Joshua Brown reiterated, for the purposes of the tape recording, many of the particulars of the piece published in the IMC called "Palestine Diary II." For this reason,
part of the transcription will be deleted with the exception of information not contained in that publication. The following summary highlights details about the situation in Balata Refugee Camp excluding information already published. After the summary, the interview resumes.

This conversation occurred at 1 a.m. Palestine, 6 p.m. Baltimore.

First, Joshua Brown has stopped e-mailing messages. Though he has access to computers, it takes at least 5 minutes to open up the e-mail. Cellular phone is much easier and less time consuming.

According to Brown, the work by the internationals in ISM in the evening is focused on protecting 3-4 houses in Balata, some in Nablus and others in another refugee camp called Askar. Though the IDF had been firing with M16's the night before (see Palestine Diary II), apparently there were no fatalities, although it was reported that two people died in Askar.

Referring to the "suicide bomber" whose family's house he is protecting, he explained that the weapon used to kill the cousin of Jihad Al-Titi was a tanked fire anti-personnel shell containing 600 bits of arrow-shaped shrapnel the size of nails. The cousin had been visiting a gravesite when he was hit. Jihad ran to him, attempted to pick up his body and found it in pieces. Though he had been a believer in peaceful solutions, his cousin's death drove the young man to the conclusion that he would attack Israeli's in a suicide operation.

The women relatives, mother and two sisters of Jihad fear that they will be murdered or arrested and deported. Despite this constant sense of worry and terror, they are staying in the home. Joshua explained that the home is all that they really have and without it, there will be no where for them to live. Most families live cramped in very small houses, with entire extended families. As noted before, all the male relatives of Jihad have been forced to flee, because it is likely that they will be murdered if they are found in the house.

For those who do not understand where Balata Camp is located, it is quite near the City of Nablus on the West Bank. Balata is well known for its resistance to the occupation. Further, Joshua explained that it is not fences or trenches that keep people in the camps, rather it is the extensive patrols of tanks, APC's, helicopters and soldiers, the checkpoints and roadblocks, and posts on higher ground - mountains or hills - where soldiers shoot at anyone on foot or in cars.

This concludes the summary. Here resumes the conversation:

Joshua - So basically without a fence the Israeli army is able to confine people to house arrest 24 hours a day for the past 55 days. Now occasionally they will announce that they are lifting the curfew for a few hours - but in certain villages around here that has not happened at all. So people must leave their houses to survive - in order to get fresh drinking water in order to get food and
to take care of these basic needs, people are defying the curfew. In the Balata refugee camp a young man said to us on the street the other day, "In Balata camp we are strong - we defy curfew."

This is the sentiment of the people here and when you walk in the streets during the day the shops are open and people are selling whatever they have to sell and people are buying it primarily on credit because no one has any money - no one has any jobs - no one can go to their work in another town or in Israel because of the 24 hour curfew, patrols and the violence. So Balata camp is very strong in defying the curfew and the streets are relatively bustling during the day.

Now there are a large percentage of people who will not leave the house - maybe the oldest son or the father will go out for a quick gathering of supplies and come back to the house.

This is something that is important to realize is that the curfew and the occupation are extremely dangerous to the lives of the Palestinians and to their ability to survive as a people and to continue on into the future as a nation. But perhaps even more dangerous is the possibility that the occupation and the curfew becomes internalized and this is the goal of the army and the tactics that they use is that the people will police themselves - will confine themselves for the fear of their lives and the lives of their families. This is what threatens the future of the Palestinian people as a culture, as a people and as a segment of the world's population.

Q - Well, we heard today that Sharon's popularity dropped by 8% overnight and there is a new candidate rising from the left. It seems like the government is in disarray.

Joshua - Yes, if there was such a thing as a survey here in the West Bank, Nablus, Balata, and Askar area you would find that 100% disapproval rate for Sharon, George Bush and probably for Tony Blair. People here are highly aware of the international policies which are supporting this violence and oppression and this apartheid state against Palestinian people.

There are small children between the ages and 5 and 8 in the streets who are chanting against Sharon and Bush and always asking us as we walk down the streets how we feel about Sharon and Bush and just with one or two words they are posing questions which all countries should pose. They are looking for the answers that are necessary to bring about the end of the occupation which is that Ariel Sharon will not be a part of peace process. He is a man of war. He is a highly successful murdering general from the Israeli army who is now trying to implement conditions for the Palestinian people in the same manner as he did when he was invading Southern Lebanon and killing thousands of people - at Sabra and Shatila - for example - and now George W. Bush gives huge amount of money to the Israeli army to murder Palestinian children.

I wish that the American people had the same level of understanding of what perpetuates the occupation and what the occupation means. I wish the American people understood half of what is understood by the small children in the streets of Balata refugee camp. Because if they did there would be no more occupation.

Q - We are glad you are there to be a witness. We are trying to get out your message. We hope that you are safe - although we're aware that it's a privileged position to be safe there at all.

Josh - It is - we're only getting a very small glimpse of what the Palestinian people have to overcome and survive every day and as internationals we can't possibility feel the full weight of that situation. But I'll tell you that the men women and children - boys and girls here are more strong than any people I've met before in my life for the way that they not only survive but surpass the extreme level of oppression, violence and psychological terror that they are faced with day in and day out. For anyone under the age of 54 - they were born into this situation and have lived in it for their entire lives and have no
certainty that any other situation will present itself but still they find time to smile and greet us internationals with warmth and eager respect. They are amazing people surviving unimaginable conditions imposed upon them by Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government with the support of the United States and other governments of the West.

(Suddenly, Joshua rushes to the roof of the house in response to gunfire) - I'm going on the roof. In the background we're hearing now - M16 fire - probably
about 1-1/2 km to the east at the house where we are staying this is unfortunately - a nightly event in the Balata camp and in the Nablus area and also through the west Bank and Gaza. For internationals, such as ourselves, it's quite unsettling and makes it difficult to stay focused on our goal of supporting the Al-Titi family and their ability to weather these unimaginably stressful
situations is beyond my comprehension. I don't know exactly what the soldiers are doing. We attempt to monitor them from the roof of the house and give ourselves as much - sorry I was listening for a tank - trying to discern which direction its going. We try to keep track of their - the army's movement and try to give ourselves as much of a head start in preparation for attack as possible.

Q - It's quiet now again?

Josh - I can hear in the distance a tank but it's difficult to know exactly which direction it's moving in. In the camp the houses are so densely packed that you
can't really see anything except occasionally clouds of dust rising up and the sound reverberates and echoes between the houses - difficult to exactly locate
where they are - until they get quite close and then it's a little bit late.

Q - So it's hard to even see them even though they are quite close to you -

Josh - Yes - between the houses there are alleyways that are anyway between 1.5 and 3 feet in width with 2-3-story building on each side. There are some wider streets where trucks can pass that unfortunately mean that the APC's and tanks can pass as well.

Today, after a long and tiring night of staying in the house and protecting it from close machine gun fire and tank activity and threatened demolition, 15 of the internationals from ISM went and implemented an action of removing two large roadblocks at a nearby village so water tank trucks could gain access to the village. Approximately 100 houses there in that village and the families had run out of water. Not only potable drinking water - but any water at all.

The village is in that situation because the Israeli army had blown up the well in the village and therefore put the village completely reliant upon water brought in by tank trucks. So today, from 9:30 a.m. until about noon, 15
internationals worked with picks and shovels to remove two large piles of dirt that were blocking the only road to the village and at least 15 and up to 50 deliveries of water were brought into the village. This fails to completely reach these 100 houses. It would require 100 tank trucks to be brought in - but we can confirm tomorrow if the roadblock stays open and the trucks can keep coming
until all 100 houses were stocked. But we can't be sure what happened to the roadblocks after the internationals left but it was a successful activity and there were only minor problems with the soldiers in the process.

So that was one activity that was achieved today during the day and another was the escorting of another water tanker through a checkpoint to the village of Bet-Iba by two internationals. There's a plan being formulated for getting a shipment of baby formula - milk to be brought to that village from a human rights organization - Jewish human rights organization in Israel that used to bring food into the West Bank and occupied territory - but with the 24-hour curfews in the past 55 days this organization has not supplied any food to the refugee camps and villages because they are not able to get into the West Bank.

But we are working on a plan that would perhaps allow us to bring a shipment of baby formula into this village where there are 60 infant children who are in need
of this formula and the few cans that are left in the village are expired. They have to use them anyway. The children are in severe need of this formula we are
hoping that our plan can be implemented in the next 2-4 days and that we would be able to successfully bring this to the village. So a lot of activities are going on at the same time that we are trying to show a strong presence in the houses of the families of martyrs. There are four I believe in Balata camp and three in the Askar camp. And we have people - internationals staying there - in hopes
that this will deter the Israeli army from coming in the middle of the night, destroying these homes and displacing these families - who have nowhere else to go.

So the people in the ISM are doing an excellent job working in conjunction with local Palestinian organizers and leaders to formulate plans for providing for the many needs of the Palestinian people forced to live in the inhumane conditions of apartheid. We are making many small gains that are very important to the survival of the Palestinian people. Local support for our activity is increasing steadily and more and more community members and leaders are stepping forward to provide us with ideas opportunities facilitation for successful campaigns and
strategies such as the ones we've doing over the past 4-5 days here in Balata and the surrounding villages in Nablus.

Q - Joshua, get some rest. We'll hear from you soon.

Josh - Goodnight.