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Reports and reflections from ISM activists in Palestine
1- Making war on ambulances and hospitals (By Rebecca Murray)
2- The Planes Still Fly Overhead (By Adam Shapiro)
3- Reflections from Ramallah (By Brandon Jourdan)
1- Making war on ambulances and hospitals
July 6, 2002
By Rebecca Murray
On the morning of Saturday, July 6th, we were awakened by a blast that rattled the floor and the walls of the house in Jenin camp where we were staying. When we ran outside, we saw that the Israeli army was conducting house to house searches. The blast had been caused by the detonation of sound bombs.
We went to the government hospital at the edge of the camp and found it surrounded by a large number of tanks, armored personnel carriers and army jeeps. Snipers had taken up position around the hospital. With our hands in the air we walked through the tanks and gained entry to the hospital, where we made our presence known in the different wards. An Israeli captain claimed that there were wanted men in the hospital, and said the army would remain until they got them, even if it took months. There were in fact no men in the hospital on Israel's "wanted" list.
For three hours the director of the hospital engaged in a tense negotiation with the soldiers. For part of that time, all ambulances were grounded, and no movement was permitted in the vicinity of the hospital. After about an hour, an ambulance was permitted to pull up a block or so away, we walked patients to and from the hospital. A soldier put a gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman being escorted to the hospital to give birth, and threatened to shoot.
Finally, the army withdrew without searching the hospital. As the tanks pulled out, the soldiers detonated more sound bombs.
They then went into Jenin town center and announced a curfew, while firing live ammunition into the air, crushing cars and mangling shop doors.
Later in the afternoon they returned to the town, and sprayed the center with automatic fire. A 70-year-old man who was standing at his door got shot in the stomach. He has undergone an operation and his condition is stable. I later visited his house, and saw that there was blood all over the floor and walls.
Three days before when soldiers fired from the tanks with live ammunition a 17-year-old girl had been wounded. Soldiers called for an ambulance to come and pick her up and then fired on it when it approached. Two other ambulances were turned back before the girl was finally permitted to be moved from where she lay in the dark on a stretcher between two army jeeps.
The harassment of ambulances is very frequent in Jenin. A few nights ago I saw the damage done to an ambulance that was parked outside the hospital with its blinkers on. A tank tore off its bumper and shot bullets at it before driving away.
About ten days ago, an ambulance set out from Jenin for Jerusalem carrying a patient who needed open heart surgery. The Jenin hospital was not equipped to do this kind of operation. The ambulance got stopped at many checkpoints but eventually reached the outskirts of Jerusalem where the ambulance driver, his co-worker, and the patient were all ordered to get out. The Israeli soldiers claimed there were explosives in the ambulance.
After they had stripped it bare and found nothing, they beat the driver and took all three of them to the Moskobiya prison compound. The driver was interrogated and again beaten, and the patient questioned (but not beaten). Five hours later they were taken back to the ambulance and escorted to Jericho where they spent the night. The next day they returned to Jenin. The patient is now back in Jenin hospital. The ambulance driver had to wear a neck brace for several days because of the injuries he sustained during the beating.
Even when the Israeli soldiers are not physically present, trips in ambulances can be harrowing experiences. Last Friday night, July 5th, an ambulance left Jenin to pick up a 15-year-old who had been shot in the stomach in a distant village. It had to navigate over rough dirt roads, and sometimes through the olive groves to get around the barricades that the army had erected. On the return journey, the ambulance had a blow out and the crew had to change the tire in the dark. By the time the patient finally reached the hospital, his internal bleeding had been accelerated by the condition of the roads.
Meanwhile, in the Jenin refugee camp, my home for the past three weeks, sewage continues to flow down the streets and alleys.
There are still electricity cuts and the mountainous rubble of crushed homes remains untouched
On July 5th, nearly three months after the Israeli invasion of Jenin, between 150 and 200 people from the camp held a peaceful sit down demonstration at the United Nations (UNRWA) School to protest the lack of rebuilding activity.
For more information about daily life under occupation in Jenin, call
Rebecca at +972 5 555 8954 or 972 5 386 9307;
Juliana at 972 6 737 3467;
Caiomhe at 972 5 597 5374
2- The Planes Still Fly Overhead
Adam Shapiro
The streets of Ramallah are completely still, the bright sun reflecting off the pavement and the stone of the buildings forcing the viewer to squint and ultimately turn away. The brilliance of the color of the flowers in my garden - purple, yellow and pink - creates a kind of noise rising up until I turn my gaze away. I can hear the birds chirping their songs, the call undisturbed but for the occasional sound of armored personnel carriers (APCs) moving about or the crack of machine gun fire and the echo of the bullets whizzing through the air. Out the left window of my kitchen the minaret of the local mosque stands tall, but the sound of the call to prayer is no more. And, of course, this enforced, imposed serenity in this previously bustling city, is periodically punctuated by a roar from above, for the planes heading on to Tel Aviv still fly overhead.
Naturally, one looks to the sky at these times, expectantly looking for the jet, the contrast of the sound to the powerful silence imposing itself on one's mind and spirit. But the stranger contrast, the one that stings and forces your head to dip down and your shoulders to slump is that of the difference in movement. For Ramallah, like almost all Palestinian cities, has become a virtual prison of homes.
Ramallah has always been a city of movement, even before it was properly a city. Decades ago, Ramallah was a kind of weekend getaway and summer spot for Palestinian Arabs seeking to escape the bustle of Jerusalem and other cities. More recently, Ramallah has emerged as the main center of congregation of Palestinian-Americans returning home to build their nation and have their children grow up in their ancestral land. And Ramallah is where most international organizations and companies have set up offices in Palestine, thus generating a feeling of constant movement as new faces replace older ones in the sizable expatriate community.
But now, this has all ceased, with the imposed curfew by Israeli forces. Now they are the only ones to move, for anyone caught breaking curfew "will be punished" as the loudspeaker on the military jeep announced today.
As I walk through the streets of the city (I along with other internationals here consistently break curfew, refusing to acknowledge the authority of the Israeli occupation forces) I am constantly reminded of being a visitor in a zoo. Not that the Palestinians are animals, but this is precisely how the Israelis are treating the Palestinian population - locking up over 700,000 people in their homes throughout the West Bank.
As I come upon a house or apartment building, kids rush to the windows to peer out, often behind child-proofing or design-inspired bars barring the windows. Sometimes people will venture to go outside into their gardens or front yards, and dare to come as far as the outer walls to their property. Always, they will shake hands or speak with you. And in true spirit of Palestinian hospitality, each person is greeted with a "t'fadalou" (basically, "you are welcome inside").
And in the outlying areas of the cities, away from the concentration of the soldiers, some will come outside into the street, but always held back by an invisible leash, and all ears open and listening for the sound of the jeep or an APC or a tank. When these arrive on the scene, everyone rushes back inside, for all know of what happened in Jenin (where a number Palestinians in the market were shot and killed) and that was when curfew was lifted!
And what are we to do, those of us who watch on the evening news or read in the newspaper about the events in this region?
Is the promulgation of a jail sentence on an entire people acceptable simply because it has happened? People who have yearned for freedom for over 50 years are now locked away, patrolled by their jailers - the same jailers who refuse to remove their occupation and oppression and grant freedom to the men, women and children of Palestine. And while these people are locked up, the planes continue to fly overhead.
We cannot accept that an entire people should be jailed. The lack of outcry against this situation in which Palestinians find themselves belies the fact that treatment of the Palestinian people as animals or criminals is acceptable. And the planes keep flying overhead.
3- Reflections from Ramallah-- by Brandon Jourdan June 29, 2002
Hello Friends,
Some of us Internationals got into Ramallah two days ago. This curfew has made Ramallah into a giant prison for its citizens. We have been staying in a hospital for the last couple of nights. When we arrived the Israeli troops were blowing up cars in front of the hospital. They destroyed a total of 15 cars without any reason other than showing their control over the people of Palestine. The explosions busted hospital windows and put patients' lives in jeopardy. They have also been doing extensive searches of every ambulance that comes into the hospital. It is already an extremely hard process getting patients into the hospital with the curfew. Many roads have been blocked by the troops. Their reasoning behind checking the ambulances is to search for weapons. This is a lie. It is only to terrorize the people. The Palestinians are not terrorists. In fact, they are the most gentle, loving people that I have ever encountered. Most of the people are uninterested in violence, they want peace and freedom.
A group of Internationals took a 10 km hike into the village of Diribzia yesterday. They came back tired with tears in their eyes. Many cried into the night over what they had witnessed. Gigantic boulders blocked all of the entrances, not allowing ambulances to get to the sick and wounded. They were also upset because of the children. The children followed them through-out the village smiling and wanting to touch them. One International could not stop crying because of the impact that the smiling children had on her. "Why does Mohammad have to suffer from this closure? He has done nothing. He needs love, not tanks and soldiers." Today, they lifted the curfew for only a few hours. It is the first time in five days. People are running to the stores to stock up before the next curfew. After the curfew, they will be shot if they are in the street.
Yesterday, a Army jeep rolled through the street with megaphone threatening to kill any civilian saw on the street. Today, we joined Palestinians in a protest against the curfew and the thirty-five years of this occupation. We have to hurry and get back to the hospital before the curfew goes back into effect. This is state terrorism. This is the root of the violence, not the people of Palestine. YOU must take your opportunity to stop the U.S. funding of this operation. I don't know how much longer these people can go on suffering. Many are at their breaking point and they are good people. They are made of the same flesh and blood as you and me. It is unfortunate that they were born under these conditions.
Later,
Brandon Jourdan
NC IMC
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