Palestine Diaries, V.

August 24, 2001

6:00 p.m., Baltimore; 1 a.m., Balata Refugee Camp

Q - Hello, Joshua. The last time we talked there was a huge assault on several of the homes - the IDF was trying to get people out of the house.

Joshua - That evening - about 2:30 - 3 a.m., local time, the Israeli Army came into Balata with heavy fire from heavy machine guns and tanks. Actually there were two internationals and the women from the Abu Zur family - taken out of the house. And the men taken out of the house and harassed. But the internationals were not arrested. The two men were held for some time and harassed and then were left at the Abu Zur house. But the other house - the army went into the house and fired in the house, nearly hit a propane tank for their kitchen stove, all the family was inside and they ransacked two rooms and took a 35 year old man and a 19 year old man to the Huwara military base. After some hours the 35 year old man was released. To the best of my knowledge the 19 year old man is still in army custody and has not been returned to his home. I believe this was during Wednesday. There's been military escalation by the military - Israeli army - around Nablus over the past couple of days and the surrounding area.

Thursday, August 22

On Thursday the curfew on Nablus was open from 2 pm - 6 pm. But the villages and towns around Nablus were locked down. They were blocked by mobile checkpoints - basically tanks and jeeps with soldiers toting M-16s and tear gas and sound grenades, blocking all people from outlying villages coming to Nablus to visit to do shopping, visit to doctors, to go to their businesses.

Q - How close are the towns to Nablus?

Joshua - There are approximately a dozen small villages within a 5 km distance radius of Nablus. So the soldiers prevent them coming. Is that all you wanted to know about that?

Q - Well as you know, Joshua, I've been interested in the maps and that the maps I have seen don't show these towns - even the big ones you talk about.

Joshua - In a guide book I looked at before coming to Palestine - a British man wrote the book - he had to walk and make the maps himself. We make a mental picture of where the villages are. Where the checkpoints are - so it's sort of an oral process of constructing the geography - because they don't exist in any map form.

Q - And we talked about the army coming back to destroy the house with the two internationals in it. Did that happen?

Joshua - We put 12 internationals in that house for the next two days to help comfort the family and to make as strong as resistance as possible if the army were to come again to demolish the house. Later in the morning after the two men were abducted by the Israeli army, they received 5 calls from the Israeli army in that home and they said, "If you don't give us your other son, we will demolish your house" - they called 5 times. And this is a family who lost another of their sons to a desperate act of self-sacrifice also known as suicide bombing. Soldiers tore the photo of the son in half, and ripped it up in half, "we killed your other son and we will kill your 17 year old son when we find him, as well."

Q - They had a photograph from the house and ripped it up in front of them and said "We will kill your other son?"

Joshua - It was hanging on the wall. And they tore the photo in half and said "We will kill your other son as well."

Q - It sounds like they make these threats - they play this cat and mouse - they make these threats and sometime later they show up to do it.

Joshua - The families live under constant threat of house demolition - of their sons being abducted by the IDF. The IDF's actions are completely unpredictable. This is the terror they live with every day of their lives.

Q - It's shocking to hear this when you tell me these stories.

Joshua - It's shocking to live here in these circumstances and try to imagine how people exist and smile and be together and maintain some semblance of togetherness and community under these circumstances, it's impossible for me to describe.

Anyway, one other international and I went to Bet Iba on Thursday - a small village to the Northwest of Nablus to participate in a children's program. These programs have been organized in various villages and neighborhoods of Nablus for the past 3 weeks or so. It's an opportunity for children to come together and remember that they are children for perhaps two or three hours - a safer than usual space - where the children are able to draw and paint and dance together.

It's very important for their mental health - and it is also an attempt to give them at least a few hours of experiencing what is supposed to be a summer vacation from school. School is supposed to start very soon - if it's possible with the 24-hour curfew that's been imposed on Nablus and the surrounding villages for 62 days now.

But these children's programs are a wonderful experience for not only the children but we internationals who are here - a very refreshing break from being harassed by Israeli soldiers and being intimidated by very large tanks and vehicles and being closed in houses and being woken by machine gun fire.

We arrived a bit late because it took a while to cross the checkpoint - the soldiers harassing us for some time always asking us the same questions, "What are you doing here? Why did you come? Aren't you afraid for your life?" And when they're asking me this question while holding their fingers over the trigger of their M16's- and I think, "Yes, I'm afraid for my life. But it's you, the IDF that I fear - not the Palestinian people.

Then we were met by the coordinator of the program - he came scurrying down the road to meet us because tanks were coming - he already had all the children in a sort of carport area at one person's house in the village. We were a little bit late coming through the checkpoint arguing with the soldiers that we should go through the path to work with the children. And he came down the road and whisked us off to the side to the olive trees as the tanks passed by. And so we had to make our way through the olive trees, beyond some bee keepers hives, through sharp thorn bushes, down over two stone walls, through some more trees and up over a stone wall to get to the yard of the house where the children were. I felt like I was in some Hollywood film where we were in some kind of wartime siege and we stepped into this world where the children were supposed to be laughing and playing together. And you could see the tension on the faces of the children when we arrived.

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So of course it was very nice - the children began to relax a bit and warm up to us as we sang a few songs as best we could in our various native languages and some dancing and some played some games and tried to teach other Arabic and English respectively. I came to Palestine to do direct action against the occupation and I found myself involved in the direct action I had never experienced before and that was painting the faces of the children as direct action. And it's very interesting for me because direct action for me means affecting the concrete reality of people's lives through action and I feel as though a transformation in the relationship between we internationals and that group of 40 children was small but significant change in the concrete reality for them and us. So I've become a big advocate of face painting as direct action.

Q - I like that I like that a lot.

Joshua - It blows my mind to see the spirit of these children to gather that patience and concern that's required to communicate with non-Arabic speaking, dirty internationals, who wander in from the olive groves to lead them along through a little bit of young people's lives and world here in Palestine. I was completely dirty from head to toe. We had attempted to clear a road block between Nablus - Now we have M16 fire in the background.

Q - Right now?

Joshua - Yes - less than 1 km away - I'm sorry.

Q - That's okay.

Joshua - So half a km away.

Q - I hear it.

Joshua - There's been a fair amount of military activity in that area for the better half of the day. There's never really an explanation that I can grasp for why the IDF may be firing at the houses and civilians at all hours of the day and night. It's become commonplace here.

We had attempted to clear a road block - but one hour into the process moving stones and dirt that was impeding ability of ambulances to reach the village.

Q - Which village?

Joshua - The village of Tel - and apc's arrived on the scene and they said that they would give us two minutes to leave or they would start shooting and throwing tear gas. This is the IDF's notion of negotiations with peaceful internationals. So we discussed the situation and decided because they could simply bring a bulldozer and make the roadblock bigger - our group of 20 internationals decided to back away from the roadblock and try another time. We were there to clear the roadblock so that an ambulance could get to the village of Tel and do a mobile clinic bringing medicine and a doctor to the village to act as sort of a mobile hospital for them but the ambulance was able to find another way. And the group split off to -

Now we hear tanks moving in the northern edge of the Balata camp heading westward up toward the old Jerusalem road.

So a group of people split off to work with the mobile clinic in Tel. And I went to the children in Bet Iba and this is my long way of explaining why I arrived there completely dirty and unable to explain in Arabic why Americans go walking around like that.

Q - The dirty American?

Joshua - Yes. So when the children's program finished the family whose house we were at invited us in for a wonderful lunch and discussion of politics which is a standard topic here. So that was basically Thursday.

Q - Is that fire in the background or tanks?

Joshua - Tanks.

Q - Yes, I'm beginning to tell the difference.

Friday, August 23.

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Joshua - So Friday was an interesting day as well - in the morning we had a meeting as we do most morning to organize people to go on to the various projects for the day. A lot of the activities had to be canceled or rescheduled because there was a lot of military activity in the old city of Nablus. So two groups of 6 went to the old City in an attempt to de-escalate the soldiers' attacks in the streets of Nablus. When we arrived in the old city, we found 6 tanks about 4 apc's and 4 or 6 jeeps in the area and we responded to various locations where tanks were firing at children who were throwing rocks at them. We escorted 3 different family groups across in front of where the tanks were so they could get home from being at the market. Simple actions such as this are extremely powerful and rewarding and really make clear to us our privilege as internationals here. Without an international escort people would absolutely not be able to cross in front of the tanks tracking them with the turret of their guns. It's just - I don't know - it has a very strong effect on me I can't exactly describe how I feel - I feel powerful and useful and at the same time, unjustly so. These are not my streets, this is not my birthplace. But for some reason I am able to move more freely here than the people whose families have been here for generation upon generation. There's something very wrong about that. But we hope to use our international privilege to the maximum benefit of the Palestinian people and hopefully - sooner rather than later we will be invited guests of the Palestinian people to their independent country and as people often say there, "Come back for the biggest party that you will ever see." A celebration of freedom and independence.

We were successful on several occasions in the actions in the Old City but were very nearly arrested also. We were fired upon by tear gas as we retreated from the APC's. At this point we decided that most of the Palestinians had been able to get back to their homes and we would continue on to other actions.

Then we received news that one of the internationals from New York had gone to visit an occupied house (that the army had commandeered) near Nablus. There was also one film student from Canada and a journalist from Israel and one Palestinian from the Askar refugee camp nearby and the soldiers had arrested them. The three women and the one Palestinian man were arrested by the IDF. The Palestinian man was separated from them and brought into the occupied house. He was held for several hours handcuffed and blindfolded and was beaten and then released. And the three women were put into an APC and transported around for several hours. Then we were told that they were brought to a prison at the Ariel Settlement. We don't have any final confirmation that this is where they ended up but they were held for about a total of 8-10 hours. We were able to be in contact with the woman from NY, because she held onto her cell phone and so we found out the soldiers were threatening to imprison the Israeli woman for being in violation of Israeli law that she should not be in Palestine. And they were going to deport the Canadian and American woman - for - I don't know if this is actually a written crime in the IDF's eyes or if they just made this up as an excuse but apparently "protecting stone-throwing children" is a deportable offense in Palestine. This was the reason they gave that they were preparing to deport the two women but with some international pressure and perhaps some luck, the three women were released as I understand it and are now staying in Jerusalem.

So it was a stressful day - I spent about 5 hours on the phone somewhat successfully - trying to coordinate information and arranging for lawyers and legal support tasks that we try to do.

We have also tanks coming toward Balata. It's amazing that people can get any sleep here.

Saturday, August 24.

So today, (Saturday) there was a demonstration in Huwara village, just south of Huwara checkpoint. About 30 internationals from the greater Nablus area went to join this demonstration that was organized by Palestinians in Huwara village and was to be joined by 300-500 Israeli activists from the peace Ta'ayush.

When the 30 internationals left this morning to go out the Huwara checkpoint to the Huwara village the military checkpoint was double the usual and they said "no internationals will pass this checkpoint today."

But the internationals were not deterred but they found another way - took some taxis to another place and then hiked across the mountains and eventually got to the village where the demonstration had already begun. At this point the IDF was in the process of firing tear gas and sound grenades on the people's demonstration. And the internationals were attempting to maintain a demonstration and actually trying to wait for the Israeli activists to come and join them for the march and the speeches.

There were about an hours worth of attacks by the IDF on a peaceful demonstration before what I'm told 400 Israelis from Ta'ayuush - arrived at Huwara village at which time the soldiers ceased attacks upon the demonstration

A large explosion - I didn't see where it was, I just heard it.

The soldiers at that point ceased the attacks on the demonstration and moved to the side and made this formation and enough order was - (silence)

Q - Joshua, are you concerned about something impeding there?

Joshua - yes, there's been a general escalation I'm sure all the Palestinians and I are in the same situation - losing a lot of sleep and it's hard to stay focused.

Q - I don't know how they can get things done or think - it must be very difficult.

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Joshua - I think it's that the simple fact that it's this way every day it's like this for Palestinians - if they allow themselves to be afraid they will be paralyzed. They have a choice - they can be strong and go about their - go one and try and make some kind of life or they would become paralyzed and give up. And this is the situation that the Israeli army creates for the Palestinians and then George Bush and Ariel Sharon ask why there are suicide bombers - and some people decide to die quickly instead of dying slowly under occupation - the slow death of occupation and some people can't handle that and they decide to die quickly. I do not in anyway advocate suicide bombing as a tactic - but living in Palestine for 3 weeks now I understand where the desperation comes from I understand how some young people decide to give up the slow death and choose the fast death - It's really unfortunate - but I think the Israeli government needs to acknowledge its role in creating these conditions.

Q - I don't think you're going to get that from Ariel Sharon.

Joshua - I guess I'm not looking for the Israeli government's acknowledgement - I think I am more looking for the international's community's acknowledgement - and action - on that understanding - basically the international community needs to remove all support for the Israeli government.

So there was a demonstration in Huwara was able to give speeches and that went on for about an hour and at this point the Ta'ayush people returned to their homes - and the Palestinian people returned to their homes. The demonstration was to demand an end to the occupation. To demand an end to the curfew - Huwara village has been under curfew continuously for the last two years.

Q - That's before the 2nd Intifada, isn't it?

Joshua - Yes. Because of Huwara's location near a major military base and very near the border of Israel they have really received a heavy dose of Israeli army terror for some time.

The Palestinian people left and returned to their house arrest under curfew and the internationals entered a municipal building and spoke to the Mayor of Huwara and during this time tear gas was deployed in the streets again and was coming into the building. Eventually, the situation de-escalated enough that the internationals were able to leave Huwara and are spending the night at Tel. We have been told from several different sources in the last few days that the army is really interested in clearing Nablus of all the internationals. We were afraid that they are preparing for a major military action here - and all of our interactions with soldiers have become more difficult over the past 4 days. And getting into Nablus has become extremely difficult and not really possible when the soldiers are aware of it. But getting out of Nablus and something they are glad to allow us. So we are very dedicated to keeping our presence here and continuing to do the good work we do, and not allowing the IDF to push us out and attempt to create additional human rights violations against the Palestinian people in secrecy.

Q - Thank you for taking time from your sleep to talk with me.

Jos