Monday, August 26
The game of cat-and-mouse with the army intensifies… We’re not exactly sure what is going onhere, but the army has become much more aggressive towards the internationals in Nablus. A fewdays ago three internationals were arrested after trying to bring food to an occupied house.These are homes that the army rolls in and takes over, usually keeping the family in one room inthe basement or first floor and locking them in while they trash the house (we’ve seencampfires built in stairwells and toys and clothes strewn about). Because of the illegalcurfew the family are not allowed out of the room and are sometimes locked up for weeks at a time.The checkpoints have become much more intense and impenatrable. When a group ofinternationals tried to enter through the main checkpoint at Huwarra village they were toldthat ” No internationals, no Palestinians, not even press may enter Nablus. Not even thatdonkey there may enter. ” When a group of us went to the demonstration at !
Huwarra on Saturday we had not even crossed the checkpoint when a jeep drove up and told us all toleave Nablus. ” I arrested three of you yesterday and I will arrest you if I need to. You mustleave. ” There were no negotiations. We are very worried because this is what happened in Jenina few months ago with the massacre/invasion there, closing off the town to press andinternationals so that no one would know what they were doing there. (The three arrested, bythe way, were released in Jerusalem. They had been charged with ” shielding rock-throwingchildren with your bodies. ” Can you even fathom that? Charging someone with a crime forpreventing soldiers from shooting children who pose zero threat to their armored tanks? Nodissent or resistance is tolerated in Nablus. The charges were later dropped–there weren’teven any children around when they were arrested–it seems they just wanted them out ofNablus.) On Saturday a group of about 30 internationals from GIPP (Grassroots International Protection for Palestinians–a largely European group) and ISM(International Solidarity Movement–my group) traveled to Huwarra, the village rightoutside Nablus and next to the main checkpoint, for a joint Taaush (Israeli PeaceGroup)-Palestinian-International demonstration against the occupation and curfew.Huwarra, being right next to the main military base in Nablus, thus bears the full brunt of theoccupation. The town has been under almost continuous curfew for TWO YEARS and has had foodshortages for about two months. Virtually nothing has been allowed in or out of the town sincethe beginning of the intifada in 2000. Can you imagine being threatened by a foreign army withinjury/arrest/death (snipers) if you left your house for two years? Apparently there was a TVannouncement of the demonstration and the last one ended with the arrest and injury of severalactivists, so were were nervous already when we found out that no one was even being allowed!
OUT of Nablus today. We then took a route that included three separate legs of taxi drives (oneby my friend Ibrahim who is proving ever resourceful) to get around the roadblocks andcheckpoints (without crazy/genius taxi drivers and cellphones this movement would not bepossible) and a 2 kilometer walk along a settler road–not a very safe route to take. When wemade it into Huwarra we found the march ready to start and, sure enough, it did 3 minutes after wearrived. There were dozens of Palestinians with banners and flags chanting and movingthrough the streets and we didn’t really have time to prepare or get in position. Militarypolice (the most brutal of the military we deal with) showed up immediately, so we tried toposition ourselves between the police and the Palestinians, holding up our hands andshouting that this was a peaceful demonstration. There were no rocks thrown or any weaponsanywhere in the crowd, but the police jumped out of their jeeps and tossed se!
veral bright orange concussion grenades at us (also known as flash-bang grenades–theyexplode with a loud flash and a boom and it disorients and shocks you–like a mild concussion)and shot several tear-gas mortars into the crowd, including the long range kind meant to befired in an arc but they shot many straight into the crowd–two wizzed by my head and legs. I hadnot had time to take my contacts out, and you can be blinded with the gas the army uses if you leavethem in so I ducked down an alleyway coughing and choking and frantically pulled out mycontacts. I couldn’t see for a few minutes but soon there were arms helping me to my feet andsomeone shoved an onion under my nose–it cuts the gas quite effectively– and as I regained mysenses I found it was a small crowd of Palestinian children helping me, looking quiteconcerned for this foreigner. We ran back into the street where the army continued teargassing and tossing concussion grenades while driving their jee!
ps through the crowds at intimidating speeds. Once close enough they would toss tear gasgrenades out the back of the jeeps, which was bad because those things just explode in a cloud ofgas that’s very hard to escape. All the while we tried to stay within and in front of the crowd anddocument the whole thing. I suspect the presence of internationals at the rally kept thingsfrom getting quite nasty. As it was it only generated a paragraph in a story buried deep withinCNN.com. They know if internationals were killed then it would be a huge story, and insolidarity with the Palestinians we used that priviledge to protect them. We retreated fromthe main street, regrouped with the Palestinians, and then heard the chanting of the fewhundred Israeli peace activists who had bussed down for the demonstration and dodged theirway through the tanks of their own army with trucks of food for the village. We joyously joinedtogether and Palestinian embraced Israeli embraced International. Together we turned to the army and began to chant in Hebrew and Arabic ” Peace, yes!Occupation, no! ” The Israelis and Internationals linked arms and surrounded the crowd toprotect the Palestinians as a long train of APC’s and tanks entered the village and people werelauging, crying, and hugging while the Palestinian children banged together the cans of babyformula the Israelis had brought with them. It was one of the most beautiful things I have beenblessed to witness. Afterwards the Israelis left and we started the long journey back toNablus through the checkpoints. We had three Palestinians from Nablus with us, and we werequite worried for them. Sure enough, our taxis got stopped by a checkpoint and we told them wewere on our way to leave the West Bank, so they agreed to let us pass but they wanted to check ourpassports. We had put our sunglasses and hats on the Palestinians to make them look more likegeeky Western internationals, and we mobbed the soldier checking passports, some of us making him check our id’s two or three times to confuse him as weslipped the Palestinians through with our group. We made it into a village outside of Nablusthat night, but there was heavy shooting and reports of rockets in Nablus, so we decided to waituntil morning to enter. This worried all of us as that left most of the threatened homes empty ofInternationals, and most of us have grown quite close to the families. The next morning weheard from other internationals that the hills were crawling with soldiers and that all roadswere closed. Most of the internationals decided to go with some crazy/genius taxi drivers whosaid they knew a way around the checkpoints, but to make sure at least some of us made it backCarina, the Dane, and I led another international and one of the Palestinian women over thehills in the way we knew. We made it back into Nablus, but were confronted with the news thattanks had shelled the marketplace there (!)see the article from CNN.com below) and that many children were injured. As I entered BalataRefugee Camp my friends and the children greeted us as warmly as ever (including shoving foodand tea into my hands–I’ve never consumed so much tea or coffee in my life–the people herewon’t let you get out the door without feeding you or giving you coffee). I spent the rest of theday working on my village project (have I mentioned this? I’ve been kind of sucked into the roleof ” Village Coordinator ” . I’m doing a survey of all the villages around Nablus to find out thefood, medical, and water needs and getting contacts in all the villages so we can start to getthem some relief. Most have been strangled by the blockade/curfew. Roadblocks andcheckpoints block the roads into the town they rely on as a commerical center and ambulancessometimes take hours to get through the army). I arrived to find my family’s house undestroyedand with my social standing greatly elevated since they saw me on Al-Jazeera chanting ” Free, free, Palestine! ” with Palestinians and Israeli peaceactivists at Huwarra. Today I have spent more time working on the village project, trying tofinish the work before I leave Nablus on Thursday. The army has cracked down both oninternationals and Palestinians. Before the curfew was imposed by roving checkpoints witharrest for those who were caught, but determined folks (like me) could usually give them theslip. Today there were tanks on all the main roads and there has been firing all day, includingthe deep boom of the tank cannon. As I dodged through the streets today the children would tellme where the ” gesh ” (soldiers) were and my only other company was litter blowing through thedeserted, bullet-riddled streets of one of the biggest cities in the West Bank. Last night anF-16 was flying over for several hours, dropping high-powered flares to illuminate theentire refugee camp. We panicked and called the US consulate to inform them that there were American citizens in Balata. The marine security guard there repliedthat yes, the Israeli army knew. ” We just don’t want to get bombed, ” I said. ” WEll, that’s whythe State Department warns Americans not to travel in the West Bank, ” he said. ” Well, that’skind of why we have to be here, ” I said. ” Yeah, ” he said. ” Yeah… Ok. Bye ” ” Goodbye. ” We thoughtthey might be targeting a building for an ariel bomb like the 1-ton bomb they dropped on a GazaStrip apartment building to assasinate a militant leader when he was visiting his wife andchild in late July. They killed them and 13 other people. There is no value here placed onPalestinian lives. If 15 have to die to get at one, then that is acceptable. It was an apartmentbuilding full of people and they knew that just as surely as they knew he would be there thatnight. This is the nature of the occupation. I slept on the roof that night to better hear thearmy when they came, shoes on, cellphone by my side. Peace, Conor Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus, occupied West Bank PS Here’s anarticle I found buried deep within CNN.com It’s one of the only articles I’ve found that quotes” Palestinian sources ” alongside the Israeli army. The part at the end is about thedemonstration. The fact that they would just decide to fire a tank shell into the crowdedmarket to get at one guy with a rifle who posed little threat to their heavily armored tank Ithink just illustrates my point. By the way, CNN has been quite awful about coveringPalestinian deaths and tragedies with anywhere near the same amount as Israeli, this despitethe fact that far more Palestinians have died during the uprising than Israelis. The New YorkTimes, while far from perfect, at least tries to be a bit balanced.
NABLUS, West Bank (CNN) — Nine Palestinians,
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including four children, were wounded by Israeli forces at a marketplace in the ” old city “area of Nablus Saturday !
evening after citizens broke the enforced curfew to get food and supplies, according toPalestinian sources. But the Israeli military said people at the scene were caught incrossfire after Israeli forces trying to enforce the curfew were fired on by a Palestiniangunman and fired back. Palestinian sources said the incident took place around 6 p.m. Aftercitizens spilled into the marketplace to buy food and other supplies, tanks and armoredpersonnel carriers entered the area and shelled the marketplace, where about 100 people werecongregated. There was heavy machine gun fire and one tank shell from the armored vehicles,the Palestinian sources said. Among those hurt were four children — two 10 year olds, a 14 yearold and a 15 year old — Palestinian sources said. Two people aged 18 and 27 were seriouslywounded, they said. Israeli military sources said when Palestinians broke the curfew, thearmy came in with armored vehicles to reimpose it. Israeli forces approached the Palestinians and asked them to go home. The forces were shot at by a gunman in an alley way,and the forces returned fire, the military said, catching the Palestinians in the crossfire.The gunman was apparently wounded in the exchange and taken away by people at the scene, themilitary said. Also, near Nablus, there was a demonstration against the Israeli occupationof the West Bank attended by a few hundred Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners. They triedto enter Nablus, but Israeli forces shot tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades at thedemonstrators, Palestinian sources said.