Voices from the siege

As the worst continues to happen in occupied Palestine and the world continues to watch, Al-Ahram Weekly gives a platform to the people who strive to live under inhumane conditions, and to hope in the face of all odds
BETHLEHEM
22 April
It is amazing how much one can twist facts. But more amazing is how much people can be influenced by twisted facts. Two stories are being widely circulated in relation to the Church of Nativity.
The Israeli story is that a large group of armed "terrorists" entered the Church of Nativity. They took dozens of civilians including Christian priests and monks as hostages and are using them as human shields to launch attacks on the Israeli army, which is surrounding the place. Therefore, Israel is attempting to rescue the hostages and capture the "terrorists."
The Palestinian story is that as the Israeli army invaded Bethlehem and Israeli tanks approached Manger Square, around 240 Palestinians, some of whom are armed, entered the Church seeking a safe shelter. Armed Palestinians laid down their arms and are seeking the protection of the Christian clergy inside the church.
So who are the people inside the church? All sources from inside the church, including Father Ibrahim Faltas, Christian Lawyer Tony Salman, and the governor of Bethlehem Mohammad Almadani, confirmed repeatedly that the vast majority of the people inside are innocent civilians who ran into the church to save their lives. The armed Palestinians who entered the church were mostly members of Palestinian Authority Tourism Police, policemen from the adjacent Palestinian police station, and some Palestinians who decided to fight against the Israeli invasion of their city. The Vatican repeatedly announced that all people inside the church are non- engaged and only seeking a shelter that the church is willing to provide. The Vatican repeatedly affirmed that there is no hostage-taking situation.
As the siege of the church continued, Israel employed continued pressure to force the people inside to surrender. Some of the methods used are:
1- Preventing any supplies of food from entering the church. Currently people inside the church are starving.
2- Preventing the evacuation of dead bodies from inside the church. Two bodies are still inside.
3- Preventing any medical help for scores of injured people. The nuns are dealing with the situation with primitive first aid means.
4- Positioning snipers all over the place and shooting at any moving target. So far two people were killed inside the church and two more wounded including an Armenian Priest.
5- Shooting randomly inside the church. This random shooting resulted in a fire that destroyed three rooms inside the church. A Palestinian was shot dead by a sniper while attempting to extinguish the fire.
6- Throwing rounds of sound grenades into and around the church. This is going on all day and especially at night.
7- Transmitting, through loudspeakers, sounds that are beyond the threshold of pain into the church.
8- Repeated attempts to burst into the church from its eastern entrance. In one attempt Israeli soldiers destroyed one of the church gates using explosives.
So far, and aside from the suffering of people inside the church, considerable damage have been done to the church itself. With the current subdued protest and concern from the side of Christians all over the world and from the side of the international community, it is likely that Israel will upgrade its assault and might cause more substantial damage.
All attempts to negotiate a settlement to this situation failed. Israel insists on either complete unconditioned surrender or deportation outside the country on the part of the besieged. Israeli authorities refuse the involvement of any third party in such negotiating efforts.
It is extremely worrying that with the increased pressure on Israel to leave the PA areas, Israel might attack the church in an attempt to kill or arrest people inside. If this happens it might result in a massacre taking place inside the church, and it might destroy the church. Something urgent must be done to prevent this from happening.
Ghassan Andoni
BIRZEIT
17 April
Last night, between 8.30-10.30 pm, loud explosions all around Birzeit, neighbouring villages, and beyond the hills of Ramallah City, have shaken almost every house and soul. Everybody wondered what was going on. Bright reddish and greenish lights illuminated the hilltops, with every sound of explosion turning darkness into bright light, in every direction we looked. The tremendous and continuous explosions seemed so close, I thought a huge disaster is taking place around me right now: people getting killed just this second, while I stand helpless watching and wondering. For long moments I suspected Israel wants to finish up everything, wondering which areas or spots are being bombarded this time. Is there any Palestinian Authority institution or police station left? Knowing the answer to be in the negative, I suspected the worse.
At around 10pm when huge explosions and sounds of gunfire erupted from the nearby Israeli settlement, Bet El I finally realised what was going on. The explosions I have been hearing all evening turned out to be huge fireworks coming from illegal Israeli settlements besieging Palestinian areas, in celebration of Israel's "Day of Independence". For an instant I was relieved to know that at least my suspicions were wrong this time and that neighbouring villages seem to be relatively safe. Yet am I to be blamed for fearing the worse after having heard of and seen many war crimes committed by Israel?
A deep pain pierced my heart, knowing that the burning bright fireworks also commemorate the loss, homelessness and great Catastrophe of my Palestinian nation. It is ironic and provoking to see Israeli illegal settlers living in the West Bank celebrate their State's "Independence", in the mid of a huge Palestinian majority, who have been suffering for decades, and especially in the past 20 days, great pain, hunger and destruction. The Palestinian Nakba flashed in front of my eyes in seconds, each explosion of a firework felt like a bullet. All of a sudden I realised what the Israelis are trying to do. This is a psychological, physical and mental provocation; a message from the Israeli settlers to the surrounding Palestinian villages, refugee camps and cities that they have no intention of leaving the land they illegally usurped or compromising in any way -- a fact that may well bring my suspicions and fears expressed above true one day.
Ghada Munir Naser
JENIN
20 April
On Wednesday 17 April I left the wasteland of Gaza and came to East Jerusalem where it is easier to base oneself for travelling. For two days I stayed in the Jenin refugee camp, returning only late this evening. I know I will have to write about it soon in much greater detail than here, even though I know many people are doing this. The sorry truth is that it will not be nearly enough.
What I saw in the former Jenin refugee camp was the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. I will never be able to forget the people whose stories I listened to, or the sounds and smells that accompanied a kind of destruction I didn't know was possible: I now know the smell of death and what it is like to realise that you are standing on top of rubble under which people lie buried, unrecognizable and in many cases unreachable. I now know what tank shells, ammunition rounds, and missiles look like after they've exploded in peoples' bedrooms, family rooms, and kitchens. I heard a loud explosion just after the first long, endlessly awful day in the camp, and saw a pitiful shack on the perimeter of the camp go up in flames -- the family had left because a missile fired from an Apache helicopter had failed to detonate when it first came through the roof.
At the remnants of the refugee hospital inside the camp I watched as teams of workers with masks over their mouths and noses dug up bodies that had been buried in makeshift graves because they were not allowed to be taken out for proper burial during the siege. More bodies were brought in and laid out on the ground in white sheets and then loaded into trucks -- bodies of people (men, women, and children) who died when their houses collapsed on them or who were executed while tied up, or run over by tanks in the streets as a "message" to the other inhabitants of the camp. I saw men and women sobbing in the arms of their families and friends after identifying yet another son, brother, father, or friend decomposing under the plastic and the sheets and the disinfectants now being desperately sprayed to cover up the stench.
Bulldozers ploughed through the flattened ruins of an entire camp unearthing blankets, clothes, shoes, toys, books, schoolbags, mattresses, smashed furniture, spoons, forks, dishes, unrecognisable fragments of once intact homes. A woman wandering amid the ruins told me she had no idea where her house was; another begged me to tell people to just give them bread and water so they could live -- that's all they needed, she said. Bread and water. Please help.
At the Shifa Surgical Hospital just outside Jenin city, I asked if they were short of blood, oxygen, and other medical supplies. The head doctor there said no -- they had plenty. Why? Because the ambulances and emergency medical teams sent from there to get the dead and wounded inside Jenin camp were not allowed inside -- for 12 days.
Thirteen thousand people lived in the Jenin refugee camp. There are 3,000 people there now. Most fled to villages outside the camp and have nothing left to return to. This morning Israeli tanks fired rounds at people trying to return to their "homes" to see if there was anything left in the rubble of their former lives. They are not being allowed back. Hundreds of people are unaccounted for and more than one thousand have been arrested and taken to prison. Doctors, UN workers, human rights workers (such as from Medecins sans Frontieres and Save the Children) estimate that the Israeli assault on the Jenin camp killed between three and six hundred people.
Don't believe what CNN and BBC, among other Western news agencies, are telling you. Ask why there can be no investigation; why it must be called a "humanitarian tragedy" rather than the war crime that it is; ask why the EU has not imposed sanctions on Israel for its actions; ask why no international monitoring force is immediately leaving for the region; ask why Israeli political and military spokespeople are telling reporters that "only (sic) 45 people died" and that they were all armed "militants." Ask why few are willing to challenge these comments or remind these spokespeople that Israel conducted a massive military offensive against people who have the right to resist the occupation of their land.
If your blood doesn't run cold when US President George W Bush calls Ariel Sharon a "man of peace" that is probably because you have bought the lies packaged as news by a massive pro-Israeli propaganda machine. Americans, you are paying for the dehumanisation and destruction of an entire people. Jenin is only the most ominous and recent reminder of where Israel's 54 year old policies against the Palestinians are leading.
Jennifer Loewenstein
East Jerusalem
22 April
Last night I brought Jenin to Israel. I tried to at least. I walked from East Jerusalem to West, seeking a drink after spending a night in the devastated northern West Bank town. Jenin was still on my boots. Its mud splattered my pant legs too. I wanted to track it across their faux-antiquated stone streets.
Did the Israelis that passed by know that I was carrying Jenin to into their city? Did they know what I had just seen? I hadn't washed since I left the squalor of the demolished camp. Sporadic rains turned the pulverised homes into a soft tan mud. As I had climbed in and out of half demolished homes my pants were covered in the refuse left over from Israeli tanks and bulldozers.
Jenin was in my pockets as well. While walking through Ben Yahuda St., my right hand was fingering the casing of an M16 round. Perhaps its contents killed someone. Perhaps they only helped to terrify the thousands of residents left trapped for two weeks in their homes. The ones lucky enough to be alive. In my other pocket I carried a small piece of Jenin rubble. I had found it earlier wedged in the waist of my pants, perhaps having fallen down my shirt. Jenin was in my hair too.
I arrived at a small and almost deserted bar. Did they know what I had seen? Did they know how radically different their world was from the people living only a few miles away? Jenin had already taken on its own identity in my head. A symbol. Something ethereal. No longer just a town and a refugee camp. But to the people in this Israeli bar? It was probably still a point on a map they still glossed over.
In the bar sat two chatting men and a young female bartender. All were oblivious to the fact that I brought Jenin into their establishment. The bartender asked what I wanted in Hebrew. I asked for a beer in English. She asked, "liter?". "Aiwa" I replied in Arabic. Oops. Jenin came out of my mouth too. I didn't care.
On one of the televisions was an old National Geographic show. It pictured a hawk devouring a field mouse. Occasionally the hawk would look up, as if to check if anyone was watching it devour its meal. No one interfered. The hawk continued to eat its kill. Israel. Jenin.
The bartender sat on a stool as there is little business. Was that because of Jenin? She looked innocent as she lightly bobs her head to the American Top40 music. Perhaps a little bored. Did she too see the children I did. I saw children who had to pull their old toys out of piles of rubble. Children who just stared into nothing, not really knowing what had happened to their world? Did she simply not have a clue about Jenin?
"This is the rhythm of the night, the rhythm of my life" the music bleated. Its rhythm was a thump that reverberated off walls like the 105mm tank shells in Bethlehem did for me three weeks before. The song sounded not just absurd as I used to treat this type of sophomoric music, but outright vile and despicable. The music didn't know of Jenin. It was inhuman. I sipped my beer and realised that I couldn't handle this fake world, ignorant of human crimes so near by. I realised I had begun to cry.
Ben Granby
West Jerusalem
RAMALLAH
22 April
Dear all -- We woke up this morning anxious to see whether the Israeli troops had withdrawn from Ramallah as they claimed they would yesterday. Let's start with the street where we live: there are two new barricades blocking the main entrance and exit to the street. For us, the Israeli "withdrawal" is a joke; they have not withdrawn from our street. To go anywhere we have to use side roads and go around in circles.
While I was negotiating my way around the barricades, I met my neighbour Monji who told me that he had lost more than half a million IS (100,000 $) of assets. Monji runs a small advertisement company with two partners. The army broke into their office and simply destroyed or burned down everything inside. All their equipment was on the floor, burnt and completely ruined . Three families will have to live on aid for sometime. "I never asked anybody for help: I am a self-made man. The idea of going around filling in forms, asking for financial aid is driving me crazy, but I don't know what to do. Even if I buy new equipment, who is going to want to advertise anything these days," asks Monji.
The streets were not that crowded: it seems people don't want to go to their work places and face the devastation wreaked everywhere. I myself did not feel up to facing all this wreck, so I headed back home to find Katia, my Dutch friend who came to connect her laptop to my phone line -- hers is still damaged since the re-occupation. She showed me a drawing she made depicting the IDF 'visit' to her place. "They acted politely when they saw I was a foreigner, however they tried to persuade me that my life was in danger and that my neighbours were armed and that I could be killed in the crossfire," said Katia. The officer pointed to a nearby house saying there were armed men in that house. "That is the doctor's house. I know him," she said. They pointed to another one "That's Hanan's house, she is my friend," she said again. They pointed at least to six different houses every time receiving the same answer, that she knew the people who occupied that house. Finally she had to tell them that it was them who scared her more than anyone of her own neighbours.
Laiali, my 12-year-old niece arrived with other family children. I asked her if she was looking forward to going back to school? "No, I am not. Now they will kill us with so much homework in order to make up for the delay," said Laiali. Dalia, who is seven was quite enthusiastic about the prospect of getting back to school: "I miss my friends," she said. As for six-year-old Dina and her eight-year-old brother Ayman, they were apprehensive, believing there were explosives in their school left by the IDF deliberately to kill them once they were back. But why would they kill children, I asked disapprovingly. "Haven't you seen the number of children they killed while at school?" they said "Besides Dalia can go to school because her school is run by Americans, ours is run by the Palestinian Authority, and it is not safe."
As for seven-year-old Wael Ghadeya, his father was arrested two weeks ago, and when the subject of going back to school was brought up he told his mother, "Why the bother? Why do you want me to go through all this: work hard, finish my studies, find a job, marry and make a home only for the army to come and demolish it all. I prefer to stay with you." Mohamed Ghadeya, Wael's father is the general director of human development in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. He has a heart condition and he was not allowed to take his medicine when they came to arrest him. To this date, no one knows anything about him.
It was almost 2pm. Mohanad, our friend came to pay us a visit. He told us about the "visit" the IDF paid the whole building where they lived. They were all ordered to get out of the building into the street. They did not allow his son to put on his jacket. It was freezing cold yesterday night and also raining. they were about 30 people, men, women and children. After half an hour, a young boy of five asked permission to go to his house with his mother to use the toilet. They refused and kept calling each other to see if they could allow him to urinate. After more than one hour, they allowed him to relieve himself, not in his house, but in a nearby place a few meters away. The kid was terrified and did not want to let go of his mother's hand, but they pushed him away and directed a very strong light at him. The kid was so embarrassed and was crying with fear as. Mohanad said they stayed on the ground for four long hours. They arrested one of his neighbours and left after shooting all over the front of the building like maniacs. "That was their farewell before 'liberating' us," said Mohanad. Those "visits" have become the talk of everybody now since there is hardly a street in the city that has not witnessed a number of such visits, our own street included. Yesterday they arrested our neighbour Mohamad. They came in two armoured vehicles, pointed their guns at his house and went in big number to the house of our deceased neighbour Abu Ahmad, the father of Ahmad Sa'adat, secretary general of the Popular Front. No one was in the house. The Sa'adat family had moved out after Abu Ahmad's death. Still they smashed every thing. They destroyed all the doors and windows. They left nothing intact. Then they went upstairs for Mohamed. They took his computer and tried to steal his car radio but failed. They kept hitting the car with iron bars for some time before leaving.
A phone call from my friend and neighbour Vera Tamari. She tells me about Tania who almost got killed today. Tania arranged for an ambulance to take her to Amman as she needed special medical care. At the Kalandia checkpoint, and while the driver was preparing his papers, she decided to leave her seat next to the driver and lie on the stretcher. A few minutes later they shot at the car. "She would have been dead by now had she not decided to lie on the stretcher," said Vera in panic. As for the driver, his eyes were injured and went to the hospital. Tania returned home shattered. She was sleeping now; Vera said, trying to forget what had just happened to her.
Yesterday, Tania and Vera were 'visited' too. We were watching them from our window. "I'm coming", said Tania with her operatic voice (she is also an opera singer). She hurried down to open the door before they had a chance to break in. They did not act savagely, Vera said. They asked her how come she spoke such good English? She told them she had learned English in Jaffa. "We used to have good schools before you took everything away from us" Vera told them. I asked her if they had stolen anything from her place. "No I hid all my jewellery and money. I left nothing for them to take," Vera answered.
More pictures of Jenin on the T.V, more visitors to the devastated camp. Equipment to remove the rubble is still denied as well as aid. Three people were pulled out alive after many days under the rubble. A woman shouts at the visitors, "this is not a zoo, why come to visit us now when you didn't do anything to prevent what you are now seeing from taking place? We don't want your food or your aid. We want our sons and children. We want you to dig out the people buried alive under their demolished houses."
A loud speaker announces, "the general commander orders you not to go out between 6pm and 6am, any failure to do so will be severely punished. I ask my husband about the meaning of all this, didn't they say they were withdrawing from Ramallah. "Oh no, our area, the road to Birzeit University, Kalandia and all the northern part of the city, are all still occupied," he explains. I go out to see who is announcing the order, and to my surprise I see a higher barricade made of garbage and destroyed cars sealing off the street. I. tell my husband that we should try to remove this junk "Don't be insane," says my husband, "when the people in the Radio street (300m away from our house) wanted to remove a barricade with a bulldozer, two tanks came immediately, smashed the bulldozer and arrested all those passing by. "Can't you see snipers on the roofs of the Ministry of Culture and all the buildings around the Presidential compound?" he asked. So much for "withdrawal" or "liberation;" as for peace there will be none as long as Bush and Powell can get away with calling Sharon "a man of peace."
Islah Jad
Egyptian academic
Birzeit University
ISRAEL
21 April
Dear friends -- As things stand right now, we all might be too late. There is more than a rumour that Arafat is going to be expelled in a day or two, or that he might also be killed. The problem is not only Arafat, of course, as you all know, including those who don't like him.
The only diplomat that has expressed today, (when the preparations for that operation are being made), a real warning to Israel was the French consulate to East Jerusalem. Please hurry up. The colonial war might become in less than three months a real nightmare. Villages and towns along the old border are facing hunger. People who try to get out to get food are being shot like dogs. There is no curfew, but they are all surrounded.
Yitshac Laor
Poet
Dear friends -- In a major high-rating political TV show, this evening, former Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a close associate of Netanyahu, called for "erasing" Arafat's office in Ramallah from the face of the earth. Asked whether he realised Arafat was inside, he said, "that's what I meant." This is the man reported to be Sharon's choice for minister of defence in case the Labour party will leave the government. He will certainly be a pivot minister in any government headed by Netanyahu. In the past he suggested that the IDF bomb Palestinian banks, supermarkets, etc. He confirmed this view as well tonight.
I join Y. Laor's call to act urgently, before it gets too late.
Professor Avraham Oz
Department of Theatre
University of Haifa
Mount Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel
Telefax: 972-3-5609627
Email: avitaloz@research.haifa.ac.il
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