In Bethlehem the air in the streets is hesitatingly chaotic. It cannotrecover from the 2 month long invasion of the Bethlehem area while under aconstant Israeli military occupation. Most residents are not allowed toleave, surrounded by Israeli checkpoints, illegal settlements, and settlerby-pass roads chopping up and choking the area. Despite the internationalmedia reports that it was a day of celebration in Bethlehem when the Israelimilitary ended its siege on the Church of Nativity in April, I have yet tolocate anyone who did not experience the day as intensely tragic. AlthoughIsrael ignored UN Security Resolution 1402 demanding its withdrawal fromWest Bank cities, including Bethlehem and the Church of Nativity, they didnot leave the center of Bethlehem until over a month later, taking with themmany Palestinians who were banished from their homes, families, theirhomeland. I have been repeatedly told that it was the end of the hope. TheIsraeli’s would not even allow those being banished to say goodbye to theirfamilies or their friends. The “deal” struck, exiling and banishing manyPalestinians, was a criminal act and another devastating blow to an alreadypersecuted population.
Now, as the daily struggle continues, several factions in Bethlehem, viapolitical parties and families, are divided. The past two weeks have seenshootings, beatings, arrests, and daily meetings. A young man working for acommunity center in an area refugee camp says, “The Israelis have us exactlywhere they want to put us.” The divide and conquer strategy to destroy thecollective will of the Palestinian people is, in some eyes, working. This isexacerbated by the continuing closure of the city from the rest of the WestBank and constant Israeli threat. This morning in a camp a man lookinghaggard told me, “I tried to go to my class, yes, but they closed thecheckpoint again.”
The families of those exiled from the Church of Nativity continue to sufferas well. A 27 year old woman, who told me with a slight laugh that reallyshe is 72, sits in her living room holding her new baby, born days after herhusband was banished to the essential prison of Gaza. Her two sons are oldenough at 3 and 7 years to know what has happened. One, who looks exactlylike his father, stands on his head and asks me to go to Gaza and bring hisdad back. The other does not stop crying. No one knows when or if he’ll beallowed by Israel to see his family again. She tells me it’s been 9 months.
The Israeli soldiers would not allow them to say goodbye. She showed me howsmall she could become to fit inside my bag in order to go to Gaza and seeher husband. Her eyes are round, she’s taken up smoking and has her hair cutshort. She told me she cries everyday. I held their new baby, named aftertheir friend banished from Palestine altogether. The friend is under housearrest in Europe.
Now I am sitting in Gaza City in the father’s new home only a couple hoursdrive from the Bethlehem refugee camp where his wife and his children wait.It is another universe for them because the Israeli’s will not allow mostPalestinians to use their own roads, and have destroyed the two airports;one was in Gaza, the other in Ramallah. Between Bethlehem and Gaza, as inother areas, Israel has built a highway off limits to most Palestinians. Itis impossible for a Palestinian to enter or exit the Gaza Strip, surroundedby Israeli soldiers, tanks, barbed wire, and cement walls. This is one ofthe most densely populated areas on earth. Palestinians are hemmed in with aconstant threat and daily harassment by Israel.
Within the strip illegal Israeli settlements continue to expand, “protected”by a bulging army of Israelis paid for by the U.S. Under international lawand the Oslo Accords, all Israeli settlements are illegal, but Israelcontinues to flaunt its power by building more which house many Israeligunmen who hide behind their children and their god as they shoot atPalestinians.
Trying to reach Khan Younis refugee camp in the south of the Gaza Strip,where Israel bulldozes houses and shoots with F-16s, where children arekilled almost daily, took five hours before I gave up. It is only a halfhour away, but the Israelis closed Abu Ali checkpoint, which divides theStrip. Only illegal Israeli settlers are allowed to pass. We drove on abumpy road—all Palestinian infrastructure destroyed as soon as it isrepaired—under a settler road, a smooth and quick highway with few cars andonly green lights. I waited with at least 3,000 Palestinians and well overa thousand cars, in the dust and dirt and heat, and watched the sunsetacross the land that has been stolen from them. At 9:30, Israeli soldiersbegan to shoot at the crowds of Palestinians waiting. Thirteen Palestinianswere injured, and four were arrested, their fate unknown. The moon was fullover the Mediterranean, the sea that most Palestinians have never even beenable to see. Illegal Israeli settlements take the choice land, and many linethe coast.
The man from the Church, one of the hunted, is exiled and waiting to returnto his family. He knows no one in Gaza except for the other exiles. Hecannot find work, there is almost none in Gaza because of the prisoncondition of the Israeli imposed borders around and within the Gaza Strip.Commerce is almost at a halt. Unemployment nears eighty percent. He isstudying in the University and told me he does not think about the futurebecause he does not know what will happen. He tells me that this is thelife, or just looks up toward the sky with the same eyes as his son, shrugs,and says Alah. He says to know how long your prison sentence will be is theonly way to not go crazy, but here for those sent away from their homes,their families, their land, no one knows when their exile will end.
Israeli soldiers killed eight Palestinians in Rafah, leaving two elderlyPalestinian women dead and bloodied on one of the camp’s narrow dirt roads.The day before yesterday, some Palestinians responded to the murders bydestroying an Israeli bus. The international media spent hours speakingabout the bus.
This afternoon the Israeli’s destroyed three Palestinian homes in Rafah’srefugee camp. The camp is near the border with Egypt. The Israeli’s aremoving further in. Already the area closest to the border is uninhabitabledue to Israeli military attacks. No one covered this story except thePalestinians who gave it just a mention because it is so common here.
Kristen Ess
Gaza City
Occupied Palestine