of water for this town of 12,000 residents must be brought by truck from Nablus. TheIsraeli authorities have refused to tap into the water pipeline that passes less than fivehundred meters from city limits. There is also a spring close enough to this town that theresidents can hear its gurgling (when their ears are not filled with the sounds passing tanksor M16 rounds). This spring has enough water that it could meet the needs of all the town’sresidents, plus the residents of the nearby town of Beit Dejan, which faces the same watercrisis. But one hundred percent of the water from this spring is diverted to Israelisettlements in the Jordan valley. So the water tanker has become the tenuous lifeline for thiswhole community.
The town owns a total of five water trucks. The trouble is, the trucks are only occasionally letthrough the nearby Israeli army checkpoint. In theory, they are allowed to pass back and forthto Nablus between the hours of 10 AM and 2 PM. But soldiers often detain the trucks so long at thecheckpoint that even completing one run per day can be a challenge. Sometimes, when turnedaround at the checkpoint, desperate truck drivers fill up from non-sanitary water sources,which has led to a serious problem with amoebic dysentery in the town (which has almost noaccess to medical care, again due to the curfew).
Beit Fureek had been averaging eight tankers of water per day since April, while Haniniassesses the community’s basic survival need at twenty five or twenty six tankers per day. Butwhen I visited the town on August 13, extremely strict enforcement at the checkpoint for thepast couple of days meant that only one water truck had arrived in the town over the past 48hours.
Some residents have been without water in their homes for over 40 days now. The only way thiscommunity survives is by sharing whatever limited resources they have with their neighbors.Lack of water has severely damaged the town’s agricultural output. Farmers have stoppedwatering their crops, and most of the town’s livestock has been slaughtered because there isinsufficient water to keep both animals and humans alive. In short, the people of Beit Fureekare being murdered, very slowly and systematically, by the conditions of occupation.
But the killings are not always so slow. I spent the night in the home of Hassan, an extremelyeloquent and erudite engineer in his late twenties. He told the story of his late uncle,Mohammed Zamout. Mohammed was seventy years old last October when he went to help in the town’sannual olive harvest. This is an extremely dangerous activity, as the town’s olive groves areclose to an Israeli settlement (the grove has been there for generations, but the settlementlands were stolen since 1967). At the end of the day, when all the people of Beit Fureek returnedto their homes, Mohammed’s absence was noted by his family. They searched all night, but wereunable to find his body until they returned to the olive grove the next morning. This seventyyear old man had been shot, his arms were cut off below the elbows, his legs severed below theknees, one eye was pulled out of his socket, and his skull was crushed by a rock. Israeliauthorities eventually arrested a settler b!
y the name of Gurham for this crime, but Gurham pleaded temporary insanity and was acquitted,never serving a day of jail time.
Every person you meet here in Palestine has a story to tell, and every story leaves you unable tobreathe. You want to curl into a ball and cry, or thrash on the ground and shout at the top of yourlungs, but you cannot. You offer your condolences, sip your coffee, and pledge yourself tofight this injustice.
Dr. Martin Luther King once said that we should not rest until justice flows like water. But forthe thirsty Palestinian people, the tanks are still detained at the closest checkpoint.
Adam