By The death of human rights activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death while tryingto stop an IDF bulldozer, was reason for Billie Moskona-Lerman to go to theRafah Refugee Camp and to spend 24 hours at the most miserable place in theGaza Strip. A place where shooting never stops, where shells whistle by thewindows, the walls are covered with bloodstains on the walls, houses turn intoruins and people walk the streets barefooted and desperate. She came back adifferent person. In a rare human document she describes her encounter withdeath.
With the above words, the weekend supplement of Ma’ariv newspaper (28/3/03)introduced to its readers a report, giving a glimpse of Palestinian daily lifewhich is very rare in the mainstream Israeli press.
I visited hell and I came back in one piece. It happened on the night betweenThursday and Friday last week [March 20-21] when I accompanied Joe and Laura,two 20-year old human rights activists, in acting as a human shield facing theIDF. When they asked me would I join in and I answered “yes”, I did not fullyrealize what I was getting myself into. It was my first experience under fire:so close to death, so anonymous, my life so easily abandoned in somebody else’shands. Never did I feel so weak, so defenceless. I did say “I am coming” and weset out. It was 7.30 PM. we walked through the main street of Rafah, a townwhich is in fact just a big refugee camp. We walked in darkness, throughruins, pot-holes and puddles, torn bits of nylon and plastic, barbed wire andpiles of rubbish. Here and there some stores were open. Groups of young boyswere walking around us, shouting “Sa’lam Aleikum, Sa’lam Aleikum”.Suddenly, one of them picked up a stone and threw it at us. It flew through theair and fell near us. Joe and Laura were not very disturbed. “We represent forthem the American culture which they hate” said Laura.I vaguely knew that we were walking towards Rafah’s border with Egypt. Wewalked towards the last house in the last row of Rafah houses. The home ofMuhammad Jamil Kushta. At a certain stage, after ten minutes of fast walking inempty alleys, we went aside into a long and narrow alley at whose end I couldsee a big pillar. When we came near I could see it was a tall guard tower.When we came near the tower, Joe and Laura raised their hands high andsignalled to me to do the same. I did as they asked and walked towards the IDFguard tower with my hands high above my head, walkingquickly – but not too quickly – through the empty alley. Our clothing wasfluorescent orange, with silver strips to make it even more conspicuous in thenight. Joe held a big megaphone in one hand and a big phosphorescent sheet inthe other. 20 metres from the tower we could see, even in the utter darkness,that we were facing a major fortification – an Israeli strong point at theexact border between Rafah and Egypt.
A few steps before the tower Laura abruptly pushed me into a small, darkentrance and whispered “Quick, it’s here”. I went over the doorstep, feelingthe way with my foot, with the eyes gradually getting used to the sight of ofhigh, dark corridor. Five steps, and my brow hit hard against a concreteblock. Passing under it, I went up ten winding stairs at whose end was a door.A short ring and the door opened to reveal the smiling face of Muhammad Kushta.
Standing in the door, smiling back, I felt relieved that the damned walking wasover and that we got to somewhere looking like a hospitable house. I did notrealize what kind of night was waiting for me. I had not the slightest idea.Muhammad Jamil Kushta, whose house we have come to defend, opened the door tosee two young human rights activists who had been spending the nights in hishome for the past few weeks, plus a woman introducing herself as a frenchjournalist. The French journalist was me, at that moment nobody knew I wasactually an Israeli from Tel Aviv. “Tfatdal, Tfatdal” he said as he opened thedoor, the greeting joined by his young wife Nora holding little Nancy in herhands. It was already a quarter past eight when we all sat down on the floor bythe little heater when suddenly it started. A noise which to my ear soundedvery very close, a rolling noise, an ear-shattering noise, a noise whichsounded like hell. It was the first time that night that the house came underfire, and the first time for me to be under fire. I started shaking. My entirebody was shaking. The noise was rolling by my ears like a series of giantfireballs. Shooting, shooting, shooting. I understood this is how an encounterwith death looks like. With the first burst Jamil moved his tea glass slightly.Up and down, up and down. Nora held Nancy tightly. Joe and Laura went to thebaby Ibasan who slept in the corner and her brother the young Jamil andcrouched over them. It lasted half an hour, and for an hour and half afterwardsmy body was till shaking. But I did not yet realize it was just the beginning.I watched Jamil without words and he said: “I goes on like this every night.
For two and a half years”. “What are they shooting at?” I asked. “In the air”he shrugged. “Why?” “Out of fear” he said simply. “They are also afraid, alonethere in the dark. They are very young”. “Why aren’t you taking your childrenelsewhere, away from here?” I asked after getting my voice under control. “Ihave no money” he answered. “I have no money for another house, every penny Ihad was invested in these walls, and I got into debt even so”.
Dangerous Game
It is not by chance that over the past few weeks, Laura and Joe are spendingtheir nights in Jamil’s house. It is the last house in the row of houses fronting the Egyptian border. Some twenty metres from this house, perhaps less, the IDF builta high fortification, destroyed all houses to the right and left and stationed guns, tanksand mortars targetting the city.
That is why Laura and Joe are sleeping over in Jamil’s home. This is the next housein line to be demolished. There is no way for Jamil and the human rights activists toknow in advance when the army would come at this house with tanks or D-9bulldozers – and it will be the job of Laura and Joe to try preventing the IDF fromapproaching the house. Laura and Joe are members of ISM, InternationalSolidarity Movement, a group of human rights activists who oppose the Israelioccupation through direct non-violent action. They are young, politicallymotivated university graduates – very extreme and determined pacifists. Theirpurpose is to prevent the army from harming civilians.
Every night, with the beginning of the curfew, they spread out into Palestinianhomes on the first row, which are exposed to shooting from the militarypositions. They wear phosphorescent clothing and megaphones. In the midst offiring, or in the face of IDF bulldozers, they emerge to call out in English thetext of international conventions and block the soldiers when they come in,shoot, bomb or demolish homes. Until a week ago it worked. They were calling out,warning, shouting, blocked the bulldozers with their bodies – and the armyturned back. On Sunday, March 17, all bets were off. What happened found its wayto the media of the entire world, causing a storm. A young woman, human rightsactivist, was killed by an IDF bulldozer which ran over her. Her name wasRachel Corrie, she was 23 years old, and Joe Smith recorded her last moments.He saw her facing the bulldozer, as was her habit, trying to establish contactwith the soldier driving it. A second later she was not visible any more. Acat and mouse game is how members of the human rights group call thedangerous game they are playing with the IDF D-9 bulldozers. When a bulldozerapproaches a house marked for destruction, they sit down in their phosphorescentclothing on the mound of earth carried on the giant bulldozer extended front,addressing by megaphone the soldier behind the windows of opaque, reinforcedglass. Standing on the front of the bulldozer requires maintaining a verydelicate balance, and there comes a moment when you can overturn and fall off. Untilthe day Rachel was killed, the soldiers did not push things to far. Theywould always stop and turn back one minute before this could happen. But on thatSunday, the soldier driving the bulldozer did not stop at the critical moment,and Rachel was killed. Joe Smith’s photos document, stage by stage,Rachel’s folding into death. Like a big strong bird which flies in the sky, getsa blow, squeezes itself and slowly falls down to become a small crumpledheap on the ground. Here is a photo of Rachel standing determined in front ofthe bulldozer, here she stands on the mound of earth. And here she disappears,she lies on the ground, her mouth open as if trying to say something,Alice crouches over her (later, Alice would quote what she said with her laststrength: “My back is broken”), she draws in her two legs, the body lies like alifeless sack. Rachel is dead.
After her death Rachel became a Shaheed (martyr). From all over the world,media was called upon to interview the group of young people, which hadnumbered eight and is now reduced to seven. So it was that I also arrivedthere. A short phone call from my editor, a contact person at the ErezCheckpoint, a taxi, a Palestinian photographer from Gaza, and an emphaticinstruction from the contact person: “Nobody must know that you are an Israeli.From now on, you are a French journalist – period”.
A bad death
I lived with the group for 24 hours. Crazy hours, very frightening, hours offear and apprehension in which I felt at my nerve endings, a wildly beatingheart and wet underwear. I understood what it means to live with death for 24hours a day. A bad death. With guns, tanks and bulldozers targetting your home,your bedroom, your kitchen, your balcony, your living room. No way of defendingyourself, nowhere to run to. At mdnight in Jamil’s home, facing the shootingtanks and feeling that these may really be my last moments, I decided to open mycards. I threw aside the instructions not to expose myself because of Hamas andTanzim and all the others who may murder me at a moment’s notice. With a feelingof profound finality I suddenly said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I must tell you thetruth. I am an Israeli journalist from Tel Aviv. There was a moment’s silence,then Jamil smiled and started speaking in fluent Hebrew: “Welcome, Welcome,Ahalan Ve’sahalan [Arab greeting which became, part of colloquial Hebrew].I lived for four years on Sokolov Street in Herzlia, I was the shawarma cutter in theMifgash Ha’Sharon Restaurant. I have also worked on Abba Eban Street in Netanyaand at the Hod Hotel in Herzlia Pituach. What I liked most was to eat cherryice-cream at the Little Tel-Aviv Restaurant. Is it still open?” Rains of ammunitionbullets came down on us on that one single night. A single night, for me.The shooting went on continuously from 1.30 to 4.15, near the first light.
Only then it calmed down. My teeth did not stop chattering. “Its’ verrry near”was the only thing I managed to say for four consecutive hours. Jamil and Nora,with their three babies, tried to calm me. “The soldiers know us, they knowwe’re clear. You hear it so close, because they are shooting at the wall nearus”. “So they never hit your house itself?” I ask him with an enormous burst ofhope. “Oh, sometimes they do. Look at the bullet holes”. I raise my head andlook to the sides. The ceiling is fool of holes, the side walls are cut up. Sois the kitchen wall near the tap, near the table, in the toilet, one centimetrefrom the children’s beds. Some of the holes have been filled up. Every night,once the shooting ends, Jamil closes the bullet holes with white cement. Thewalls are patchwork, and if you dare approach the window you can see that Jamiland Nora’s home is surrounded by ruins on all sides.
Everybody escaped, only he remained because of having no money to take his familyaway from here. The bullets are whistling and Jamil makes for his family saladand omelettes and bakes pita bread on a traditional tabun oven. The bulletswhistle and we are eating. With a good appetite. We bend down whenever theshooting seems to come closer. It is incredible what human beings can get usedto, I think. A week ago, Jamil took up a big black marking pen and wrote on a pieceof cardboard: “Soldiers, don’t shoot please. There are sleeping childrenhere”. He wrote in big Hebrew letters, and Rachel Corrie had climbed on thebuilding’s outer wall to hang it. Now Rachel’s face appears on a Palestinianmartyr’s poster which hangs on the living room window. Jamil smiles sadly andtells me and my chattering teeth and my clenched hands and my widelybeating heart: “What can we do? When Allah decides our time has come to die, we die.
It is all in Allah’s hands”. It does not reassure me.
A stranger among us
24 hours I had lived in the ruined and beleaguered city of Rafah. “Rafah Camp”,as both inhabitants and internationals call it. Most of the time, the peoplewhich I met did not know I was Israeli. It is important to note this, becausethe words I heard and the conversations I conducted were not part of an Israeli-Palestinian pingpong. Nobody tried to accuse me, to convince me or to make meunderstand something which I did not understand before. As far as they wereconcerned, I was a European journalist. During these 24 hours I did things whichcould be described as taking a terrible, irresponsible risk, unfitting for a personmy age. Still, I am glad I did it. I feel now that I am not the same person which Iwas before entering Rafah. A person can grow considerably olderin just 24 hours. Now I also understand better the fascination war has for manymen. No other human experience, however ecstatic, can make so much adrenalinflow through your veins. But I was mostly concerned trying to understand how itis to live there for more than one day. My trek had began in Tel-Aviv at 8.30AM, with the nice friendly taxi driver Yehuda Gubali offering me water and achewing gum as I got in. He was curious to know what I was looking for at thegodforsaken Erez Checkpoint, on such a nice morning. I told him the truth: I wason my way to meet the ISM people. “Oh, I read in the paper about that girl whowas killed, what’s her name, and let me tell you the truth, I was glad she waskilled. Who is that little busybody from America to come and interfere in ouraffairs? Standing on the bulldozer, really! no wonder she was run over. Letthese people learn a lesson. Is this their country? ” The sky was grey when Icrossed alone the border crossing at Erez, after signing the Army Spokesman’sdocument stating that I take full responsibility for my decision to cross andabsolving the army from any responsibility for what may happen to me on theother side. I crossed past the last bunker, waved back to the soldiers, and stoodnear the rolls of barbed wire to wait for my Palestinian escort, Talal Abu Rahma.Abu Rahma has taken the photo which symbolizes the current intifada more than anyother: the death of the child Muhammad Al-Dura in the arms of his father, duringthe exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians. Nowadays,Abu Rahma is a very busy man who lives in Gaza and works for foreign networks. Heis my official guide, and the first thing he says is: “From this moment, not asingle Hebrew word. Even the photographer must not know that you are Israeli. Fromthis moment you are a French journalist”. With these words in mind I get into acar heading for Rafah Camp, an hour and half drive from Gaza. We race along thebroken Gaza coastal road, in the direction of Khan Yuneis and Rafah. “You seethese hotels and restaurants? Once they were all merry, full of life. Noweverything is neglected, broken, abandoned”. At the “Abu Huly” checkpoint, nearthe Gush Katif Israeli settlements, we stop.
We wait for the soldiers’ permission to proceed. Abu Rahame is an intensiveperson, i.e. nervous. He lights one cigarette with another. This IDF checkpointmust not be crossed by a car with less than three persons in.On both sides there are children waiting at the roadside. They take one shekelfrom drivers who take them in their car to fill up the required number, then onthe other side they get another shekel from another driver to go the other way.This is their way of of surviving this collapsed economy.
We wait. “Sometimes you have to wait here for three days. Depends on thesituation”. But this time, we get the permission after half an hour. We go through on abeautiful, neglected road, lined by ancient eucalyptus trees. And then we are atRafah Camp. A big, ruined place. You can hardly call this place, with 140,000people, a city. Palestinians are unanimous that it is “the poorest, most miserable,most damaged place of all: 250 inhabitants killed in the Intifada, more than 400houses destroyed. Half of those killed were children.”
When I enter the apartment used by “The Internationals” I start feeling that here,especially, I should not identify myself as Israeli. Israeliness, for these youngpeople, represents the worst evil they know: demolition of homes, brutal killings,bulldozers, shooting, tanks, humiliations, hunger and poverty. The young people inthe room are not quick to communicate with the French journalist which they thinkthey are meeting. They are tired of the media, they have not yet completely cometo terms with the death of their friend, they are not eager to answer questionsand they don’t particularly care that I have only two hours. I watch the nervouslytapping foot of my escort. “Come back for me tomorrow” I suddenly ask him. After ashort debate, in which I promise to take very much care of myself, he bids megoodbye with a disapproving look on his face. Joe Smith, the only member of thegroups really willing to talk to me, offers to go together to the internet cafe afew steps away, and on the way he tells me how he had come to join the ISM.
Seeping fear
Smith is a 21-year old guy from Kansas City. While in high school he read a bookabout peace activists and became enthusiastic with the idea. In a politicalscience course he met with Prof. Steve Naber, read Marx and realized his status asa white male, with privileges at the top of the pyramid.He went to Slovakia, joined anti-globalisation groups and decided that what hemost wants to do with his life is to devote it to the weak, to those who don’thave the privileges he has. Especially he wants to challenge the dictatorship ofthe strong which is enforced by his own government, which is how he got to theRafah group. While talking we get to the internet cafe in the city center, where I meetMuhammad who does not want to tell the French journalist his full name “becausethere is very much trouble around here”, but who insists that I sit by him andread from the screen his online diary and look at the photos he had placed atwww.rafah.vze.com. Muhammad is 18, he has a delicate face and studies English inthe university. I decide to gamble and suggest to him to be my interpreter andescort in Rafah. I leave Joe behind the computer and walk with Muhammadthrough Salah A-Din Street, Rafah’s main street. I notice a bit of discomfort inMuhammad’s look and ask him what is the matter. “You better buy a keffiya and coveryour hair. That way, you will be less conspicuous, and people will feel that youidentify with their suffering. I immediately take his advice. We stop at thefirst stall, buy a keffiya, stop a taxi, haggle a bit and agree upon 50 shekels for half an hourand start going around the city. Already on the first moment he asks if I am theforeign journalist who had come to visit the internationals. Rumors spread swiftly
here. The driver tells me that it was him who had taken Rachel Corrie to her deathon that fateful morning.
The first site Muhammad chooses to show me is at Block G on the northern edge ofthe city, where 400 houses had been destroyed. As we come near, inhabitants livingin tents warn us not to come close to the tanks with their guns directed at us.”When they see something moving they shoot”, a woman on a donkey warns Muhammad.The rest of the way we do half crawling among the ruins, through the narrowalleys, careful not to raise our heads. The tanks are some 200 metres away,their guns at the ready. It is important to Muhammad to show me the site of the masshouse demolition. He had photographed house after house and entered the housesinto his internet site, which is daily visited by 900 people from all over theworld.
Row after row of destroyed houses, with personal belongings scattered andstrewn around. Dolls, furniture, bicyles, books. We crawl through the alleys to avoidthe threatening guns of tanks. “They can shoot at any moment, just at anysuspicious movement” he says and leads further in. The fear comes crawling up my feet andlegs. Finally, when we come closer and closer to the tanks and the ruins becomedeeper and deeper, I raise my voice: “Enough!”. Muhammad yields to the Frenchjournalist, and we get into the taxi and move on.
The next destination is the al-Ubur Airfield which had been destroyed by F-16airplanes, then the ruined house beside which Rachel Corrie was killed, then asmall hospital whose two ambulances are running around constantly. Most thingswe watch from a distance of no less than 100 metres “since shooting can start atany moment”. After two hours I insist on calling a halt. We enter a smallrestaurant and order large pita bread with humous, tehina and coca cola, all for four anda half shekels [About one dollar, less than half the Tel-Aviv price].”Where do you live?” I ask. “I moved with my parents to a different house. Twomonths ago they destroyed our home. I came from the university and foundeverything ruined. The computer, the books, the notebooks, my study materials.Nothing was left. They came and destroyed everything at a moment’s notice, didnot give any chance of taking things out. We were just thrown into the street. Me,my father, my mother, my three brothers, my grandfather. And believe me” he saysto the French journalist “they had no reason. We are just an ordinary family, notinvolved in anything. They just destroyed our life in one hour”. I look atMuhammad talking. Only now, after I saw the 400 destroyed houses, do I reallyunderstand his grief.
Muhammad leads me back to the internationals’ flat just as they are about to gopay a condolescence visit to the familes of people killed on the same day asRachel. To my surprise, they don’t object to my joining them. The seven of ussqueeze ourselves into a single taxi, and we go the water tower at the edge of thecity. One of the group’s duties is to guard the water and electricity workers whorepair the water pipes or electricity wires damaged in the shooting. While they dotheir work Joe, Laura, Alice and Gordon form a circle around them, to defend themfrom the soldiers’ shots.
A faceless enemy
In the bereaved families’ houses, where I sat with the others on the floor, drankbitter coffee and ate dates, I hardly ever heard the word “Israelis”. Even theword “soldiers” was only rarely used. What the Palestinians usually say is simply”they”. This is not by chance. During the 30 hours that I lived there I never sawa flesh-and-blood Israeli soldier. From the Palestinian point of view the enemyhas no face, no body, no human form. The enemy is hidden behind giant D-9bulldozers, monsters as big as a house themselves, at whose top there are squaresof opaque reinforced glass. The enemy is hidden behind bunkers, guard towers,metal tanks. The enemy has no face, no expressions which could be interpreted. Theenemy is hidden behind tons of khaki-coloured steel. Massive steel, frightening,belching fire without warning. For the man in the street the enemy is virtual,sophisticated, unhuman, inaccesible.
And facing this enemy are the Palestinians I see waliking in the dirty streets.Many with torn cloths, some barefooted, neglected, manifestly poor. You can seethe traces of sorrow, apprehension., suffering, inadequate food. At 45 they lookold. They walk from one side of the city to the other, seeking some kind of a job.
Man walk in groups, hither and fro. They have no jobs and nowhere to go. They livesqueezed – men, women and children – in narrow houses and small pieces of land.On the way back from the condolences visit, we encounter a massive group ofmarching men. At the front a car with enormous loudpeakers, blaring music and tenmasked young men holding swords and calling out slogans against the Iraq War. “Ademonstration, a demonstration” the internationals call out, stopping the taxi andjoining right in among the fiery men. Willy-nilly, the French journalist alsowalks with the march, keeping constant eye-contact with the three women of thegroup – Laura, Alice and Carol. There are no Palestinian women to be seen.It is one of these demonstrations which look very frightening on TV. Guys withblack rags covering their eyes, blaring loudspeakers, swords and knives betweenteeth. The direct human contact, at close range, diminishes the drama. I look atthe fiery men and toy with imagining how they would have reacted if they knew thatthere is an Israeli identity card right there in my pocket. In their sweatingfaces I can see how young and desperate they are, looking for action. Alice, Lauraand Carol join the heated chanting of slogans against the Americans and Israelis,taking out a large colour poster, with the face of Rachel in her role as a martyr.
Alice, a 26-year old Londoner, takes up the megaphone and delivers a fiery speechon what Rachel had done for the Palestinians and how she was killed. Alice speaksin English and the Palestinian men listen in admiration. I feel that Alice is thestongest woman in the group. She is young, charismatic and determined. I had towatch my chance for ten hours before she consented to peel off her tough exterior,soften a bit her Jeanne d’Arc image and exchange some words with me.
Alice, who prefers not to mention her family name, grew up in London. Afterhighschool she studied computer programming, had a nice job and rented a goodappartment.”I lived a bourgois life and I found that it leads nowhere. Going to anexpensive restaurant with a new boyfriend, and on the way passing homeless peoplesleeping on the pavement. I started to be interested in how the strong exploit theweak, and for a time I went to work in a factory. Afterwards I became more andmore political. I started to give an account to myself for everything I did, whatdid I eat, what entertainment did I enjoy, what does it mean to live in acapitalist society. I went to demonstrate in Prague and got arrested. I put mycourage to the test, until I finally trained myself to come here. Here it is themost difficult. What is most interesting to me is to analyse the tactics of forceused by the strong against the weak. Only here, when I help the Palestinians toface the Israelis, do I feel that my life has a meaning.
We walked for 20 minutes with the stormy march, then we moved aside and startedshopping for the evening: preserved meat, noodles, rice, sugar, cookies and tea.The group is financed by contributions and lives as a commune. Every spent Shekelis carefully noted down
Nowhere to escape
At Six PM, a last team meeting ahead of the night. The small commune is conductedby strict rules. Every morning at 8.30 they meet at the appartment after havingspent the night at threatened Palestinians homes. They discuss the experiences ofthe past night, hear from Palestinian friends on developments on the ground, anddivide tasks for the coming day. They stand as human shields at electricityinstallations and water wells, collect testimonies, and take footage on smallvideo cameras. They face the hostile lumps of steel with their megaphones and tryto establish dialogue with the soldiers inside.
These seven people are taking up an enormous load in this chaos. But who is totake care of these young people themselves, who sleep two hours per night and hadnot yet time to come to terms with having intimately witnessed Rachel’s death?They spare themselves nothing. They had insisted on wiping the blood from Rachel’sface, touching her broken back, taking the body to the morgue with their ownhands, wrap it with shrouds, and accomapny it in the ambulance to Tel-Aiv, sharplydebating with the soldiers who stopped them for hot hours at the checkpointdespite the fumes which started to arise from the body.
The mother role is played by Carol Moskovitz, who joined the group with herhusband Gordon a week ago. Carol is 61 and Gordon seems a bit younger. They areartists, they live in Canada, and have been travelling the world for the pastthree months. When they heard of what happened to Rachel they decided to cut theirtrip short and come to offer their help. Since Sunday, they act like parents tothe younger members of the group: preparing tea, asking questions, trying toaddress the shock and disbelief which Rachel left behind.
Carol and Gordon have three daughters in Canada. An hour ago Carol got a phonecall from her eldest, 30 years old, with warm greetings for Mother’s Day. Caroland Gordon conceal from their daughters the fact that they are in Rafah Camp. Theydon’t want to make their children and grandchildren worry.
It was at 7.30 that I went with Laura and Joe to stay the night in the house ofMuhammad Jamil Kushta, the first house fronting the IDF position on the Egyptianborder, an ill-fated house. There, in Jamil’s house under the ceaseless shooting,guns, missilies, rockets and only the devil knows what else, for four consecutivehours, truly feeling that these might be my last moments, I gambled and revealedmy identtity as an Israeli from Tel_Aviv. Then I said that my own sons might beamong the soldiers shooting at us, not knowing that I was there in the house theywere shooting at, or it might be one of my sons’ friends who had visited my home.And that was the moment we started to look at each other and laugh. Three babies,two Americans, a Palestinian couple and an Israeli woman all sitting around a bigbowl of salad, with bullets whistling through the air, we started to laugh. Alaughter of despair, of apprehension, of relief at the human closeness which wesuddenly found. I knew that with some luck I would get through the night and runfor my life, but Jamil and Nora had no escape, that they were doomed to raisetheir three babies under live fire. And then Laura opened her mouth to reveal thatshe was Jewish too, and rather an observant Jewess too. And it turned out that thefiery Alice, the group’s “Jeanne d’Arc”, the Israel-hater, was Jewish too. “Andthe soldiers” said Jamil “they too are just 20-year old children who have to standout there, alone in the dark, shaking, within the cold steel”.
We all agreed: life is short and human beings are silly creatures.