Palestine: It’s HELL
John Reese
As I sit here in my office there are guns and explosions going off aroundme. Bethlehem is being re-re-re-re-invaded and more houses are, onceagain, threatened to be blown up by the Israeli Occupation Force. Threehomes were blown up yesterday and five more today. Nablus is under curfewwith more houses occupied then any time in the 6 months that I have beenhere (somewhere around 50 homes). Gaza is recovering from its latestbombing attack. Twelve homes where we were hoping to get people (if we hadenough) have all been blown up. Five people were killed in Tulkarem onThursday including one 12 year-old boy. Yesterday morning a friend of minewas shot in the leg by the IOF in Jenin refugee camp when she went to checkon children being shot at by the IOF. An hour earlier an 11 year-old childhad been shot and killed. And all the usual continues – the propertyconfiscation, the beatings, the restrictions on travel, the humiliatingtreatment at checkpoints, etc….
As I prepare to leave Palestine and begin my tour in the US I only hopethat as I go from city to city I can light some fire in people. Perhapssomething that I say or pictures that I show will motivate people to comehere. At the same time I wonder why on earth would anyone want to comehere? It is, as my soon to be seventh month of being here can attest, HELLhere. I have smelled death, seen the injured, been shot at, seen peoplekicked and beaten and seen the bodies of those killed. I have lived withsewage, piles of garbage, drank and bathed in contaminated water, beenshoved and attacked by soldiers, been harassed and suffered their attemptsat humiliation directed at me. Mostly though I have felt helpless -helpless as I hear the stories of humiliation, beatings, death and destruction.
I do have hopes though. I hope that the nonviolent direct action movementexpands – both within the Palestinians and in the number of internationalsthat come. I believe that Palestine is ripe for a nonviolent direct action movement. I can seeit slowly growing and there is hope it will get biggerand more organized – and of course more effective. It is these hopes thatmotivates me to return here after my tour of the US. I truly believe thatwe can make a difference here.
I have no doubt that our presence here has reduced the number of homesdestroyed, the children beaten and the people killed. We have helpedchildren get to school, taken food to those in occupied homes, made sure that water could betransported to those villages without, ridden inambulances, and escorted sick and elderly across checkpoints. None of thiswould have happened without an international presence. Had we not beenhere quite the contrary would have happened.
It is not really that anyone would WANT to come here. They have to bemotivated. Something has to move them. It is something they hear fromsomeone who has been here or perhaps it is something that they see. Forme, I had just had enough of the US government trying to annihilate morepeople. Even though the weapons that we sell to Israel are only supposedto be used in defense I don’t see how any of what they do is defensive. Itis not the Israeli Defense Force but an illegal Israeli Occupation Force,supplied by a country that knows exactly what it is doing – getting someoneelse to annihilate more people so they can maintain their planetary-widecontrol. So I had to come here to speak out about what our government isdoing and try to reduce the effect of our government’s misguided policies.
Sometimes I think fleetingly after a demo or seeing some form of injustice,” well tonight I’ll go home and watch some TV and escape. ” But I have no TVand at best I must walk through the garbage heaps and step over sewagerunning through the streets. At worst I will see someone being shot or beaten or a home blown upor a tank firing into a crowd of men, women andchildren.
I only hope that while I am gone someone will be here to help keep theirlands from being taken, their homes from being destroyed. I hope thatthose whom I have met will still be alive when I return. I hope thatsomehow I can motivate you to come here and help. Can you hear the call? Please answer it bycoming to Palestine. If you can’t come maybe you can help send someone here. Maybe you can helpfund me for my nexttrip here or others that are willing to come. For the sake of the men,women and children of Palestine won’t you please help put an end to thisHELL?
For pictures from Palestine go to: http://www.seattlecan.org/“>http://www.seattlecan.org/ To call me from the US: 011 972 67 479 167, 011 972 59 307 081 or 011 972 52 693 433. From Palestine: 067 479 167, 059 307 081 or 052 693 433
The real threat comes not from the bullets of the occupying force but from
those who do not want the truth to be told.
Reinvaded Bethlehem
26 November 2002
The occupying Israeli army forces Palestinians to sit in their homes,trapped for days on end. Here in Bethlehem it has only been five days. InNablus it has been months. Schools, shops, everything, is closed. A womanwent to Ramallah for school one day. She is still there, but her school isclosed. She cannot return home. She lives in Bethlehem’s Aida Refugee Camp.Another woman is having a baby alone. Her husband went to Ramallah for workand has not been able to return. It is impossible to leave. It isimpossible to get out. Israeli soldiers pound on the doors of homes andfamilies jump up. If they do not open the door quickly enough, the soldierswill break them down or start shooting. The Israeli soldiers tramp throughthe homes in boots and helmets, wearing army gear and carrying M-16s. Theyshove the guns into old men’s stomachs and demand identification. Thefamilies scramble to prove that the Israeli government has legitimized their existence. Thechildren cry and the entire family is ordered out of their homes. Israeli soldiers hold guns totheir heads and make them stand against walls in their own streets. Some are made to lie on theground.
Hours pass. It’s raining. Israeli soldiers eat candy bars and chit-chatwith one another. The families are not allowed to speak. It becomes dark.The Israeli soldiers blindfold some of the Palestinians and bind theirhands. They throw them into the back of jeeps. The Palestinians are ontheir way to Israeli administrative detention. They are held without chargefor three months, for questioning. This means interrogation and torture.The torture, I am told by friends who have survived it, involves beingbound to small chairs while beaten or made to stand on tip-toes with theirhands cuffed high up on walls for days on end. They are hit and screamedat. Some are made to ” confess ” to ” crimes. ” Many allude to sexual assault.No one will tell me exactly what has happened to them. They look down and say they want to forget.Some smile, their eyes turn bright and wet, and say, ” this is the life. “
The Israeli military has reinvaded Bethlehem and has put all West Bank AreaA under curfew. Area A, under Oslo, is what Palestine was ” given “sovereignty over. During the night the soldiers drive through the camp shouting from aloud-speaker, ” All families in Aida Camp, you are under curfew. You are not allowed to leaveyour homes. ” Who is this arrogant occupying army and why are they allowed to exist. The Israelisoldiers call out, ” Al-Akbar, ” which is part of the call to prayer for the Muslims in thecamp, at all hours. They laugh and shout and gun the engines of the tanks.During the day families sit inside their homes. They cannot cross thestreet to see friends, or if the Israeli soldiers have entered the campwhile they have dared outside, they are stuck for days in a friend’s house.A man this morning opened his front door to check on the new house he isbuilding across the alley. He was grabbed by Israeli soldiers who demandedhis I.D. They told him if he is ” caught ” outside again he will go to theprison. This is a Palestinian refugee camp whose resident’s original homeswere already taken by the government and residents of Israel. They are notallowed into the narrow alleyways that pass for streets here.
A woman whose husband has been exiled to Gaza is pulled from her home with her three smallchildren. They are made to stand outside all day and aremade to feel grateful when they are allowed to go back inside their house,which has become a jail cell.
The Israeli ” Defense ” Minister is calling this ” Operation Step By Step. ” Hetells the press, ” we are just getting started. ” He says the Israelimilitary will stay inside of Bethlehem until the Israeli elections inJanuary. The Israeli military came into Bethlehem the night before thesuicide bombing in Al-Quds. Now they use it as their excuse for being here.
A Palestinian journalist was arrested yesterday, and the Israeli soldiersstole his video tapes. This is part of the continued assault on the truth.International media has reported that the Israeli’s are using ” restraint. “This is an illegal occupying army and government. The Israeli military isshooting children with rubber bullets and tear-gas, beating and sometimeskilling them. The Palestinians are using restraint. In resisting thecontinual Israeli occupation and this reinvasion, some people in this areathrow stones. In this act of collective resistance, the spirit of the firstIntifada is alive. Small children run after black smoke spitting tanksthrowing stones which are really just bits of concrete they have taken fromthe rubble of their demolished homes. They build small road blocks withwhatever they can find, garbage and an old tire. Many of these children will be put in prison, ashas most everyone I know at one point or another.Throwing stones is the crime many were charged with that brought them fiveyears in Israeli prisons during the first Intifada.
The Palestinian Authority police that came out of Oslo have largely beenarrested now in Bethlehem. The Israeli government in its continual assaulton Palestinian infrastructure does not believe in the right of theoppressed to have its own police force.
Abed Al-Ahmar, Amnesty International’s ” prisoner of conscience ” from May2001 through May 2002, was taken in the middle of the night. His family washeld at gunpoint for two hours. His wife is the legal advisor to the U.N.Our friends who were there at the time tell me that the Israeli soldierssaid he is not ” wanted. ” They just took him anyway.
Tanks are rumbling outside and a young man is peering out the window.Israeli soldiers have kidnapped over 50 Palestinians, adding them to theover 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners being illegally held in Israeliprisons. Israeli bulldozers have demolished many homes of family members ofthe ” wanted. ” Fear and resignation are palpable in this town. Old men aremade to fear arrogant and heavily armed young boys who have the UnitedStates, Israel, and all who fear the US, behind them.
Kristen Ess
Stuck in Bethlehem,
Occupied Palestine
This morning in Aida Refugee Camp
27 November, 2002
The Israeli military still holds Bethlehem under curfew, despite Sharonbenefactor Bush’s dissembling demand to, ” get out of Bethlehem now. “Soldiers went round to houses inside Aida Camp demanding names of allchildren in the families to add to their lists. Here in the camp allchildren are suspected of the crime of throwing stones at heavilyarmoured Israeli tanks that plow through their streets. Sometimes the tanksshoot at the little kids and their families, other times they come just to bullyand threaten, to demonstrate that the Israeli military is in control.
For the sixth day, now approaching the last week of Ramadan,Palestinian Muslims cannot reach the mosque to pray.Israeli soldiers terrorized Deheisha Refugee Camp for the second nightIn a row. Well over fifty people were dragged from their homes the night beforelast and added to the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners sittingwithout charge in Israeli prisons. The count for last night is not in yet.Again today schools are closed. A friend considered studying for anexam last night, but instead closed his books and laughed. Another, one wholimps because he was hit by Apache missile fire in April, is rehearsing for aplay that now will only be performed inside the camp because getting out isnot possible.
The general news so far today is: Israeli soldiers killed four peoplein Nablus. One was from Balata Refugee Camp, two were assassinated.Israeli soldiers killed two people in Jenin. One Palestinian died at EretzCheckpoint near Gaza City. Apache missiles bombarded Khan Younis in thesouth of the Gaza Strip. They destroyed a house and shot missiles intoan empty school.
Kids are playing in the alley defying the Israeli imposed curfew thatis meant to keep them trapped indoors for days on end. A man is yelling athis family. Israeli soldiers are gunning tank engines by the cemetery. Themosque is calling for prayer. An F-16 is flying overhead.
Now an Israeli military jeep is plowing down the dirt alley wayshouting for curfew and kids are scrambling. A tank is following and has launched asound bomb. Tear gas is coming through the window.
Kristen Ess