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This just in from the mid-East

 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:44 / 30.03.02
I just got this e-mail forwarded to me by a friend of mine, with the request that it be passed on. I thought you guys would find it of interest, as it (for me, anyway) brings home the reality of the situation. (It also made me think- JESUS, she must have balls of steel!)

Here goes:

Ay up,

My friend Sarah went out to Palestine in December as part of an
international monitoring froup. They used their nationalities to do things
for Palestinians that the Palestinians themselves would be shot for. The
dismantled illegal Israeli roadblocks, they stayed in Palestinian homes,
knowing the Israelis won't risk killing foreigners for fear of the world
realising what they're doing to Palestinians.

Sarah's just gone back out, and I've had the first email from her. She's
specifically asked that her emails be forwarded, so here it is.

I love this kind of direct reporting, away from the spin and filtering of
the corporate media.

===========================

we got here. a bit of an interesting journey - i got proposed to by a
jordanian taxi driver, and had no sleep for about 36 hours, which is always
good. but then at the checkpoint at tantur i got my first taste of how
things have changed here - we got very used, in december, to breezing
through there, often winding up the border guards and making our own merry
decisions about whether or not to show id. this time, we were met from a
distance of about 40 yards by a soldier brandishing an M16 rifle from the
booth. we backed up and tried walking, in case they just didn't want cars,
but met the same response. an attempt to walk round the back walkway was
quickly spotted. so we walked back - in the bitter rain - to the head of the
road, where a transeet driver told us that his sister lived by the beit jala
checkpoint and we could get through there - which we did, with the
suspicious soldiers doing no more than glaring at the freaks wandering
through the street in front of the family home they've occupied as a base.
the soldiers shot a 60-year old palestinian woman about 2 hours after we
tried to cross on the walkway, as she was doing the very same thing.

bethlehem looks kind of different too - mainly because the bit we're staying
in, not far from manger square down paul vi st if anyone cares to look on a
map - is where the tanks were last time, and there are big shell holes in
the wall of the pharmacy and bethlehem uni - still fresh enough to have
sootmark coronas round them.and there is a perceptible tension amongst the
ISM organisers that was not there last time, and neta and huweida are stuck
in ramallah, possibly, so i haven't got to see them yet and get some news on
how things are in ramallah and salfit generally. only bethlehem news from
georgie!

things in ramallah sound appalling, and the plan (not on the schedule, of
course, but then the schedule has obviously gone completely for a burton)
was to go there and maybe help accompany ambulances, which are not even
being allowed to move. 20 journos are holed up in a hotel, and the israelis
are holding 2 of the rooms in arafat's compound. he made a speeech this
morning announcing that he welcomed martyrdom - we'll see about that. but it
may be horribly viable - there are bodies lying around in the centre of the
compound. god only knows what sharon think's he's doing this time, but it's
sounding increasingly likely that it may involve taking out arafat, in which
case god help us. not that i'm such a fan of abu ammar, but...

there were supposed to be shiploads of ya basta! going to ramallah, but they
didn't get in either. even they're not omnipotent here...maybe they'll come
here instead, in which case there will probably be more italians than
palestinians - there's already a bunch staying at ibda.

anyway, we're not going to ramallah, as there was a suicide bombing in
jerusalem about half an hour ago, and alledgedly the bomber came from
bethlehem. so, we were expecting the tanks in here in the next few days
anyway but now - maybe hours...there are thousands of troops massing in
jerusalem and people here seem fairly certain that they will be heading this
way in the near future. everyone's been panic buying since yesterday
afternoon, as if curfew is imposed it will be 24hour, in all likelihood. so
the talk is of maybe going to dheheishah refugee camp or to stay with
families in beit jala to prevent their homes being taken over by troops, as
happened last time. but again, who knows.

all vaguaries, i'm afraid, but then that's what things are like here. you
don't seem to be too sure of what is really going to happen until it does.
but somehow it feels like we shan't be wandering around fields with farmers
tomorrow.

look after yourselves, all of you; i shall endeavour to do the same. i'll be
in touch as much as possible, but of course if curfew is imposed i can make
few guarantees. and remember that no news is good news!

love,

sarah
 
 
sleazenation
09:35 / 30.03.02
There is not much you can say to that, but please keep us updated on sarah's progress. I know she will probably be a bit busy avoiding getting shot to email much, but her eyewitness view is invaluable, as is her work in dissuading Israli soldiers from random killings of Palestinians.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:21 / 30.03.02
I've e-mailed the guy back who forwarded it to me, and asked him to keep sending me the updates as and when. As he puts it- "I love this kind of direct reporting". But, Jesus, man. Fuck.
 
 
alas
15:45 / 30.03.02
i've been hoping someone would have something of substance on this topic--thanks Moom....

jesus. all I can think of is exclamations, like, "can you believe what sharon is doing?" I wish I had something to say. What can the rest of us do? I feel like I'm just watching the world come to an end . . .
 
 
BioDynamo
19:52 / 30.03.02

A month ago I was still concidering going on this tour. I read the reports on the one they did in December, and it seemed good, they were doing good things, and by doing them putting pressure on the occupying forces. Right now I'm so relieved to be safe at home, and at the same time furious not to be able to do anything. Went to a support demo today, some hundred people. Watched the news, scary. Nothing but Palestine and Woomera. From a plunge to the deepest deapths to wild joy, shouting happily as people break the fence, anger as police start putting people down. I was in tears. Too much emotion in the world.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
17:19 / 02.04.02
More stuff... unfortunately it just keeps getting scarier...

Here's Merrick's email, containing the new stuff from Sarah...


*


I've been away fro the weekend and have got back to four emails from my
friend Sarah in Palestine. How very different all this is to the Western
media reporting. And congratulations to the Daily Star for focussing the
majority - literally - of their coverage on the fact that a suicide bomber
had carried explosives in her bra.

=============================================

Sat, 30 Mar 2002 13:41:05

hello again,

well, no tanks in bethlehem as yet - there are 3 apcs sitting on the main
road through beit jala into bethlehem and several more waiting higher up.
there has also been israeli shelling into the ida (sp?) refugee camp near
rachel's tomb. there are huge numbers of palestinian militia etc wandering
around town with kalashnikovs - again, a big departure from last time. we've
been warned to stay well out of the way if there is any shooting at all, as
we will just be regarded as getting in the way by both sides - not that i
have any desire to get anywhere near palestinian efforts to keep the
soldiers out, although some misguided peaceniks have apparently tried to do
so in the past. we had a little march up to the apcs, who shot a little and
then chucked a percussion grenade, but otherwise didn't react massively, but
then called their slightly more aggro big brother from up the hill. the
locals then tried to get us to withdraw, which the italians from deheishaa
who were with us refused to do, which is helpful, and totally in character.

we went round deheishaa refugee camp last night - 11,000 people from over 40
villages crammed into a square km of stark concrete. the demolished homes of
martyr's families, and the barren homes of the rest of the inhabitants, with
a few painfully defiant attempts to paint rural scenes on the walls - some
in the colours of the palestinian flag. the girl who did the suicide bombing
in jerusalem yesterday was from there - she was said to be very beautiful,
and her family are devastated beyond belief, wild with grief. you can see
why someone does that, being brought up in there their whole lives. not a
place for any human being, especially children.

adam from the ism team (adam shapiro) was riding with the ambulances in
ramallah yesterday and managed to end up in arafat's compound, where he got
a couple of wounded out but in some ways more importantly got a video camera
in and seems to have got the footage to cnn, which is good, since the
footage on ha'aretz at least was pure fiction. arafat himself is at present
holed up in just 2 remaining rooms, with no water or electricity. the
lebanese are also, apparently, offering for him to be able to go there,
which would leave this place in god knows what sort of chaos.

the plan for tonight is to go and stay in houses in ida and al-azzar camps,
so that the israelis are less likely to randomly shell it. and some of us
will be on call to ride with ambulances if needed.

george, the guy running this internet cafe, whose family lives up by where
the apcs are stationed and who needs to get there later, has just walked in
and said that the israelis tied up 5 people in ramallah this afternoon and
shot them through the head. that's execution. has any of that appeared in
any of the fucking press with you guys. why do i think not. bastards.
anyway, it's on al-jazeera.

take care, and i'll be in touch when i can, but tomorrow is easter sunday
and this is a christian town, so i guess stuff will be shut.




Mon, 01 Apr 2002 18:35:05

well, here's another one. things are pretty fucked here at the moment, and
there's been some casualties today - we marched up to the tanks at beit jala
and the soldiers responded by shoottign splintering rounds at the ground and
wall in our immediate vicinity. 5 internationals were hurt, most of them
were allowd out of hospital immediately, including kunle with wounds to the
face and elbow. 'kate' is still in hospital and will not be out too quickly;
she had shrapnel wounds to the stomach and has been sedated for the night
because she's in a lot of pain. she was under general anaesthetic for about
2 hours having it removed and cleaned up; she was holding a banner at the
front of the march, kunle was one of the negotiators but they fired when the
negotiators had only taken a couple of steps. they then followed us down the
road for quite some distance, shooting all the time and then firing at the
press corps there.

there are about 60 tanks up at tantur checkpoint and we are kind of assuming
that they will come in tonight. we thought they'd be in last night and most
of us were staying at refugee camps, which are generally the first places
they go into. we had some fairly close shelling and could hear gunfire from
the settlement at gilo, and there were tanks ringing the ida refugee camp
near rachel's tomb, but no-one actually came in.

things are also terrible in ramallah; total terrifying infringements of
human rights including door-to-foor searches and the arrest of most men
between 16 and 60, including Palestian Authority policemen labelled
'terrorists' for carrying their legitimate weapons. we also saw the news
last night, which included footage of the israelis going into the halls of
residence at bir zeit uni and arresting people, including some of the gazan
students i met in december. the footage of arafat cornered in the mukata
also included one of the officials i remember fetching us extra chairs and
bringing us pizza and shashlik for lunch. pretty horrible to realise he will
probably me massacred by some fucking fascist israeli soldier in the next
day or so.

anyway, the soldiers seem to have something like a carte blanche to shoot
at anyone, including internationals, and tonight i'm emailing from and
working in the media centre in bethlehem, which is part of the bethlehem tv
building, and we all know from voice of palestine what happens to television
stations round here...

so, please, please, please, forward this to everyone you can, and if you
have any media contacts tell them they can ring (international access) and
then:
(0)67435459
(0)55840767
(0)22777558
(0)67270398



Tue, 02 Apr 2002 01:42:25

another desperate message from bethlehem. we are under attack right now -
there are tanks, apcs and bulldozers coming in through beit sahour and south
bethlehem. there are israeli soldiers in dehaishe and ayda refugee camps,
entering homes, and the ibdaa community centre there has been shelled. there
are also f-16s and helicopter gunships overhead, and they are shelling and
firing rounds. the troops have taken over a building - we believe it to be
the school - in the centre of bethlehem. 7 internationals were wounded today
in the process of a peaceful march in beit jala; one was seriously injured
and has had to be operated on to have shrapnel from splinter bullets
(illegal under international law and denied by the israeli army) removed
from her abdomen. please get on to any parliamentarians, press etc you may
be able to contact. lives depend on it. for interviews and other press
updates please contact the alternative media centre on:
00 972 67435459
00 972 55840767
00 972 22777558
00 972 67270398
all but the 7558 number are mobiles so should still be running even if we
are shelled or taken out of the building, which seems very possible as we
are in the bethlehem tv building in the town centre, which has been a target
before. we can also supply interview numbers and information on the
situation in ramallah.

sarah xx



Tue, 02 Apr 2002 06:30:40

there are tanks in manger square and the old city is being shelled.

the hotel where the majority of the internationals are is surrounded by 10
tanks and numerous soldiers. an al-jazeera tv cameraman was shot whilst
trying to film from the top floor.

there are troops in all 3 of the refugee camps here, and they are being
shelled.

sarah xxx

*

Fuck. Anyone got contacts in the media etc? If so, I think calling those numbers would be good.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
18:57 / 02.04.02
Put the word out amongst the local media and standard communications with government. Also informed local pressure groups who are handy with media contacts and getting a bunch of mailing list socialists to hector provincial and federal government.

No idea how far it will go but I guess it won't exactly worsen the situation to try.
 
 
alas
19:14 / 02.04.02
the guardian seems to be on top of this info . . .

(I hope I remembered the right html code to make that link work). In fact, one story has the by-line "Sarah Left and agencies"--is that the Sarah of the emails, you think, Moom?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:18 / 02.04.02
I don't think so... I saw a thing in (funnily enough) the Guardian the other night, talking about the Britons who are over there, one of whom was also called Sarah (I don't remember the surname, but that one doesn't ring a bell) who was quoted to the effect that her situation was very similar to that in the emails.
Anyway, Merrick's gonna keep forwarding any he gets to me, so I'll keep you informed.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
13:43 / 03.04.02
To me the scary thing is Sharon must have woken up this morning and said "fuck, no government has complained about us shooting at their nationals. We really can do anything we want!"
 
 
Baz Auckland
17:06 / 03.04.02
There was an awful paragraph in the Star or Sun today (Don't ask, it was the only paper at work). It was a letter from the editor or some such saying "The Britons in Isreal should realise that their effort will count for nothing and come home. They risk dying for nothing. They will die, etc. etc." Bloody hell... it's amazing that these people are out there doing what they can.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:17 / 04.04.02
Probably the Sun, then... as far as I could tell from last week's papers, the only interesting thing about the middle East as far as the Star was concerned was the fact that a 16-year old suicide bomber had hidden the explosives in her bra.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:41 / 05.04.02
No more updates as yet... but this from the ever wonderful Indymedia.

http://www.indymedia.org/

9 people shot at Church of the Nativity. So much for "we've been receiving fire, but we're not returning it- it's a sacred place and we don't want to use live rounds against it" then.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:34 / 06.04.02
Anyone who's in the UK or who can get our radio- apparently Jeremy Hardy's gonna be on "Broadcasting House" tomorrow morning on R4- he's been over there, with most of the UK activists (including Sarah, I assume/pray- apparently they were airlifted out to SOMEWHERE relatively safe on Thursday, but I don't know if that was all of them, and it still involved a lot of sitting around being shot at) and is gonna be talking about it. Not sure what time- they didn't say.
Of course, the safety of UK (or, for that matter, anywhere else's) citizens is cool, but the situation STILL sucks.
 
 
Baz Auckland
07:43 / 07.04.02
Posting for Moominstoat:

Hardy's broadcasted that the British Consulate has rescued the Britons, and they're staying in Israel.
 
 
Rev. Wright
10:35 / 07.04.02
quote Sarin @ GNN

I frequented this board more before I took 3 months to live in Gaza City where I am now. Im an American Jew working at a human rights organization. Ive been writing journals about my experiences here (mostly about being bombed...) and thought Id share my week in the West Bank during Israel's invasion.
If anyone wants me to send future (or past) writings to them, just send me your email.
-sarin
_________________________________--

On Friday, March 29 while sitting in an Armenian coffee shop in Jerusalem's Old City, a radio broadcast came on in Arabic with gunfire in the background. Something was amiss, and all the owner could tell us was that it involved Ramallah. The attacks had begun on the very day I had hoped to pay a visit to the city with my friend visiting from Belgium. After frantically running around the service taxi stands, looking for a ride to Ramallah and finding nothing, I had to reconsider our plans. I couldn't give up my vacation from Gaza City like this, and had to get into the West Bank. If I couldn't go north to Ramallah, then it would be south to Hebron, my old favorite hotspot where I spent four nights last year.

We hopped into a cramped service taxi headed that way and were dropped off at a newly fortified Israeli checkpoint south of Jerusalem. People had to cue up in a line to enter, one by one, through a cordon where an Israeli soldier checked papers. There was no searching of bags here, just residency information. When I approached with my US passport out, the Israeli soldier gave me an emphatic, "No, it is too dangerous." I insisted on our travel to Bethlehem for the Easter holiday and that such danger was our own problem, not his. "I already paid for this trip. I want to go to Bethlehem," I insisted. "I want to go to California," he shrugged back. After a few minutes of this, another IDF soldier took his place. He gave me another few lines of refusal and then briskly waved us through. A sudden, "OK, go!" and we were in.

I told a waiting cab driver to take us to Beit Jala rather than Bethlehem. Beit Jala, a neighboring town, had been the sight of fierce cross-valley gun battles with the Israeli settlement of Gilo over the past year. I thought it would be a good introduction of Palestine for my friend. We had the fortune of having Khaled Abu Mahamed as our driver. Once he found out we were Americans, he insisted on having us over for tea. Unfortunately, this Arab hospitality was skewed by the taxi-driver arrogance of insisting on taking us to every hotel but the one we requested - and charging us for doing so.

Once at Khaled's home, we were shown footage from Ramallah and the ugly tape of an Egyptian cameraman being shot in the mouth while filming. Khaled proceeded to introduce us to his sons and daughters, although the later hid away behind a door and only occasionally peeked out. Khaled broke into one of the usual lectures I have grown accustomed to here about Israeli occupation, but he began a rant against other Arab leaders too. "They are all asleep!" he insisted, emphasizing his words with body gestures. "No good at all." I asked of Syria's Bashar Assad. "He is ok sometimes... But only Saddam Hussein can help us!" He then explained how Islam was a religion of only peace and did not allow for the killing of others or themselves but have now been so maltreated in Palestine, his eldest son was quick to remind us about the Christians who lived there too. I have so often been bewildered by the religious-right in America being so adamantly pro-Israeli when some of Christianity's oldest communities also suffer in Palestine. After tea, Khaled tried to take us to a number of different hotels even after we had told him about staying at the Nativity Hotel, at the entrance to Beit Jala.

The woman there warned us about a possible incursion by Israelis since a suicide bomber from the Deheisha Refugee camp opposite Bethlehem had just blown herself up. We were wet and tired. My friend just wanted warmth, and I wanted to be in Beit Jala. The caretaker at Nativity Hotel was a stocky Christian woman who had been all alone in the elegant building since the only occupant, a journalist, was on leave. She shuffled off to bring us coffee and a heater where we could rest and watch Palestinian television broadcasts discuss Ramallah and the latest female suicide bomber. "Stupid! Just stupid that they do that," the caretaker went on, brining us steaming coffee. "These people are crazy with the violence. Before this, the Israelis could come from Gilo and buy things in our markets, but now never again." We asked her about the potential for an invasion and the situation with Gilo at present. From the windows, the settlement that the Israelis call a "suburb" of Jerusalem stands out from nearby Palestinian towns with its mass-produced identical apartment blocks. The summer before, I had toured the facing part up the hill on the edge of Beit Jala where Israeli tanks had pounded several buildings into rubble from across the valley. The caretaker said that the Israelis had come through in tanks several times before, but that the Christians in the town never fired on them so that we would be safe if it happened again. She ran over to a window and pointed to the spot where tanks had before parked. "They cannot shoot here because there is a petrol station right there. Even the Israelis won’t do that."

The attack began that night with the sound of a loud tank shell or mortar explosion just as we stood on the porch of the hotel. The building's owner was visiting, having just returned from Chicago. He was eager to sell his hotel, presuming that there would never be good business in Bethlehem as it was before. When I told him that I worked at a human rights agency I think I gave him the laugh of his life. "Human rights!? Here? Hah! Here in Palestine? What do you do, look with a microscope for the human rights?" I really couldn't debate him on that one. That night the shooting ensued as Israeli APC's occupied most of Beit Jala, but not down to our hotel. On the morning of the 30th, we were unsure what the situation was. But while eating breakfast (at around noon) we heard a group chanting down the road. It was the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an amalgamation of international citizens who were based in both Ramallah and Bethlehem to stage demonstrations against Israeli rule. They were headed to the Armored Personnel Carriers at the top of the hill and we opted to follow. The protest brought me face to face with Israeli armored vehicles fro the first time. I had seen them hidden at checkpoints, or being transported through Jerusalem, but never in front of me, prepared for action. Two APCs sat at the crest of the hill outside the center of Beit Jala. An Israeli soldier sat in the hatch of one of them looking completely confused. He had not expected this. About four soldiers fanned out of the back, looked around and returned to their vehicle. The march surrounded the APCs, chanting with heavy Italian accents, "Shahrooon, you weiill see, Palestinia weiill be freee!" I think I was as perplexed as the IDF soldier at that one. After waving at us to leave though, the soldier atop the APC decided to drop a canister infront of us. Immediately, given my protest experience in the States, thought that this was a tear gas canister. I took a step forward, considering kicking it down hill when it exploded as a stun grenade, or flash- bang as they are also called. My reaction was broadcast that night on Al-Jazeera as I saw from a TV later on. The result for the crowd was minimal, but this lasted only until machine gun fire was heard above as a third APC rumbled down from the town center. With no intention of stopping, and firing more bursts over our heads, the crowd dispersed. Thinking that this was the extent of the Israeli operations around Bethlehem, my friend and I decided to move on to Hebron.

Hebron is only twenty miles south of Bethlehem, however since the main roads are only for Israelis, it takes Palestinians about 1 1/2 hours to make the trip, with several switches of taxis. When I had made the journey the year before, I only had to change taxis once, just outside Hebron, crossing an Israeli settler-only road. This time, the route was more circuitous, and involved an extra ten minute walk between an extra taxi exchange. These are considered "checkpoints" even though there are no Israelis watching the operation. At each location, the Israelis had dug up the roads, forcing the Palestinians to get out and walk to the next taxi stand. This does nothing to prevent the shipping of goods - it only delays it and raises costs. And without any Israelis watching us, how could it interfere with a suicide bomber's moves? The only thing such checkpoints do is delay people, goods and make it very hard for the elderly and infirm to get from city to city. At the point where pedestrians disembark to cross the Israeli roads on foot, several trucks are busy unloading by hand, food to be taken across by carts to another waiting truck. This duplicity in shipping must have enormous costs on Palestinian businesses.

Hebron is the great divided city where violence is common as some 400 extremist Israeli settlers insisted on living in the city proper, among some 130,000 Palestinians. When Hebron was handed over to the Palestinian Authority, the IDF maintained control over the 400 settlers and continued to occupy the 10,000 Arabs that live around them. Hence, one can walk over a simple sand mound to go from Palestinian to Israeli control. Naturally, gun battles and clashes are frequent. The people who suffer here though are the Palestinians in the Israeli areas, as they are put under strict 24-hour curfews at any time there is violence. The Israeli settlers are never put under curfew even if the violence is initiated by them.

Right from the hotel, we set out down Faisal Street to see the Israeli occupied section. After only two minutes of walking towards Hebron's Old City, massive explosions rang out as people fled the scene. A bomb struck only 50 yards ahead of us against a fence. I could only duck and offer profanities wondering how a tank shell or bomb had struck so close - yet no Israelis were in sight. A car driver approaching from a side street gave me a stark glance, wondering if it was safe for him to pass. Later that night as we watched Abu Dhabi television, we saw footage showing Israeli troops firing grenade launchers indiscriminately down the same street - simply to scare off pedestrians. This overly effective crowd control also including the spraying of machine gunfire. We saw the evidence of this in trash cans, telephone boxes, food carts and cars riddled with bullets, even though Palestinian gunmen hid out in tall buildings and only civilians were on the street. A few local journalists in body armor ran ahead as we inched forward. In such situations I happily tout myself as a journalist, even though we never went far enough to see any actual fighting - just the sounds of gunfire and the sights of people running for their lives. We hung around the same area watching an unarmed Tanzim (civil defence) man run back and forth getting reports off his walkie-talkie. I looked to him to understand my safety. When motorized sounds roared and heavy gunfire crescendoed, he ran, so I ran too. My friend and I ducked into a stairwell that led to several apartments. There, while waiting out the battle, a family offered us lawn chairs and tea. The father insisted that we could sleep in his home if we needed. At one point a friend of his gave the man a jolt by clapping his hands loudly behind him. Having seen such humor in teenagers before, I was pleased to see the adults taking things lightly too. Eventually we emerged from hiding to sit on the street again. Teenage boys went ahead to inspect battle damage, while other children presumed that rolling giant bullet-riddled water cisterns down the road might draw more gunfire. Boys will be boys. With most of the shops closed, we struggled to find bread and other food for dinner and holed up in the hotel.

On the 31st Hebron seemed quiet. We had just settled into a cafe where I used to frequent the year before when some gunfire shook us from our sense of security. I had hoped to walk straight into the Israeli controlled Old City, but seeing the nearby market deserted gave us a sign to stay away. Instead we walked along the eastern heights of Hebron where I had toured homes the year before that had been hit by erratic Israeli gunfire. As American tourists in a virtual warzone, people were delighted to see us and we had tea with one gentleman and his friends in what seemed to be a completely empty store with a shell hole in one side. They invited us to stay for dinner, but I insisted on needing to finish our tour first. Hopping over a gravel pile denoting the city's dividing point, we took a road heading near the Tomb of Abraham. Part mosque, part synagogue, and supposedly housing the body of Abraham, it is a highly religious site to both communities. It was also the location of Barruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of 29 worshiping Muslims. While we walked downhill, four IDF soldiers surprised us as they left the home of an old Muslim woman. They checked our passports and assumed that we were innocent tourists. Since they spoke no English they just mentioned something about 'danger' and moved on. Once they were out of site I tried to ask the old woman about why they had been in her home, but she could only complain in Arabic to me.

The Old City was just down the hill and we found it completely deserted, save for a few children darting from one house to another. Every shop front was closed, and most had been vandalized with graffiti in Hebrew, which people had previously told me amounts to "Arabs Leave!", courtesy of the Israeli settlers. At this point I seriously feared either being shot by Israeli soldiers who we surprised in the winding streets, or having stones thrown at us by Palestinian children living there. Neither happened as the city was incredibly quiet. Our wandering was only interrupted by a plump grenade of some kind laying intact on the walkway. It looked too rotund for a military grenade, but had in English around a band reading "Danger! Grenade". It was probably an unexploded gas bomb, but we still took care to turn our heads away while walking past it. Just part of the tour, I presume. When we did accidentally walk into an Israeli checkpoint, we feigned innocence about looking for a particular person. An English speaking Ethiopian Israeli was of no help, and let us go on our way.

Emerging out of the Old City, but still in the Israeli controlled zone, I had hoped to find the Jaber family which I had eaten dinner with last July. This meant walking carefully through Hebron's streets, careful to avoid site of the Israeli gun positions, patrolling jeeps, and remembering to greet every Palestinian peering out through a window. Sometimes children could be found playing in a road, only to scurry away at the sound of an approaching Israeli truck. Oddly, we were passed several times by settler vans escorted by Israeli jeeps and police without being stopped. If the Israelis thought we were Jewish settlers, it meant that the local Palestinians didn't trust us at all and were wary of my search for the Jaber family. It didn’t help any that in Palestinian towns, families live by clans and so the entire area was filled with Jabers. Finally, after calling out to a man in a window, we were taken inside and Atef Jaber, was called over.

Atef explained that it took him two minutes to cross the street, waiting for patrols to pass and for Israeli troops keeping watch in an adjacent building to look away. For the next several hours, as we were treated to tea and cucumbers at one home, and a mansef dinner at Atef's, all I could do is wonder just how they managed to live under 24-hour curfews. Atef noted that for only about one month total in the past ten had the Palestinians under Israeli control in Hebron been allowed out. Otherwise, they have been granted some three hours to buy supplies once a week when under curfew. He explained that they spend time just sitting with their families and watching television. As we sat and heard about the latest suicide bombing in Haifa, Atef explained how it was for the Palestinians. It was the same speech I’ve heard before, but cast in a much more emphatic and elegant tone (Although this is clearly a result of my not knowing Arabic).

"All we want to do here is live. But we have to have a life with honor. If we cannot live with honor, than we would rather die - and to die with honor," he began, casting a dark tone over the conversation. "The girl who blew herself up the other day... So young and beautiful. She should have been thinking about school, about having a husband, about having a home and a family. But in Palestine she could not think about her life since it is so difficult a situation with the occupation. She decided to die and to have the Israelis feel some of the pain she did. We don’t want to do this, we don’t want any more blood or death. But until Israel starts letting us live with freedom, we have no choice."

After dinner as it grew dark, we had to leave the Jaber's and hurry back to the "safety" of unoccupied Hebron. In the darkness, neither the Israelis nor local Palestinians would know who we were, so the danger grew considerably. This was compounded by the absolute confusion of Hebron's windy hill roads, many of which took us to dead ends. At one point, I was gleeful that we had evaded sight of an Israeli outpost by hugging close to a building, only to find that we had to backtrack, as the turn we took went nowhere. After some twenty minutes of walking, wandering, and having to turn down offers of tea because of the time ("Good evening. To stood meters from our hotel, we noticed a pickup truck slowing down to eye us. The driver stepped out and dismissed my greetings with a blunt "Who are you?" After explaining that we were journalists staying at the Amanah Hotel, his face did a 180, and he departed with a smiling, "Welcome to Hebron!" I learned that I couldn't blame him for wondering if rogue Israeli settlers (or Shin Bet agents) wander into the wrong parts of town.

On the next day word came out that Bethlehem had been surrounded by tanks. Since we had to pass that way on the long, indirect route back to Jerusalem (intending to go to Gaza), we opted to stop by, getting out in Manger Square. There, the Square was packed with eager journalists and nervous looking Palestinian soldiers. Although an invasion was rumored to be coming that night, I had my doubts, given the validity of most rumors I had dealt with in Gaza. We took up residence at the Bethlehem Star Hotel, simply because of the price options. We looked at two hotels on Manger Square, one of which was run by monks without televisions and the other being too expensive - a decision that would have great impact on our next few days. At the Bethlehem Star however, were the throngs of ISM activists and journalists, getting in our way and already occupying the best rooms. A BBC contingent outlined for us where the Israeli tanks were positioned, where not to be sniped and how people were already stocking up on supplies. Shop owners still chased us down with business cards, imploring us to pay them a visit for Christian souvenirs. Would the invasion really come?

It did.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
06:51 / 09.04.02
THIS from George Monbiot in the Guardian:

World Bank to West Bank

The movement written off after September 11 is demonstrating its worth in Palestine

George Monbiot
Tuesday April 9, 2002
The Guardian

Two sets of human shields are in use in the West Bank. The first is less than willing. The Israeli army, like some of the terrorist groups it has fought, has been taking hostages. Its soldiers have been propelling Palestinian civilians through the doors of suspect buildings, so that the gunmen they might harbour have to kill them first if they want to fight back.
The second set of human shields has deliberately placed itself in the line of fire. Since the army's offensive in the West Bank began, hundreds of Israeli peace campaigners and foreign activists have been seeking to put themselves in its way. At great personal risk, members of the International Solidarity Movement have sought to protect civilians by making hostages of themselves. It is a display of extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice. It is also the latest incarnation of a movement which just months ago was left for dead.

The movement to which many of the peace activists risking their lives in Ramallah and Bethlehem belong has no name. Some people have called it an anti-globalisation or anti-corporate or anti-capitalist campaign. Others prefer to emphasise its positive agenda, calling it a democracy or internationalist movement. But, because they have always put practice first and theory second, its members have proved impossible to categorise. Whenever it appears to have assumed an identity outsiders believe they can grasp, it morphs into something else. It is driven by a new, responsive politics, informed not by ideology but by need.

After September 11, this nameless thing appeared to vanish as swiftly as it had emerged. The huge demonstrations planned for the end of September against the World Bank and IMF in Washington became a small and rather timorous march for peace. Most US activists, cowed by the new McCarthyism which has dominated American discourse since the attack on New York, kept their heads down. Commentators dismissed the movement as a passing fad which had rippled through the world's youth, as widespread and as insubstantial as Diet Coke or the Nike swoosh.

But those who dismissed it had failed to grasp either the seriousness of its intent or the breadth of its support. The television cameras always focused on a few hundred young men dressed in black and running riot, intercut occasionally with the wider carnival of protest. But they seldom permitted its participants to explain the sense of purpose which propelled them. So most outsiders failed to see that the commitment of many of the people involved in these protests is non-negotiable. The movement is no more likely to go away than the governments and corporations it confronts. Its survival is assured by its ability to become whatever it needs to be.

Last month 250,000 protesters trav elled to Barcelona to contest the assault on employment laws and the public sector being led by Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar. This month some of them moved to Palestine. Among those in the British contingent are people who have helped to run campaigns against corporate power, genetic engineering and climate change. They were joined this week by members of the Italian organisation Ya Basta, which helped to coordinate the protests in Genoa. For the movement which came of age in Seattle, the World Bank and the West Bank belong to the same political territory.

If the protesters simply shifted as a mob from one location to another, their efforts would be worse than useless. But one of the key lessons this rapidly maturing movement has learned is that protest is effective only if it builds on the efforts of specialists. Like most of the Earth's people, the foreigners on the West Bank became visible when they began to bleed (five British campaigners were injured last week by the Israeli army's illegal fragmentation bullets), but some outsiders have been working there for decades. New arrivals join long-established networks and do what they are told. Among the bullets and the bulldozers, the movement is discovering a courage long suspected but seldom tried.

Protesters have moved into the homes of people threatened with bombardment by the Israeli army, ensuring that the soldiers cannot attack Palestinians without attacking foreigners too. They have been sitting in the ambulances taking sick or injured people to hospital, in the hope of speeding their passage through Israeli checkpoints and preventing the soldiers from beating up the occupants. They have been trying to run convoys of food and medicine into neighbourhoods deprived of supplies; and seeking to encourage both sides to lay down their arms in favour of non-violent solutions. They are becoming, in other words, a sort of grassroots United Nations, trying with their puny resources to keep the promises their governments have broken.

Perhaps most importantly, the peace campaigners are the only foreign witnesses in some places to the atrocities being committed. Using alternative news networks such as Indymedia and Allsorts, they have been able to draw attention to events most journalists have missed.

They have seen how Palestinians, told by the Israeli army that the curfew had been lifted, have been either shot dead when they stepped outside or seized and used as human shields. They have witnessed the sacking of homes and the deliberate destruction of people's food supplies. They have seen ambulances and aid trucks being stopped and crushed. On March 28 one peace protester watched Israeli soldiers in jeeps hunting women and children who were fleeing across the fields on the outskirts of Ramallah, trying to shoot them down in cold blood. And, by becoming the story themselves, as they are beaten and shot, the foreigners have brought it home to people who were dismissive of the murder and maiming of indigenous civilians.

The movement's arrival on the West Bank is an organic development of its activities elsewhere. For years it has been contesting the destructive foreign policies of the world's most powerful governments, and the corresponding failures of the multilateral institutions to contain them. Rather than echo the thunderous but effete demand of commentators on both sides of the Atlantic that Yasser Arafat (a man currently unable to use a flushing toilet) should stamp out the terror in the Middle East, the campaigners are, as ever, addressing those who wield real power: Israel and the governments who supply the money and weaponry which permit it to occupy the West Bank. The movement has always been a pragmatic one, as ready to protest against Burma's treatment of its tribal people or China's dispossession of the Tibetans as the IMF's handling of Argentina. In Palestine, as elsewhere, it is seeking to place itself between power and those whom power afflicts.

Everyone else is demanding that somebody should do something about the conflict in the Middle East. The peace campaigners are doing it.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:11 / 09.04.02
Just got this- haven't had a chance to read it yet- I'm about to go to work-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been away from email for 5 days, so forgive the backlog of Sarah's
reports presented here.

Again, I emphasise her requests for this stuff to be forwarded, and for
people to get media and political people informed. The influence of
politicians and mass media is making a perceptible positive difference in
Palestine.

And I'd also point everyone towards the bit where shre says that the
Independent Media Center is running up massive bills and needs cash. They
don't take commercial sponsorship, it *all* comes from donations.

A couple of days ago a friend of my brother's complained that ITV's Queen
Mam coverage was excessive and they should be covering Palestine more. He
was told that they had to big up the Queen Mam to ensure maximum daytime
advertising revenue for the day of her funeral.

Those of us who want our news dictated by importance rather than corporate
commercials, and who favour justice and compassion over deference to
obsolete institiutions, need to ensure we keep independent media channels
open.

Donations can be made to Indymedia at http://jerusalem.indymedia.org .
Scroll down to the bottom to see where to do. The page also has places we
can bombard with emails, faxes, etc.


To those who've asked me to pass on good wishes to the peace activists in
Palestine, be assured I have done, several times.

live your love,

Merrick xx



============================================================

Wed, 03 Apr 2002 16:16:19

greetings again from the IMC,

things here are shifting again slightly, but not enough. there are still
large numbers of wounded in manger square in the centre of the old city,and
many dead lying in the streets or in houses fromwhich they cannot be removed
[update this second; the family who had 2 members killed by a tank shell
have managed to get them out]. the mosque,in which people were hiding, was
shelled by tanks, and there are 150-200 holed up in the church of the
nativity; we've just spoken to one of them and no medics have been allowed
through but nuns have been attending the injured. injured in deheishe
refugee camp have also been denied access to hospital,and we've just watched
from our window as israeli troops surrounded and searched a red crescent
ambulance. another ambulance was crushed by a tank this morning in beit
jala. a group of internationals attempted to accompany an ambulanceto manger
square to get humanitarian aid to those trapped, but they were fired on;
apparently the israelis had chosen (without telling anyone) that they would
use their clocks and not palestinian time to time the curfew and thus
decided to shoot at people as soon as.

a number of british nationals are being evacuated at the moment, including
kunle whose father died unexpectedly and who has been denied exit by the
israelis for 2 days despite strong protests from the british government and
consulate.

in ramallah, a group of 2,000 israelis (gush shalom) and arab israelis
attempting to deliver food and medical supplies were stopped and heavily
teargassed. one truck of aid was allowed through but the soldiers then
emptied it and stamped on the medical supplies, leaving the food on the
ground.

there has also been shooting at the doors of the building that arafat and
the internationals etc aretrapped in in arafat's compound. arafat's personal
medicine in running out and there are fears for him.

in truth,

sarah
from the indymedia centre, bab al-zqaq, besieged bethlehem




Wed, 03 Apr 2002 19:08:12

hey all,

thanks for the many messages of support i/we have had. just another update:

1) can people try to get out to the press that the 200 people in the
nativity church are NOT all gunmen; the majority are families from the
locality who initially took refuge in the mosque untilit was destroyed. many
civilians have been killed in the locality and most houses are being denied
medical access - i may have mentioned that a tank was crushed here
earlier,and the idf are presently surrounding a medical team in beit sahour.
there are people taking refuge in many of the other churches as well. THIS
MISINFORMATION IS INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS AND NEEDS TO BE COUNTERACTED AS SOON
AS POSSIBLE.

2) we are presently trying to arrange the presence of internationals in
ambulances here tonight to try and protect the medical teams.

3) there is heavy gunfire close by us at the moment, and flares have been
shot over azza refugee camp; this is usually a precursor to attack, but we
think at the moment that it is the tall buildings (good sniper posts) that
the israelis are after.there is fairly heavy gunfightsand periodic shelling
from not far off.and bethlehem university - about 500 yds away - has been
occupied, with a number of monks there being searched and assaulted and one
having to intervene in order to prevent the shooting of a civilian in a
nearby home.

4) there is also substantial tank movement in the direction of deheishe
refugee camp.god help them, there are already a number of wounded there
being denied access to medical care.

5) on a lighter note,spirits here in the IMC are up,since we had a food
delivery and are aware that there is another one awaiting us from the
british embassy (the dogfood was starting to look appealing, we were that
low while the curfew was 24 hour. i'm also smoking like a chimney, except
when we ran out...). they came to evacuate a number of foreign nationals,
including kunle, who had been prevented from leaving for several days after
the news of his father's death. for obvious reasons,some of the wounded
internationals from the demo on monday also wanted to leave, although the
worst injured, an australian womam with what the operating doctor believes
was a direct gunshot wound to the stomach, cannot be moved at present. in
the imc we are sleeping in shifts but still have electricity and therefore
heat - it's bitter here - and we also have Indymedia Intifada, the rescued
palestinian puppy, to cheer us up/pee on the floor. it's kind of surreal
crawling round the kitchen floor to avoid sniper sights in order to prepare
puppy food!

6) whilst my political principles militate against it, getting in touch with
governments and stuff really is important at the moment, as it is really one
of the few things that can save people here. demos etc aregreat as pressure
too,but in the end we need the US government to follow the lead of the EU in
demanding instant withdrawal. Belgium and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties,and
we need this to happen from other regimes too.

love to you all. sorry i can't reply to personal mails but obviously with
our web connection periodically crashing (matt! come and help us here!) and
the need to get stuff on http://jerusalem.indymedia.org we have really
limited time.

sarah xxx
from the centre of bethlehem under attack...


Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:09:59

hey all,

2 main things;

1) arafat's medicine is running low. medically very serious. we have a new
line into the building, though, which is good because the israelis have
jammers on some of the mobiles there.they have very, very little water and
very little food left in there, and the idf are still not letting
humanitarian aid through.

2) the family of a volunteer here were stopped in an ambulance last night.
a wounded man in the ambulance was arrested and the family interrogated,
including violence to one of the men, for 2 hours; the actual patient was 3
years old. the most disturbing thing, though, was that the commanding
officer of the troops doing this told the family that they would not be
allowed anywhere until "everyone in the nativity church is dead." there are
about 200 people in there, including some freedom fighters but mainly
families who fled there and to the mosque when homes in the area were
shelled, and then the mosque was also shelled beyond being useful as a
refuge. the idf are claiming publically that it is all gunmen there, and we
are terrified that this is idf preparation to massacre everyone in there.
they have denied medical care to the many wounded in there for 2 days now,
and we have reports that a number of people have bled to death in that time.
an ambulance was crushed by a tank yesterday morning trying to reach them,
but some bodies and a few wounded have been removed, but some of the wounded
have been arrested on the way out.

there have been gunbattles and heavy tank movement all night here, but we
have no reports yet of what this signifies; ayda camp have reported that the
night was ok, but we are worried about deheishe camp, since we saw large
earthmover type vehicles and many tanks heading up there midnightish. we
also had a false alarm that someone was trying to batter our downstairs door
down...but just a false alarm. we're quite surprised that they haven't taken
us out yet, since we seem to be being so successful in getting info out -
we've been doing interviews with press everywhere from the us, uk, germany,
chile, mexico, spain, japan, australia etc etc etc...we had an unconfirmed
report last night that the director of bethlehem tv, in our building, was
arrested last night, and we've not been able to contact him since. we are
probably going to try and leave for a little later to try to get some
ambulances up to manger square; internationals tried yesterday but got shot
at when the idf decided to stop the curfew lift on their time not ours. and
azza camp, which was shelled during the night, including the building some
of the internationals were in, have reported seeing an ambulance heading for
the old city about 2 hours ago. a couple of minutes later there was heavy
gunfire and the ambulance has not been seen returning. and news just
in...there's about 40 journos waiting to come up to manger sqaure with
us...i wanna be exploited...

if there is any fundraising anyone can do running the press ops here is
costing a bomb; there are details of how to donate on
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org.

take care all.

love,

sarah
from the centre of besieged bethlehem


Thu, 04 Apr 2002 08:55:17

hey,

we're trying to sort ambulances to get up to manger square to deal with the
humanitarian disaster there at the moment, but the organisations won't
co-ordinate with us and the medical organisations won't let ambulances out
while that is the case, as one was crushed yesterday by a tank and several
crews have been arrested. we will probably form a group of internationals to
carry water, food and if possible medical supplies up there instead. there
are a number of press prepared to come with us. we are very concerned about
the medical conditions of people who have been trapped up there bleeding for
2 days and have no food and water. we are also concerned about the idf's
refusal to let anyone witness whatever it is they are perpetrating up there,
which we know has already included widespread killing and the shelling of
homes.

in peace, inshallah,

sarah
as the tanks roll by...


Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:34:28

hello all,

greetings from the cold quiet of the bethlehem morning. well, quiet if it
wasn't for the tanks trundling past. i hate the noise of them; so heavy and
destructive and intrusive. the damage they've done up in the old city is
horrendous, destroying much of the renovation that was done for the
millenium, smashing road surfaces, water pipes and sewage conduits and
generally wreaking infrastructural havoc as well as the damage to life and
limb.

yesterday was pretty draining - the feeling of our own impotence as we spoke
to people inside the church of the nativity. we now have confirmation that
there are about 260 people in there, largely families from the surrounding
streets who feld when their homes were shelled, or fled again from the
mosque when it was destroyed. at least 30 are wounded, some seriously, and
they have been denied proper medical care for 3 days now. the israelis have
let some ambulances up there, but not with deliveries of medical supplies,
and they have arrested some people from the backs of ambulances once they
were moved. the idf started shooting at the church yesterday morning, and
then shelled it around lunchtime on the milk grotto street wall, to the
right of the church. luckily those great fat medieval walls are still
holding strong, but all the windows are gone and they were still shooting at
the building last night. this despite ongoing denials on idf radio that the
church was under attack at all, although these were apparently made to look
pretty foolish by an announcement from ariel sharon that the (none-existent)
attack would stop...

we also got quite a lot of calls from rightist israelis hoping that the
idf's aim would improve and we'd die...

dad tells me that the internationals who flew back yesterday to britain were
abused on the plane by israelis and had to be escorted away by police.
someone give them big, big hugs for me and tell them i weep for them...

we also got some rather sinister messages yesterday, if laughable. the
americans in ayda camp were warned by their consulate that the israeli
border guards had threatened to dump them in the nativity church to get
shelled. the americans here, meanwhile, were given a similar warning but
that it would be palestinians who would drag them in as hostages. us brits,
meanwhile, got a message last night that because of 'rising sentiment'
against foreigners here amongst palestinians (which is in itself a rubbish
claim) we were 'strongly advised' to leave. we are taking this with a
massive pinch of salt, having met nothing but kindness, respect and
appreciation of our presence from every palestinian we've met. but it is
disturbing in that we are reading these as veiled threats from the israeli
army and government, or at least attempts from them to get themselves off
the hook should they 'accidentally' harm us. on a personal level, if
anything bad does happen to me here, i want all my loved ones to utterly
assume israeli responsibility. they are the only forces from whom we have
met aggression and harm, despite the workings of their propaganda machine.a
full formal statement from the internationals will be released by the
internationals here later today.

we have also had news from ayda refugee camp here that food is running low,
and we are trying to set up the conditions for an aid convoy, possibly
similar (if more successful, hopefully) than the one which attempted to
reach ramallah on wednesday but was trashed by the idf. please pass this
plea on to christian aid, war on want etc, and we'll be on to them, as well
as to gush shalom, rabbis for humsn rights etc from this end.

terrible news from nablus, where there are 4-500 tanks. the refugee camps
and university have been occupied, with systematic demolition of houses,
leaving families homeless in the bitter cold, wet weather we have here at
the moment (so much for my tan ambitions...). a house was also destroyed by
a helicopter gunship, leaving 2 women in the rubble, status unknown. the idf
also busted into an old people's home - obviously a haven for terrorists...

we got news from deheishe refugee camp yesterday that another woman had lost
her baby after being denied access to specialist medical care after labour
complications. and the UN managed to set up a brief clinic and treated 3
boys under 15 for gunshot wounds.

in ramallah, the family of a 21 year old palestinian woman with a US
passport have described how she was shot dead as she sat with her 9-month
old baby on her lap in a car, fleeing to safety after she heard gunshots.
she was one of the 30-odd who had to be buried in a mass grave in the
carpark of ramallah hospital. the idf have put out a thoroughly sick press
release claiming that the digging of this mass grave was simply propaganda
by the palestinians, who had ample time to bury their dead properly in the
one or two-hour curfew lifts granted them.

drained, angry and sad, but staying here...

love,

sarah

the contact numbers for the independent media centre are:
00 972 22777558
00 972 55840767
00 972 67435459
00 972 67270398
we are available 24 hours for interview and comment.

[Pass these numbers on to any and all media contacts]


Fri, 05 Apr 2002 05:31:28

hello again,

just an update of stuff from during the night.

9 men were killed in the nativity church during the night, a report
confirmed by those inside the building. they were shot through the doors
which have been blown off the back of the church. worry increases for the
rest of those inside - so much for a halt to the attack.

apache helicopters (yes, american ones) have killed many while firing on
balata refugee camp.

the governor of nablus (i met him in december) has had his home taken over
by troops who have destroyed the inside.

red crescent ambulances have been allowed to deliver some food and water but
no medical aid to arafat's compound. the president is on the verge of
running out of vital personal medication.

a number of internationals, including a french man suffering heart attack
symptoms, left the presidential compound last night with alleged safe
passage from the idf. neither they nor their red cross drivers had been
heard from since, as of the early hours of this morning, around 10 hours
after they left on the journey to qalandia checkpoint which, even under
present conditions, should only take about an hour.

in atara, a village near bir zeit university, an old man trying to reach
hospital was stopped in the street by israeli forces and died in the street.

the fact that this place is so damn beautiful just makes this all the
harder; looking out of the window in the early morning light (now it's
stopped chucking it down) over the white stone houses of bethlehem and the
olive groves, the sounds of tanks are all the more grating...

to my friends and especially family; please be careful, especially mum; adam
shapiro's parents in new york have been driven from their home by death
threats from right wing zionists. and the brits on the plane home last night
were 'abused' by israelis with them and had to be escorted from the airport
by police. i don't want my insane actions to rebound on you guys! i love you
too much.

holding on,

sarah

Sun, 07 Apr 2002 09:26:33

hey all,

greetings again from the increasingly hellish place that is the west bank.
reports out of jenin are truly appalling; houses being bulldozed on top of
their occupants and teargas being dropped by helicopter onto the refugee
camp whilst people flee their homes. A doctor in the main hospitalis using
the word massacre, which palestinians don't do lightly. and of course there
are not internationals in jenin or nablus, so everything that comes out of
there gets questioned by the press because it's not verified by the idf -
such sick logic.

here a bunch of us tried to get an ambulance up to the church of the
nativity where people are down to salt and water and have still not had
proper medical attention. we had a warning shot fired at us,and then our
hebrew speaker approached, but we were told we would under no circumstances
be allowed through. there have been lots of arrests here in house-to-house
searched this morning, and the army are doing shoot-to-kill curfew today, to
prevent the sunday morning christian march the church leaders called from
beit sahour and beit jala.

there are also tanks massing outside gaza, they had planes overhead last
night, and some areas have lost elecrticity, often a precursor to an attack.
and in the muqada they are dangerously low on food and water, and conditions
are becoming increasingly insanitory.

we are trying to get food and medicine out to people in the bethlehem area,
but it is difficult because of the curfew. the humanitarian aid community
need to address this now.

in the imc, we are going a bit mad but indy the puppy keeps our spirits up;
he has just learned to bark and is using his new-found skill assiduously.

take care, all.

love,

sarah


Sun, 07 Apr 2002 10:30:38

hey again,

the other thing i forgot to say - and it needs saying - is that in jenin
yesterday the idf announced an end to the curfew so that people could come
and get water,and a loadof women and old men came out to do so. they were
detained and strapped to the front of tanks as shields, after which the
tanks recommenced bombarding the very homes of the people tied to them.
outside ramallah, palestinian man, the brother-in-law of one of our contacts
here,was one of several hundred men held in a dried-up sewage pit overnight,
in driving rain. when someone complained of the treatment to which they were
being subjected, he was told by the idf commander that the difference
between them and him was that he,the israeli, was a human being. from here,
it's very much looking like the opposite is true.

s xxx


Sun, 07 Apr 2002 11:04:37

just a little additional one to say that our isp is in nablus and has been
bombed, so we only have sporadic dialup connection, so don't worry if you
don't hear too much from me for abit.i shouldn't be on this at the mo...

if anyone needs statements from here,which can have names and phone numbers
here on them,for public meetings,local press etc etc etc, please feel free
to ring us. also, allegra pacheco, an israeli jewsih human rights lawyer, is
eminently availbale for interview over here. please pass it on.

and if anyone has fundraising sources, we really really need funds for geek
expenses at the imc becasue we're running up huge internetbills on the
accounts of sympathisers becasue of the bombed leaseline. call us here!

s xxx

imc numbers:
00972 2277 7558
00972 67270398
00972 55840767
00972 67435459


Mon, 08 Apr 2002 11:51:25

dear all,

got woken up after my first decent nights sleep here by the sound of machine
gun fire and a tank shell. still haven't verified where it came from, but
things have quietened down now. curfew has apparently been lifted until 5pm
today, although as with the other day we don't know if that's israeli 5pm or
palestinian, which effectively means losing an hour at the end in case it's
israeli 5pm and they start shooting at what you think is 4o'clock...georgie
rang the district command this morning to get curfew details and was told
that they wouldn't tell her them coz she might be a terrorist plotting
attacks...

there were press reports that the idf had gone into the nativity church this
morning; the truth of this seems to be that one shell was lobbed in and a
fire started, with one of the people trapped inside being shot dead whilst
trying to put the fire out. still no ambulances etc allowed up there, and
some of the people wounded have been there a week now. i spoke to a local
activist a few days ago who cried as he told me about how he was getting
phone calls from wounded friends inside and from a little girl whose father
is his friend and whom is in there. and now all their phone batteries have
run down so there is not even that cold comfort.

at least 100 people were arrested in the bethlehem area yesterday, inlcuding
a large number in beit sahour. one family had all 8 of their sons taken. in
beit sahour a number of houses were also destroyed, inlcuding that of the
family of one of the men from the town killed in a targeted assassination
last autumn. the arrested are being shipped down to a prison near hebron, or
held in the building which is arafat's residence when he's here. a group of
internationals in the street breaking curfew yesterday encountered a group
of lads who'd just been released and accompanied them to comparative safety,
as the idf often release people during curfew so that they can arrest them
again for breaking curfew...as we spoke to them, we also saw a troop carrier
loaded with young palestinian men driving past...a truly chilling sight,
given the possible fate that could be awaiting them. i spoke to a woman in
beit sahour this morning who also told me of how a tank sat outside her
house for the whole of yesterday, stopping every ambulance heading for the
clinic down the road (the one where i was treated in december) and holding
them for an hour each time, id'g the occupants and staff, and then doing the
same on way back up. one of the soldiers there also threatened her little
girl with a gun for looking out of the window one too many times...

a few of us after food yesterday were also stopped and held in the road for
about 20 minutes outside al-husayn hospital. we'd been given a large
quantity of food by the brothers at the university which the idf had left
behind! it seemed fitting that the ambulances at the hospital should get it
to distribute it to take round to camps, but apparently this made us
suspicious and we were held and id'd. the monks had their residence at the
uni invaded by idf with grappling hooks last week, and they left some other
paraphenalia as well as food - quikcuffs (apparently manufactured by R
Wolf), a helmet, a metal box with egg-holes for carrying grenades, and some
batteries, brand name SAFT. the monks also have a large rocket that went
through their library during the last incursion a couple of months ago. such
an obvious target, a bunch of brothers who teach english and hotel
management and history to teenagers...

still appalling reports coming out of jenin and nablus, with terrible loss
of life and fundamentally disgusting things being done to people. a group of
internationals are heading over there at the moment, and conveys are being
attempted in the next few days, especially for medical supplies.

can people ensure that it gets out that anyone planning to come should come
through jordan or egypt, not through ben gurion, where they will be turned
back by israeli efforts to ensure that their genocidal crimes are not
witnessed any more. once here, or even from abraod, people can ring any of
the number i sent out yesterday for the imc and we'll try and give updates
on where it is possible to get to and how.

take care, my loves,

sarah



Mon, 08 Apr 2002 22:50:35

hey all,

ok, lets try this again. i got kicked offline by one of the machistas trying
to backtrack on the extraordinary fuckup they just perpetrated on our other
laptop, but my first effort was shit anyway.

besides, i've just seen footage from jenin, of a woman and her kid both
sitting in hospital with their faces all mashed up, and of idf loudhailers
calling out all the men to who knows what fate - often this is the men
between about 14 and 45, to cover potential 'terrorists,' but by the look of
it they must have called up to 60, since some of them looked so old and
frail.

we had our first real curfew lift today; amazing to see how people appeared
so quickly in the streets, scurrying around in the sunshine to reach food,
their first access in days. although the idf did their thing from last week
again and called the lift off about an hour and a half before they'd
previously announced, and notified us by starting to shoot randomly. the
final clincher was an apc and a jeep stopping an ambulance in the street
outside our kitchen window and raking the ground around it with m16 fire,
and then at our building also...we've had rather a lot of that ever since
the fuckwits at independent media center israel phoned the idf and told them
our exact location, and the idf broadcast that on their radio station.
there've also been flares and machine gun fire this evening, and ground
activity around azza camp, which is worrying.

in the church of the nativity this morning the idf tried to get in by
chucking a shell in, which started a fire, and one of the trapped people was
killed by a sniper when he tried to put it out. however, the idf soldiers
whon tried to enter apparently sustained 4 casualties and lost 3 m16s to the
trapped palestinians - those that were armed had laid down their weapons on
the way in so apparently this has raised spirits somewhat, despite the fact
that they are now without food and there are worries that the idf will go in
tonight. this info came from our friendly bethlehem tv cameraman, khaled,
who comes to hang out with us in the evenings sometimes. he's a big, bluff
bear of a man who usually brings beer with him and who is incredibly brave -
or foolish - yesterday when we were being held in the street by soldiers he
had his camera right up the arse of an apc, whilst the international press
cowered round the ambulance. right now he and da boyz are discussing marx
and anarchism in arabic.

there have been lots of arrests here also, including one family who have had
all 8 of their sons taken.

for me, the curfew lift was pretty good, especially having the confidence to
walk somewhere by myself. i know it's so little compared with what every
palestinian here is dealing with, but it's been a bit tough being in this
office for over a week now, working, eating and sleeping in 5 rooms with at
least 4 other people at any one time, and i'v ehad maybe 7 hours outside of
here in all that time, so i'm going a little stir crazy.

'kate' [who was hospitalised with abdominal bullet wounds last week] herself
was, i think, released today, and was in pretty good spirits when i saw her
yesterday. she had an x-ray which confirms that she actually has 6 pieces of
bullet lodged inside her, and they ain't comin' out. it also confirms, i
think, that it was a direct hit and not just bounced shrapnel. fucking
bastards.

anyway, i guess i've been on here a while. take care, my dears, and see you
soon, insh'allah.

love,

sarah


Tue, 09 Apr 2002 08:56:04

dear all,

g vanished out of the office this morning and has just called me to say that
she's walking to beit sahour with a group of about 35 men who've just been
released from israeli custody; they've been held for a week, and during that
time have been beaten and tortured. a horrible fact which doesn't surprise
me but is so hideous in the confirmations. one of them estimates that there
are at least 1,000 being held in the presidential palace - a shockingly
large number; we knew of hundreds but not that many. there is speculation
that today will see more releases (though the curfew will not apparently be
lifted so it's very dangerous for them to be outside).

weird phone calls this morning; one would hope that mossad, with all their
funding and supposed expertise, could come up with some slightly more
sophisticated attempts at agents provocateurs. either that or we just have
an influx of nutters this morning. at least we haven't had a any rightist
zionist psychos for a day or so screaming at us that they hope the idf get
better aim with their tank shells...

a group of internationals have headed out to nablus to try and do what they
can there, and cnn have been asking us about a 'leftist demo' (god they are
so stupid and fossilised in their thinking and phraseology) at jenin. i hope
it's true, anyway.

to those of you doing actions and demos and letter writing and press work
and fundraising. you are all stars. if fundraising for imc isn't your thing,
physicians for human rights have a big appeal out for funds to try and get
medical aid into jenin and nablus, and god almighty do they need it.

it's beautiful out, if chillingly quiet, but even while the humans have to
cower in their homes the bethlehem bird and cat life continues its soap
opera convolutions...

sarah xxx

ps keep an eye on the jerusalem.indymedia.org website for updates, and
hopefully soon for some mp3s of 'sounds from the imc office.'
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:26 / 11.04.02
Wed, 10 Apr 2002 08:14:31

dear all,

still bleary from sleep smeared with strange dreams and punctuated with loud
explosions of as yet unknown sources, and huge amounts of idf machinery
trundling by since the early hours. in my fantasies they are leaving...

broke curfew yesterday to get heather clean clothes, and ended up trapped at
the hotel whilst the idf shot at journalists to keep them out of the street
whilst they looted shops. then we snuck round a back way, with about 15
pitiful journos following us from a distance of about 20 yards, cameras
trained, obviously hoping they'd get some good pictures of international
chicks with no flak jackets (unlike them) getting blasted. as usual, they
were all ludicrously kitted up and utterly cowardly; there are a couple of
really cool press out here,. like bob fisk and khaled from bethlehem tv and
the crew from al-jazeera, who are very brave and capable. but the rest are
lily-livered machistas who pose with their bulletproof jackets and big
cameras and seem to spend most of their time cowering round corners whilst
palestinians look bemused.

things are comparatively quiet in bethlehem now; continuous idf proximity
and the oppressive presence of the gilo and har homa settlements means that
bethlehem is permanently under a state of semi-occupation anyway, so
crushing it is less difficult than the more distant cities of nablus and
jenin, which have fought so despererately and bravely for the last week. it
is quite stunning that jenein camp, a refugee camp of 15,000 people crammed
into a sqaure kilometre, has managed to keep out the idf, one of the most
heavily armed forces in the world, with just a few kalashnikovs and
handarms, pitted against tanks, helicopters, missiles and the utter racist
brutality of the israeli army. and despite a large portion of the camp
having been bulldozed, often with the inhabitants of the houses trapped
inside. and the old city in nablus - a beautiful, ancient kasbah of the most
gorgeous buildings and narrow, winding streets, which has been devastated,
the sides of buildings blasted away from their occupants, whilst again a few
sparsely-armed young men attempt to mount a last stand against the israeli
war machine. a brutal machine which will, of course, break all the rules of
human rights by ensuring that if wounded they will rot in the dark instead
of being taken to hospital; a report from a nablus ambulance driver
yesterday described how the old city streets are littered with bodies, and
one has been lying there since last week, being eaten by dogs.

but awareness seems to be growing, and action is grinding slowly to life.
there are internationals in nablus now, and hopefully more will be able to
get in soon if the local population deem them necessary and useful. jenin,
however, is still cut off, bar a few press; a driver reputed to be able to
get 'anywhere' had his cab fired on by a tank missile 2km outside it. again,
the idf will do whatever they can to limit the witnessing of their crimes.

anyway, rant over. i'll try to get to people in the next few days, but i may
be heading up north. we'll see.

s xxx
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:09 / 12.04.02
More... it ain't pretty.


Wed, 10 Apr 2002 21:25:09

hey all,

a 60 year old man walking down the hebron road this evening was shot dead in
the street. the ambulance trying to collect him was delayed whilst the idf
confiscated his id card. i can't help wondering whether he was the old guy i
saw walking down the street earlier in the afternoon, given that there were
very, very few people outside today. curfew was lifted in beit jala only, so
now opportunities for the rest of the city to acquire food and other
supplies.

possibly this was because the idf are cooking something up round by the
still-besieged church of the nativity, where they cleverly managed to shoot
a monk this morning. a big fat white idf blimp was hovering over it most of
the afternoon, or rather two, as the first got shot down after an hour or
so. ha. but there is a general worry that the israelis will seriously fuck
over the muqada and the church of the nativity because they need to break
these two stalemates before colin powell turns up to play hero on friday,
once he's finished sunning himself in morocco. according to neta, the tanks
are lining up on the front of the muqada at the moment and there has been
shelling at it since the afternoon.

some of the internationals got into nablus, and the reports we've had from
them include people being buried in the rubble of their homes, men being
held for four days and then released into the curfew and shot at, soldiers
laughing as a woman miscarried after being denied medical care for some
time. the internationals have been riding red crescent ambulances despite
being warned that they would be shot at. reports from ramallah also describe
the trauma of children seeing their houses covered in shit after being taken
over by soldiers and trashed.

and a member of the israeli government has declared that the people trapped
in the nativity church should be gassed and the refugee camps should just be
aerial bombed...

good night and sweet dreams.

sarah




Thu, 11 Apr 2002 17:06:47

hey all,

thanks again to everyone who's sent emails, support, donations etc etc. i
love you all!

a tense day in bethlehem today. the idf have been carting off truckloads of
young palestinian men towards jerusalem, which is worrying; previously they
were being detained in beit jala but apparently a jail in the negev desert
has been re-opened so we are concerned that they are being taken there.

the idf were also doing house-to-house searches around manger square today.
they used a young man as a human shield as they went round houses breaking
down doors. they had previously hit him in the stomach with a rifle butt
until he puked and beat him when he then sat unsufficiently still. the idf
were being guided round by a man in a black hood, believed to be a
palestinian collaborator. the director of a peace centre whose house was
searched was threatened with shooting if guns were found on the premises.
his american wife has been told by the israelis that she will never be
allowed to return if she goes back home to the states with her first 2
children, both US-born.

there was also another surveillance balloon over the church of the nativity
again, and again it was shot down.

there has been a fair amount of shooting and shelling around the city today,
and the whiff of tear gas this evening from an as yet unidentified source. a
group of internationals were not allowed into deheishe camp today, which is
the direction from which the young men were being taken in confinement. when
they are shipped like that they are put in standing trucks like cattle and
can be kept that way for hours. so that's worrying. a couple of journos were
pretty obviously shot directly at when trying to head in the direction of
the nativity church this afternoon. there are also reports, which we have
been trying to confirm, that the souk (market) inthe old city of bethlehem
has been mined. this is of particular concern to us at the moment because a
group of internationals are planning to try and get humanitarian aid up
there tomorrow. we'll probably just get fired at again, but there you
go...once the old city ceases to be under permanent curfew, there is also of
course the probability that mines would cause considerable loss of life.

a group of internationals have also been prevented from entering jenin. it
has also emerged that the bbc crew that got into jenin were actually
escorted in by the idf and had a military presence with them at all times.
israeli groups like tayush are trying to organise a demonstration there
tomorrow; they won't get in, and they'll get beaten and tear-gassed, but
it's good to see really militant activity from israeli groups. it has also
been reported that the idf have been digging large pits - mass graves? - in
the area of the refugee camp and around the city.

in nablus, ambulance crews have been stripped and detained and then made to
carry the wounded into the hospital by hand instead of taking them in by
ambulance. the wounded have also been made to wait in ambulances while this
happens, or themselves stripped and searched.

and to get the AR folk on side - the idf use local cats for target practice.

take care, all.

sarah xxx
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:57 / 13.04.02
just got this forwarded from Merrick...
.
.
.
When I started getting emails from Sarah, Ididn't realise how many there'd
be. If you're finding it a bit much please do say and I'll stop forwarding
them. It won't make you look heartless or anything, cos there *is* a lot of
it and it *is* harrowing.

Merrick xx

====================================================

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 07:54:31

hey all,

just a brief one; i've only been up half an hour so don't have too much to
say. only that khaled, the bethlehem tv cameraman who has been such a friend
to us over the last few weeks, got arrested at deheishe last night.
palestinian journalists are routinely beaten in custody, and khaled had a
very special line in winding up idf (whilst western journos cowered behind
an ambulance last week as we were held in the middle of the beit jala road
outside al-husayn hospital, khaled had his camera right up the arse of the
armoured personnel carrier full of troops, one of whom had a rifle pointed
at him the whole time). so, we are worried about him both as a palestinian
subjected to detainment by the occupying forces, and as a friend.

the idf are doing house-to-house searches in beit sahour this morning,
similar to those i described round manger square yesterday. again, they seem
to have the aid of a collaboator who has informed them of exactly wich
houses to search and harass. most of these collaborators - of which there
are said to be many thousands in the west bank - are trapped by the
israelis, eg by being photographed with prostitutes after being arrested, or
are offered large sums of money. the incentives have to be large, as the
potential fates they face are gruesome.

off to manger square again for another no-doubt-futile attempt to appeal to
the consciences of the idf to let us take food to families up there, who
have been under continual curfew for 10 days now and have had none of the
access to shops that other residents of bethlehem and surrounding towns have
at least had once or twice.

take care,

sarah

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:30:45

hey all,

a strange day. we tried to get up to manger square to get food to the
families who have been under curfew for nearly a fortnight. a radical
christian group who managed to get up earlier than us got two consignments
up to within about 60 yards of the square and distributed it to families
(this, by the way, is a large stack of UN aid food - rice, flour, milk
powder, sugar etc). we had just managed to get a third consignment about
half way there, with a certain amount of idf compliance and a negotiated
deal about where we could take stuff, when that well-known bunch of
arselicking collaborators the red cross (not to be confused with those
heroes the red crescent) showed up. they butted into our negotiations with
the idf officer and sorted a new deal out, which excluded us - suddenly it
had become 'too dangerous' for anyone but red cross staff - and only got the
food in half as far, with a third of the number of people to actually dole
it out. and then they took the stuff we had already lugged up the hill. of
course, just the fact that the stuff gets anywhere is good, but it's pretty
fucking annoying when the multinational aid industry, especially in the
shape of the almost, it appears, universally unpopular veronique, sticks its
nose in.

other goings-on in bethlehem today include the idf dynamiting a house not
far from the imc. the explosion shook the building here. the idf claim it
was a factory for bombs; the neighbours insist it was residential. later in
the day it was curfew lift, and the whole place went completely insane.
people were fighting to get into the shops, many of which were enforcing
one-out/one-in policies to prevent chaos. quite a bit of random shooting and
stuff as well, but that's pretty much par for the course now.

it's hard to know what to do. things in bethlehem are bad, but things are so
bad elsewhere. do we cancel food drops here to go to demonstrations against
that bastard powell in ramallah, leaving bethlehem without internationals?
god we need more people here; we kind of thought that powell's presence
might at least inspire a brief pullback and give people a litle respite,
even if they came back. but not even that seems to be happening. the entire
international community has sold out the palestinian people. where else is
it possible to turn?

sarah

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:41:26

just another message if anyone is planning to come out here, or knows people
who are (and god knows they are needed). 153 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TURNED BACK
FROM BEN GURION AIRPORT SINCE APRIL 3RD. the israelis do not want
internationals to see what they are doing. if you must coem through ben
gurion, come alone or in twos, and make sure you have a bloody convincing
cover story. but try instead to come through amman. less money to the
israeli government, too! details at http://jerusalem.indymedia.org

sarah
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:12 / 15.04.02
This just keeps getting worse...
.
.
.Sun, 14 Apr 2002 10:18:20

hey all,

very hot and sunny here. curfew has been lifted in beit sahour but not
bethlehem or beit jala. i don't know if this tactic of lifting it on
different days in different places is because it's easier for the idf to
police or because of some malicious desire to make it harder for people to
see family or get home if they were trapped somewhere distant.

yesterday we had another shot at getting food into the old city, the areas
where as of tomorrow people will have been under unbroken curfew for a full
fortnight, and some have not eaten for 4 days now. we went round the back of
the star hotel this time, down the backstreets onto salesian street into the
old souk. the sight that met our eyes was devastation; the idf had been
blowing up cars that morning and the road in front of us was full of
smouldering vehicles. there was glass and twisted metal all over the streets
and bullets coated the road underfoot. as we stood, gaping, there was an
almighty bang from the other side of the house in front of us, and bits of
car flew forty feet into the air, followed by a fat plume of thick,
noxious-smelling black smoke. despite this, one family had responded to the
noise of our arrival by venturing onto their balcony and were beckoning us
to bring food. 2 people scrambled over a wrecked car and dumped the UN aid
sacks at the foot of the building. then we saw people on the road to our
right, which heads towards manger square, and we took a number of sacks and
boxes of powdered milk over to them. people, mainly boys, began to pour from
the houses and fight over the food, and we tried to split them up, but we'd
deposited all we had - maybe 20 sackfulls - and had no more, and retreated.
but the noise of yelliung children had attracted an idf soldier, who
appeared from the direction of the initial explosion, and came out firing,
uninterested in who or what he was firing at. things get hazy for me from
here, as i got hit on the top of the head by a piece of shrapnel or flying
masonry and was pretty freaked out by the quantity of blood coming from my
scalp, and by the fact i couldn't see what the pain on the top of my head
was. it's fine, just a clean flap of skin cut, but like all head wounds it
looked gorier than it needed to, and i was kind of woozy for a couple of
hours from the sharp rap on the skull from whatever it was. georgie also got
me on tape swearing at some stupid journalist who was trying to make me stop
and tell her what had happened.

everyone else got back ok, but after some discussion at the hotel we decided
that going back in was probably too risky, especially since most of the
press that had come the first time had got theit footage and may not have
come back a second time. much respect to jeremy bowen of the bbc though for
being the first journo to actually carry some stuff in on one of these runs,
instead of cowering at the back like most of the foreign press. a bunch of
us then went round to al-madbasa again to drop off some medication for a
woman who was getting dangerously low on stuff. here, despite the devastated
streets and broken pillars along the front of the buildings, people were in
the street after an italian consulate convoy had been allowed in with food
supplies. there we met a UN volunteer in tears, who shwoed us the
food-strewn bottom of the van she had been driving and the place where she
had been punched by people desperate for food and hungry enought to fight
for it. these people are starving, and they don't know when they will get
more.

in manger square, meanwhile, the idf have been up to something very strange.
there is now a huge hydraulic lift with a giant speaker hanging from it;
yesterday it played the most hideous shrill feedback noise at the poor
bastards in the church for about quarter of an hour, but they don't seemed
to have used them since. as well as the original blimp (or at least the
third one there, thanks to the aim of some local shaobab) there are also
nowa blimp over beit sahour and fairground-style hot air balloon kind of
over beit sahour, in the direction of the idf military base at heriodian.
and yesterday there were a couple of aluminium foil balloons lurking round
the church and the peace centre, of the type i think are used for blocking
signals - like the few mobile phones inside the church with any charge left?
the tosser of an israeli soldier who turned up at the star hotel with his
apc yesterday evening to schmooze with the less discriminating journalists
tried to claim that they were for 'decoration' and that the
loudspeaker was for celebrations of israeli independence day...quite bizarre
and sick. i'm supposed to be going to jerusalem today, but i'm not sure that
i can stand the thought of being somewhere festooned with the flags of this
apartheid state, whilst they murder people just a few miles away. another
man was shot by sniper fire in the church yesterday; he was initially
thought to be dead, then breathed whilst being moved, but with 2 bullet
wounds in the chest and no possibility of medical care there seems little
hope for him. he was 26 years old.

for those of you who expressed concern about khaled, the bethlehem tv
cameraman who was arrested at deheishe, he was released yesterday. he was
held at gush etzion prison, where he says there were hundreds of people,
many of whom had not been processed at all - the prison did not even know
who they were holding. they were kept blindfolded all the time they were
being held - whilst eating, sleeping and using the toilet. and the guards
had a free hand to act as they pleased, beating and kicking the prisoners
and preventing them from going to the toilet when they needed - khaled
described one weeping 16-year-old boy who was prevented from going to the
toilet and then beaten when he went in his trousers. khaled, whilst fine,
is, not surprisingly, not his usual cheerily cynical self.

internationals protesting in ramallah against the pitifully ineffectual
nature of colin powell's visit had been prevented from getting anywhere near
the muqada, and are presently at deadlock with the idf. pictures from jenin
show the continuing atrocities there; including the burnt body of a small
boy - see jerusalem.indymedia.org. houses there and at the balata refugee
camp in nablus bear the hallmarks of having been exploded from inside, by
bombs carried into them by soldiers and then remotely detonated.

by the way, for another personal - and more long-term - account of life
under occupation, go to http://georgie.ripserve.com for georgie's diary from
bethlehem.

take care, and see you all soon(ish).

sarah xx



=======================================================



khaled's statement on release from prison


Arrest and imprisonment

On the afternoon of Thursday 12th April, in Bethlehem, when I was working as
a cameraman, I was filming the tanks attacking ambulances and people trying
to deliver humanitarian aid. On eof the soldiers, called Menachem, shot 2
bullates at me, hitting my car about 10cm from my head. I was filming the
bullets. When he realised I wasn't shot, he raised his machine gun, told me
to approach him slowly, to put my camera down, and to take off my flak
jacket and hardhat. When I reached him he searched me and told me to take
the film out of my camera and give it to him. He ripped it, and then he
handcuffed me with plastic quikcuffs. He blindfolded me. Then he stood me
against a wall for half an hour while he finished the action against the
ambulances and people. Then they put me in a tank, after checking my id and
press card. The tank went to many places, including the military base at Abu
Ghneim, near Gilo settlement. Then he took me in the tank to Etzion, 10km
away.

Etzion is not just a settlement. It is a new fascist prison. They built it
quickly to collect and maltreat Palestinians. They choose special soldiers
for it: surely they have psychological problems? Many are Druze and Russian
soldiers. When you arrive they speak to you in their own way - first, when
you enter blindfolded they trip you up, and laugh about it. When you try to
stand they continue to laugh - because you can't, your hands are tied. They
kick you in the legs and body to make you stand. They ask you questions like
"are you a man? You will be a woman soon!" as they kick you in the groin.
Many soldiers stand around and laugh during this. At this moment, you know
that your troubles have only started. They shout abuses at you, about your
mother, your sister and your God.

Etzion prison

Etzion prison is an expanse of asphalt squares surrounded by barbed wire.
The tents are placed on a hill, and it is very cold at night. The site was a
carpark and tank site. They put me in one of the tents, with 41 other
people. The youngest was 16, from Ayda camp. The oldest was 65, from Beit
Jala. This tent was for people from the Bethlehem area.

When you arrive, they tell you to sit down, but you can't because you are
cuffed. Then you're kicked until you fall, often on one of the other people,
or just onto the asphalt. And they laugh at you.

Rami, the Druze soldier, is in charge. He shouts in Arabic. He is about 20.
He especially dislikes Palestinians. Once he pointed his gun at us and said
that he would shoot us. He said he could just claim it was a mistake and
no-one could do anything. Everyone was scared of him. He taunted me, saying
that "if I was a journalist I could film it."

The food was tinned military rations, tuna or bully beef. They would open
the can and put it in front of you, still blindfolded and handcuffed, and
give you 30 minutes to eat it. When you try to reach out to eat, you can't
always find the right place, and when the half hour is finished you often
haven't eaten it all. You had to eat just with your fingers, picking the
food out of the can. I refused to eat like this, telling them I was on
hunger strike.

You had to ask to go to the toilet. Each time, you had to ask maybe 10
times. When you try to call, you're told to shut up. When you really need to
go, and call many times, you are kicked in the head and body. One of the
prisoners wet himself and started to cry.

The Shin Bet officers interrogate you and take your id card. This is the
first time that they take off your blindfold, and they take a photo of you
with your id number. Then they take you back to the same place and things
start again, with the soldiers kicking you, hitting and shouting. You don't
know if it's day or night - you lose all feeling of time. The people who are
on the wanted list are taken elsewhere, I don't know where.

You must sleep where sit without blankets, people heaped on each other, and
when you try to sleep they don't let you stay asleep for long - they shout
and wake you to make you get up. They make you stand if they think you are
going to sleep. Sleep is just a few stolen moments. You couldn't sleep at
night - it was too cold, and the blankets on the ground smelt really bad.
You couldn't take off you shoes, and you are always being beaten and woken.

Release

When they decide to let you out, you may have to stay days to collect 40 or
50 people to fill a bus to take you to the DCO in Beit Jala. It's a horrible
bus journey, still blindfolded and cuffed. When you arrive at the DCO they
just let you out into the curfew and tanks, so you may be re-arrested.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:54 / 15.04.02
I just wanted to say thanks for keeping us all updated like this, Stoatie - it's really good to have this window on the situation (wrong word for it, but what else can you use? 'struggle'? 'conflict'?)
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
12:25 / 15.04.02
Total disregard for human rights? Anyway, thanks Chairman. Tell 'em we'll keep reading because it's harrowing, if they ask again. Need-to-know stuff.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
05:51 / 17.04.02
Yeah, I emailed Merrick back and said "don't be fucking stupid- of COURSE you should keep 'em coming".

So here's the one I got this morning. (With extra thanks to Merrick for adding a footnote in the middle which clarifies things somewhat).
.
.
.
Tue, 16 Apr 2002 10:55:16

hello all,

back from jerusalem. it was horrible - the israeli independence day
celebrations are tomorrow and the place is covered with the flags that i can
now only associate with the fronts of apcs and israeli army jeeps. got some
aggro for wandering around even east jerusalem with a kuffiyeh, but also got
some wonderful responses from palestinians. it was extremely strange being
there - we all kept jumping at anything that remotely sounded like a bang -
coke bottles being driven over etc. and all that fresh food everywhere...!
surely vegetables come out of tin cans? but lots of productive meetings (!)
and a better level of co-ordination than we've really managed so far.
another group went up to jenin this morning, and a group went to nablus
yesterday.

spoke to one of the guys who just came back from jenin. contrary to what the
press keep saying, it sounds like anyone with a bit of nowse and a
convincing but vague story can wheedle their way in. not that many would
want to - one of the internationals up there counted 14 bodies uncovered in
2 hours, but as soon as one came to light it would be spirited away by the
idf to an unknown fate, doubtless beyond the ken of its relatives. hideous
to realise how many people must now be fated to never know what happened to
their loved ones, or at least to have a damn good idea without ever really
knowing...and do we think the idf are including those 14 in the '45' dead
they were admitting yesterday for the entire camp? hmmmm...one french woman
(in her 60s), though, is doing the most astounding work - she swiped a fire
truck and has been driving aid around jenin, and when she found an
idf-looted pharmacy she loaded up buckets with medication and doled them
out. my hero.

in nablus, the idf has been shelling askar refugee camp from tanks and
helicopters all night, and has had it under closed military status for 4
days, so no access to the wounded for medical personnel - same old story. we
just had a report in that the idf are doing house-to-house searches there
and have just killed a 10-year-old girl in the process.

colin powell's visit was, unsurprisingly, a complete non-event in terms of
actually achieving anything remotely useful. scum. and now they've arrested
marwan bagouti, secretary general of fateh, and are rapidly preparing a mock
trial for him, ask mordechai vanunu, as well as thousands of palestinians,
what israeli justice looks like...

[Merrick adds: Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician,
rleased evidence of the Israeli government illegally producing nuclear
weapons to the press. He was kidnapped in Italy by the Israeli secret
service, taken to Israel and imprisoned. He served eleven and a half years
in solitary confinement. He is still inside. For more details see
http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/morestory.html]

here in bethlehem, things are pretty tense, and it's pretty strange being
back. the rubbish has been piling up so much that people have started to
burn it, so the city smells of acrid smoke. the idf killed a 24 year old
woman and wounded her 8 month old baby yesterday whilst doing house-to-house
in Doha. and they are still blowing up buildings here for no very obvious
reason. there are also stirrings up by the nativity church, but with this
atmosphere no-one is going up there...

in ramallah, a palestinian AP reporter was arrested by the idf, and an
international was informed that anyone seen out on the streets would be shot
on sight. this seems a tightening of the situation there, as we had had
reports that ramallah was easier to walk around - lesslocked-down - than
bethlehem. sharon seems implacable, and determined to ignore the opinions of
the world and its peoples, especially whilst the usa slowly backslides its
way out of what puny stand it took in favour of withdrawal.

take care,

sarah



Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:36:42

oh 'eck

welcome back to bethlehem...

the idf just took over the star hotel, where we were staying to start with
and which is where all the press, including a number of palestinians, are
staying. it is also, not coincidentally, where said press have been filming
the nativity church and manger square from becasue the fifth floor has a
ringside view and is the only place they can see it from...and that's where
the people in the building are being excluded from. they've been told that
this situation will continue for several days.

there are also a couple of apache helicopter gunships hovering around. they
don't usually come out in daylight unless they have a purpose...

this is pretty worrying, mainly for the people in the church but also for
palestinians in the hotel, given that other palestinian journalists have
been detained today.

s xxx
 
 
Baz Auckland
15:37 / 17.04.02
The Israeli government was commenting today that the 200 or so Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity can leave unharmed, provided they surrender. If they're found to not have any terrorist connections they will be released...

..do terrorist connections involve being Palestinian by any chance? I can see why they're staying inside.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:40 / 18.04.02
Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:04:07

it's a hot, muggy evening in bethlehem, and smoke is cloaking the hill over
beit jala. some of it is rubbish fires, but some of us looks very thick and
like it's from something bigger. always a worry, smoke.

the idf are attacking the church of the nativity this evening. we've been
expecting it for so long, but to know it's happening now is so painful.
they've eliminated the only press witnesses by barring them from the top
floor of the star. there are flares going off regularly over the sniper
positions above al-azza camp, and loads of gunfire. i'm not sure if the
apaches are still around, but there is an idf drone (an unmanned observation
aircraft) buzzing around. they are revolting little things; they make a
high-pitched whine and when it's dark you don't know what they can see with
infrared or thermal imaging or whatever. locals report lots of explosions
round the church and the possibility of gas being used to drive them out,
and a rumour that a fire may have started in the church also. unconfirmed.
note that a right-wing member of the knesset suggested several days ago,
with no sense of irony, that the people in there be gassed out. what with
the church and the arrests this afternoon and the threatened demolition of a
block which houses 15 families (certified empty by the red cross for the
idf) and the deaths yesterday, there is a definite tension and sense of
re-escalation here.

a group of internationals got the shit kicked out of them in nablus today as
well - poor, sweet mika was beaten till he bled, and one woman may have 2
broken fingers. they were punched, kicked and smashed in the ribs with rifle
butts, all whilst trying to get food and medicine in to camps which have
been closed military zones - under complete lockdown - for 4 days.

and in jenin internationals have been trying to get more aid and witnesses
in, swathed in the reek of dead bodies.

meanwhile, powell and bush try to set up 'peace summits' without arafat. and
over the illegal settlement (colony) of har gilo, overlooking bethlehem,
they are celebrating israeli independence day with a firework display, the
bangs of the rockets mingling with the sounds of civilians being shelled and
shot.

s xxx


Wed, 17 Apr 2002 09:13:02

it appears that, despite their protestation, the idf did try to get into the
nativity church yesterday, but failed and are now trying to backtrack. it's
possible they were trying to get over the walls using grappling hooks like
they did into the university, having assumed that after the psychological
torture and starvation of the people inside they would not meet resistance.
interestingly, though, even he israeli government has finally admitted that
only 30 of the people inside are armed - a pity, then, that most of the
press keep talking about the 'gunmen' or 'militants' inside the church and
not the 220-odd civilians and religious there. there was a lot of shelling
and gunfire noises all night, including a sniper positioned just behind our
building - i spent an interesting half hour crouched by the window watching
dying flares or tracer bullets and then the heavy-calibre shots that would
follow them, slamming down towards bab al-zqaq. we also had gunfire in the
alley at the back of our building, which is unusual and must have been
terrifying for the families whose houses line it, many of whom have small
children.

in 3 villages in east jerusalem - al-tur, isawiya and beit hanina - families
have been evicted and homes are threatened with demolition in the quest to
'eradicate nests of terrorism.' these are areas slated for demolition anyway
as the israeli state expands its illegal settlements in east jerusalem,
colonising more and more palestinian neighbourhoods. people returning home
from work were kept out for hours, and the men and women were being
separated out. it still astounds me - looking at press coverage - that
anyone still thinks that this is a war against terrorism, or that anyone can
believe that committing genocidal massacre and hideous individual human
rights abuses can possibly stop the desperate actions of a few suicide
bombers. where do these peopel think that desperation comes from? there are
all these myths about religious fanaticism - the al-aqsa suicide martyrs,
for example, are a secular organisation, and any religious elements for them
are entirely a personal issue. these actions, horrible as they are, and born
of repression and desperation, not some kind of inbred racial religious
fanaticism, which is what many of the rightist zionist posters on the imc
website seem to believe.

i got a call this morning from one of the guys who came out here nearly 3
weeks ago for the ism, and who i thought had left - he's actually leaving
today. he's from colorado and in his 50s, i'd guess, a quiet, unassuming,
pleasant kind of guy. he's spent the last 2 weeks volunteering with the
palestinian water authority, using his skills as a civil engineer to put
water back into the houses of those who've had their supplies cut by
shelling etc. a great example of the way in which people's skills from home
can be put to such good use in this situation and the way that absolutely
anyone, with any range of talents, can be of use, since he thought he was
coming here to do direct action and awareness-raising work for back home,
until the idf intervened. and given the apparent unwillingness of the
international community (political or aid) to get off their well-padded
arses and actually do anything useful round here, that kind of help is
really needed, since again international volunteers can get places
palestinian workers can't, or can replace palestinian workers trapped under
curfew or within closed military zones.

there's a horrible feeling of anticipation here, not helped by the howling
wind outside and close, low clouds. how can the israelis justify still being
here after these weeks? how can the international community justify letting
them be here? a couple of white farmers get shot in zimbabwe and the entire
world is up in arms, embargoes ahoy etc, and hundreds, if not thousands, of
palestinians can get slaughtered and be denied human rights enshrined in
myriad declarations and yet nothing much happens...and i wonder why i lost
my faith in parliamentary politics years ago...

s xxx
.
.
.
Moominstoat here again- just to add (other than the inevitable Oh. My. God....)- did anyone see the picture on the front of the Guardian yesterday... talk about irony. A flare hanging in the air over the Church of the Nativity.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:47 / 18.04.02
Wed, 17 Apr 2002 17:32:42

hello my dears

nothing too much reportable at the moment in a proper bulletin (everything's
a bit quieter here in bethlehem today, and we don't have enough details of
what's going on in tulkarm, except that the idf have gone in again, or news
from jenoin or nablus that you won't have already probably seen or heard) so
thought i'd just send you all something a little lighter - sort of.

the first is the end of a wonderful conversation about sport and politics
with georgina and 2 palestinian security guards at bethlehem university who
invited us into their office for coffee while we were tiptoeing through the
curfew at lunchtime:

guard, pointing at himself: "i support the pflp"
pointing at georgie: "she supports fateh"
and pointing at his friend - " and he supports manchester united."

our next call was at the star hotel, to check up on people, especially
locals, who were still there under their new condition of occupation. things
are pretty surreal in there. everyone, including the palestinians there, is
pretty much carrying on as normal, sitting on the ground floor most of the
time, drinking beer or sprite or coffee, smoking and chatting, surrounded by
a slew of flak jackets, helmets, cameras and those tv microphones that look
like guinea pigs on st icks. in the actual foyer area, though, which isn't
separated off from the rest of the floor, there are 4 idf reservists
standing, looking bored rigid and not a little narked at just being stuck
next to a bunch of people who exude varying degrees of dislike at them and
are doing lots of things they can't - like smoking and drinking beer. such a
weird atmosphere. there are 2 apcs stationed outside, but things seemed
pretty relaxed, except the press are pissed off at not being able to see the
nativity church any more. as we were leaving, another apc pulled up, stuffed
to the gunnels with rucksacks and kitbags, so i don't know if the soldiers
have just all brought lots of makeup with them or if they are planning a
pretty long stay . i'm sure the management at the star will be delighted...

indyfada the pseudopedigree palestinian petite pickle puppy is growing by
the second and has developed a very capable bark and growl, especially when
she is shaking rags to death in true ratter fashion. she's ever, ever so
cute, especially when wearing a kuffiyeh. but not when she's chewing your
feet with her needle-like little puppy teeth. the star hotel have a puppy
too, now, a tiny little thing that got stuck there on the way to her new
home. awni seems to be taking a break from his new job with the bbc to play
dad to it, prompting lots of jokes from mohamed about being a daddy and how
much it looks like him. i'm not sure how much they were appreciated.

take care, all, and see you soon.

s xxx


Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:55:18

all quietish here, just a little gunfire. after last night's failed attack
on the church, and some news from ramallah (see below) it's hard to know if
this is good or bed.

a swiss woman in jenin reported finding feet and other body parts lying in
the streets of the refugee camp. another international in the area said that
"if we wanted we could swing from taibe to jenin on tank cannon barrels."
this is a fairly substantial distance...

in jerusalem, internationals and israelis are tonight protecting a house in
the sheik jarrah neighbourhood. the family, who have lived there for 40
years, have been served with an eviction notice after a sephardic
congregational organisation claimed the building belonged to them. they have
not been able to make this claim stand up in court, but the family are
facing forced eviction by the israeli authorities anyway.

in nablus, a 2-year-old girl with neurological diseases who had run out of
her medicine and was trapped in an idf closed military zone in the village
of deir al-khateb died this morning on finally being allowed to hospital.
she had been comatose and convulsing for some hours, having run out of her
medication 2-3 days ago, and medical aid having been prevented from reaching
her at least since monday.

from ramallah, we have a report from the muqada that certain assurances were
given by colin powell during his meeting this afternoon with president
arafat. these included: that the church of the nativity will not be attacked
again, and that ariel sharon has a timeframe for withdrawal from palestine,
although this timeframe could not be given. he also stated, worryingly, that
he could not offer any such guarantees regarding the safety of the
presidential compound or those within it, which included arafat, several
hundred palestinians and several dozen international activists. whether
powell's assurances are worth the oxygen used to utter them is a different
matter...

the idf has re-entered the west bank town of tulkarm.

sarah xx


Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:55:00 +0000

hello all,

today, a group of about 30 or so of us barmy internationals tried yet again
to get food into the manger square area. today's bunch included christian
peacemaker teams and fellowship of reconciliation members, as well as the
international solidarity movement usual suspects of the last few weeks. at
least we got further in than last time, past the burnt-out and exploded cars
we saw being detonated on saturday and down paul vi street to about 200
yards from manger square. then we were stopped by the idf, who, in another
improvement on saturday, did not open fire on us. instead, they just made it
very clear we were getting nowhere. we sat down in the street for about 40
minutes whilst negotiators tried to impress upon the soldiers that the idf
was breaking international humanitarian law in preventing food and medicine
from reaching civilians trapped in their homes. not that it had any effect,
and in the end we left, realising that our presence was complicating things
for people living further back along the road who were trying to return from
the areas where curfew was lifted. the food went to people in the immediate
vicinity, who also have little opportunity to access food.

and then we came out into the near-rioting of curfew lift, with people
grabbing at any bit of food available in their desperation to replenish
their stocks and to reach the first fresh vegetables we've seen in bethlehem
in three weeks. three hours of madness, and then back to lockdown and the
menacing presence of twitchy soldiers.

in ramallah, the people in the muqada say that the idf is preventing the
municipality from taking the rubbish generated by the 3-400 people in there
away, resulting in a growing health hazard.

in jenin, there are reports of urgent need for water. descriptions of the
state of the camp and the injuries and deaths inflicted on those in it are
truly horrific. one man from jenin i spoke to in bethlehem, who started a
job here just a few weeks ago and cannot take time off to grieve for fear of
losing it, has lost a cousin and 3 friends that he knows of, and also knows
that the whereabouts of their bodies is unknown...more details of the
situation in jenin and nablus from http://jerusalem.indymedia.org.

s xxx
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:49 / 19.04.02
Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:59:24 +0000

hello all,

my last message from palestine. tomorrow the circumstances of my life
dictate that i will get a serveece out of bethlehem and i will cross the
border into jordan and come back to manchester. i am longing to see my
friends, but the idea that i have to leave bethlehem whilst the curfew is
still down, the tanks still rumble up and down the streets, and the people
here - including people that i love - are still suffering devastates me.

today i sat in the idf-infested lobby of the star hotel, bethlehem's
journalist residence, and listened and answered phones whilst plans were
made for the next few days - plans i won't be around to see come to
fruition. on sunday there will be an attempted march from jerusalem to
bethlehem. and we are trying to arrange the medical evacuation of a guy who
lives up near the peace centre, right by manger square. he had open heart
surgery just before the invasion and urgently needs proper medical care and
medication. and g & d went out and found themselves being shown the house of
a family who were raided at 4am today, the food in their cupboards thrown on
the floor, the husband arrested but then returned and the place generally
trashed. the little girl, maybe 10, had marks on her face where the soldiers
had hit her. how many nights will it be before she sleeps properly again?
and there have been more house-to-house searches in the beautiful, quiet,
ancient little town of beit sahour. tomorrow, people will try and get food
up to villages in the bethlehem area which are not necessarily under full
military control, but which have no access to food and where many people
have no money left even if they could get to shops, because they haven't
worked for three weeks. another way in which the israeli state
systematically eradicates any viable palestinian economy and makes the road
back to peace and decent living conditions that bit longer and harder.

update! the archbishop of canterbury's rep here for the nativity church
negotiations was the person we tracked down to try and reach the guy who had
surgery and couldn't get medical care. as a senior churchman, he'd been able
to get into the square whilst activist scum like us couldn't, but as a
former doctor he was also a great person to do this job. he just rang to say
that 'us peaceniks' were doing a wonderful job, and if we wanted to know
that we'd achieved just one thing it was that today we'd saved someone's
life by getting him up there. the guy was in a really bad way and would not
have lasted many more days, but he's now been properly checked over, been
given a supply of the medication he needed, and will be ok. a minor thing
given the scale of the horrors that have happened here, especially at jenin
and nablus, but the world to one family - the wife of the sick man was on
the phone to us almost screaming that she didn't care about food, she just
needed her husband's medication.

for continued information on the situation in palestine, keep checking
http://jerusalem.indymedia.org, and for a personal perspective on life in
beit sahour and bethlehem see georgie's online diary,
http://georgie.ripserve.com

thanks to everyone who has received, read, forwarded and acted on my emails,
and to those who have replied and given me their support and love, which has
allowed me to keep going through the last few weeks, and to pass on some of
that energy to do what tiny bit i have been able to help the palestinian
cause.

s xxxxxxxxxx
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:55 / 20.04.02
Thanks to anyone who's been reading these- again, please pass them on.
 
 
Not Here Still
11:11 / 20.04.02
Cheers Stoatie. More first-person reportage from the Middle East here.
 
 
Rev. Wright
17:30 / 28.04.02
Quote .Sarin at GNN

Ahoy,
This is my personal account from making it into Jenin camp (dodging Israeli checkpoints along the way) last week from my temporary home in Gaza City.
Its not complete, and ill post more when i can magage to write more.
______
It's a difficult thing to comprehend a willing descent into a place of mass suffering. Usually, such things are random and so temporary that one cannot plan for it. But to sit in relative comfort and opt to travel to such a place feels quite peculiar. Really, I wasn't sure what I was going to Jenin for. Spectator? Documenter? Exploiter?

I found my way to Jenin by begging. Once arriving in Jerusalem, I went to the lush American Colony Hotel, perhaps the best known and most expensive establishment in East Jerusalem. Hence, it was the favorite locale for journalists with large expense accounts. With a $10 Danish-knock off beer in my hand, I proceeded to ask around if anyone was headed that way the next day. No luck. Then I considered the International Solidarity Movement people with whom I had been trapped in Bethlehem during the invasion three weeks prior. I rushed over to the Faisal Hostel, the favorite locale for poor college kids with no expense accounts. People there informed me that there was indeed a van headed to Jenin on the next day that I could try to join.

I awoke at 6:30am on April 19 to reach the group headed to Jenin. In all there were eleven of us, with six ISM members, a Jordanian film crew, a journalist for the Irish Times and Catherine, the Director of Lawyers Without Borders. I sat next to Catherine and spoke with her about the need for international lawyers to volunteer at Palestinian human rights organization, where credibility was key when arguing for the rights of an occupied people in the court of the occupier. She told me that she was sure that simply by reporting on the conditions and difficulties people faced in Jenin, her organization was sure to lose many of its Jewish members. Ethno-religious identity supercedes egalitarian human rights again. Often I thank God that I'm not more religious.

We passed through the Israeli Palestinian village of Umak Tham on our way. It was the last call for food and water. As I dug into a delicious eggplant and hummus sandwich the proprietor of the Arabic shop noted all the business he was getting from journalists. "Its nice, but I really don't like it because all this business comes at the price of those people." I began taking notes in my book. I wrote the heading, "Jenin", but I paused to realize that there was still no guarantee at getting in. Others with us had tried two days before but were turned back. The journalist from the Irish Times, an elderly American woman uttered, "Well I'm getting in if I have to crawl over every mountain to get through".

After swapping taxis in the village of Selim we were briefly stopped. The driver, Adel, told us that ahead, the Israelis were digging up the road. "They will finish, and the villagers will then fill in the hole and we can move on," he said with assurance. After a ten minute wait, it turned out that it wasn't so. The Israelis had cut the road in two, and set up a checkpoint for those now forced to cross on foot. So we headed to Jenin through the back hills. The locals followed us. From the rocky heights, I could spot the Israeli military road demolition vehicles - APC's with claw arms that serve to only disrupt life for the locals. It was a slightly arduous trip, not least of all for the three older people in the group, but we passed into Jenin unmolested. Once at the edge of the camp, a passing pickup truck offered to give us a ride the rest of the way.

As the truck sped through the gravel roads towards the Refugee Camp, the signs of war began to filter past. Crushed telephone polls and downed street lamps were the first indications of tanks having passed through. Soon we were passing badly mauled cars. Already most had been relegated to a new car graveyard, filled with disfigured wrecks that surely were not possible to create without the aid of a 6-ton behemoth running it over. In one pile all of the intact car doors were nearly lined up for salvage. Then houses blackened by fire began to pass, along with bullet holes and shell impact marks. Finally, just as I had seen in Bethlehem, the tell tale sign of Israeli raids presented itself: residence after residence where the front door locks were shot off.

The pickup truck stopped and we disembarked. Immediately I was carried into a new world. Mentally, it was like opening a door to a different reality. One where the world is upside down. Homes became ruins. Shops became empty shells. Roads became muddy pathways to slaughter. And the fresh mountain air became dank and fetid. I was in the Jenin Camp. Not of this earth.

Oddly though, once my brain internalized my surroundings as a surreal stage setting, removed from what would be normally acceptable to my senses, I felt at ease. Perhaps it was just the scope and scale of it all. To see a single home or building destroyed is a tragedy you can grasp. But to see not a single building or shred of normality untouched by destruction is difficult to fathom. Beirut had parts like this I saw even ten years after the war. But there plant life thrived, and personal possessions were long removed. Beirut just had parts of it left as small ghost towns, soon to be razed and rebuilt. Jenin was a living town, still dying.

I began slowly, impressed by the immediate details. A child stood clinging to his mother's dress behind a pile of twisted metal. In the distance behind him smoke rose from a burning pile of trash. Soon I found that the other people I had come with were already running ahead towards the most devastated areas. I was still standing, staring at a shell hole on the side of a man's home. I turned right and entered the ring of the leveled area. To my right were buildings with their first floors torn apart or gutted by fire, but the shells of the buildings still stood. To my left, nothing recognizable remained. The IDF's website claims that the area that was laid flat is only about 100 x 100m square. This is a vast understatement. The area is more about a square kilometer and according to the UN Envoy Terje-Larsen, about 600 homes have been totally demolished. But a home needs not be flattened to be untenable. For vast stretches outside of that perimeter, tanks and bulldozers cut homes out from the inside of buildings, piercing walls with their turrets or shovels, often collapsing floors internally. No, the IDF's aerial photos are most deceptive. Jenin Refugee Camp, home of some 13,000 people was indeed an earthquake zone - but it was a man-made disaster.

I looked down and realized I didn't know what I was walking on. A paved road, or was it always gravel? The curbs were almost recognizable, having been torn apart, with chunks blending into the concrete shards laying strewn about. It almost becomes useless to try to describe every detail I witnessed. One home destroyed is a tragedy one can fully study and investigate. But to examine 600 of them? Every step of my foot landed on something worth a tear, to be sure. A favorite shirt, a school paper, a burned toy, remains of an appliance. Even a small fragment of concrete could represent the loss of a person's home. I hate to have to do it, but the comparisons can be made between this and the acts of rogue, criminal Palestinian organizations.

Terrorist bombings ruin a building, many lives and inflict trauma on the witnesses. But at least there is a home to return to for the living. A job, a potential future to shape out of their damaged lives. This is true too of Palestinian relatives of civilians killed in the Intifada. But here, in Jenin, there was no future. No homes. No jobs. No life left for the living. This is a terror that will never go a way for these people. Its again, to use a worn cliché, one of those locations where the living envy the dead. A massacre? I don't know. No one will know for a while. But it shouldn't matter. The wanton destruction of homes and neighborhoods alone is too much to comprehend.

Numbness set in. It was time to move forward and just take note of what stood out. Two old women seated on what was once their roof, with the backdrop of half a wall standing? Photograph. A man lurching forward to wedge a lone small Palestinian flag between two walls collapsed on each other over a pile of debris? Photo. A young boy dragging sheets full of scrap metal behind them? Photo. Two women standing on the second story of a home, the portrait of Saddam Hussein hanging behind them, with the front half of the building torn off and the floor hanging by metal supports? Photo. This is the process by which I traversed the Jenin Refugee Camp. I knew of no other way.

It was only the second day after the Israeli military lifted their curfew, so for many residents things were still fresh. Boys carted crates of water in and others hauled workable furniture out on tractors. People picked through the remnants of their homes, in piles that reached over twenty feet into the air above the ground, pulling out clothes. They shook them off and inspected them for holes. If they were moderately ok, they went in one pile to keep. Scraps in another. Clothing seemed to be just about all that could be retrieved from those buildings intact. But people still collected things like cabinet doors that might be of some use in future reconstruction.

I took a left turn around the perimeter of the zone that was totally bulldozed. The dividing line was quite clear, however it must be emphasized that most all of the houses in the whole area suffered severe structural damage by bulldozers even though they were not completely demolished. The inner-zone however was incomprehensibly flattened. Along the road tell tale marks of monstrous firepower showed themselves. One building was blasted all the way through by a rocket, leaving concentrically smaller holes in successive walls. I was able to view it all at once since the entire front of the building had been torn away. Other buildings lurched under top-heavy weight as key supports on the first floors had been torn out.

Near the top of the flattened perimeter I came across one of several digging operations. This one was aided by one of the few bulldozers available in Jenin to help lift the massive piles of debris. The bulldozer cut into the remains of the Fayed home, a name I was to hear much of in the coming weeks for their sad tale in many international articles. Mahmoud Fayad, a 70 year old camp resident had a 38-year old son, Jamal, who was paralyzed in his legs from birth. Restricted to a wheelchair and somewhat mentally incapable as well, his brother Ahmed noted that Jamal had no other friends but his family. When the Israelis began bulldozing their way through Jenin Camp, Mahmoud and his wife ran out to tell the Israelis to wait for them to help get Jamal out. The Israelis refused and plowed into the Fayed's family's home, crushing Jamal underneath. They knew just where he was. Yet under the heap of rubble, the bulldozer didn't find him that day. Or the next.

Turning left and moving on, I began to comprehend just why finding bodies became impossible. While Jenin is indeed built at a slope, the sheer height of rubble finely ground and compressed is evident by some of the ongoing digs. At another location, with a good two feet into the ground, people were just then reaching ceiling tiles still intact. It boggled my mind. Somehow, the Israeli tanks so thoroughly flattened, over and over again, the entire area. While some fragments of buildings and heaps of distinguishable rubble littered the area (with some piles reaching heights of 30 feet above the ground), most of the area was flattened as if paved by a steamroller. House after house had been crushed into powder. Occasionally, metal bars would stick up out of the ground and loose shreds of clothing fluttered from between pulverized refuse, but for the most part it was a sea of granulated concrete. Who knows what remained underneath. I actually felt guilty just to be walking across, as if I was only making it worse - the way I would walk on my old sidewalk in Madison winters, packing down snow that I knew I'd have to later shovel.

I breathed it in. Disintegrated, triturated, crumbled, crushed, attenuated, pulverized. Adjectives swam in my head. What else could I do? As the dust swarmed about, I realized I was breathing people's homes and lives.

A quick recheck of my senses reminded me that I was just in an illusory realm where these surroundings are being presented to me. I could continue photographing without succumbing to my emotional rushes. I began to notice the other foreigners managing. Some were from the Geneva Red Cross, others from other aid agencies, but most came as journalists - spectators to suffering like myself. I walked a ways up a slope that was the remains of a fractured house, spilt downhill. I was at the upper crust of the demolished region. Behind me stood a building with only two outer walls. On what remained of the second floor a young girl cried as the mother spoke with a journalist. I turned back just to stand and survey everything.

The sky was bright that day, with a deep blue whose effervescence seemed even brighter against the almost uniform grayish tan of Jenin's ruins. Atop a lone pile of rubble, the tallest in the area, a woman rummaged for belongings. Cast behind here in the distance was a lone minaret, perhaps the one where reporters noted that the Israelis badly vandalized. On occasion the woman just stopped, threw her hands at her hips and stared down. It must have seemed futile to continue. To many, Jenin must have seemed the same, I figured.

Despite the situation, however, the people remained resolute, if not dignified. Those who could speak some English would at times stride up to me and after asking me the perennial "why?", informed me that they would not bow to Sharon. The London-Berlin mentality of a people bombed into ruin had set in. A doctor, educated in Germany, said he would remain in his battle scarred home. Jenin was a tragedy for him, but it would move on. Even most children had an air of determination about them as they aided their parents in collecting salvageable possessions.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:17 / 28.07.04
New one from Merrick...



My friend Sarah is back out in Palestine working for justice.

Here's an email she just sent

================

ramallah is a bloody mess.

the israelis, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to build a chunk
of THE WALL right down the middle of the road to qalandia, the main
checkpoint between quds and ramallah. so at the moment half the road
is unusable and their is a huge row of the enormous concrete
structures they use to build the wall lined up all along one side. no
idea what they intend to use as an alternative way in - i gues there
will be a great big military checkpoint there in the Wall instead of
the present great big military checkpoint surrounded by fencing and
concrete blocks.

and all round ramallah the bloody settlements seem to be breeding like
somekind of frogspawn/tadpole scenario, little blobs of caravans and
small houses on top of every hill, gazing down on the increasingly
crushed arab popualtion in the valleys.

the settlements round bethlehem are breeding too - 28 of them in a
small area now, with vast great roads between each one, cutting
villages in half and enclosing small groups of palestinian houses in
loops of electric fences and alarms so you get shot if you get too
close - and sometimes they are only feet from houses, so what happens
if a kid kicks a football too near? not hard to guess.

more women completely covered now, but what is interesting is that
there is also an increase int he number, especially in quds, wearing
the beautiful black embroidered traditional palestinian dresses, even
mass-produced versions. if they can't have their own land, they can
at least try and keep some of their own culture (except of course the
israelis keep trying to appropriate bits of that too... of which more
in a minute).

on a steep learnign curve regarding the situation of the palestinians
still in '48 - the 'arab israelis' that most people seem to ignore.
they may not get killed and maimed with the regualrity of their
brethren on the other side of the wall, but their lands are still
being taken chunk by chunk, and they still get a fraction of the
resources allocated to jewish israelis by the state, though they pay
the same rates of tax.

for instance, a town of 20,000 people who are primarily jewish will
be given the official status of 'city' and be allocated state
resources accordingly, so it will get more for rubbish collection,
renovation of old buildings, health, education, social services,
sports facilities etc etc etc.

a similar sized settlement of palestinians will be called a 'village'
and get a fraction of the same amount, and will often not be able to
pay public employees for months on end and can barely collect the
trash, let alone build public swimming pools. and 'unrecognised'
villages get it even worse - settlements are built right on them to
force them out, with no legal redress of any strength, and this is
happening particulalry in the galilee and the negev, strategic areas
with lots of resources that the israelis don't want to waste on
palestinians, be they bedouin or galilean.

yesterday went on a fascinating tour run by al-quds uni to
um-al-fahm, the second largest palestinian town in '48 and pretty
militant - several people have been killed there and many imprisoned
on eg Day of the Land protests and demonstrations. Linda, an Olive
Tours guest, is with me at the moment and we took her there - she
lived near there 20 years ago and was on these demonstrations. The
tour then went on to several villages in the Galilee which were arab
villages and
were panicked out and destroyed in 1948. one has been almost entirely
demolished, the land given to a kibbutz and turned into a tourist
park because of the pretty streams (which used to turn the local
mill).

the second village, tantoura, was discovered by a (jewish) Haifa
university researcher about 4 years ago to have been the site of a
massacre in 1948 which the israelis had covered up for all that time
- the village, which dates from canaanite times and also includes
roman, byzantine etc etc ruins was right on the sea, a fishing
village, and the israelis bombarded it to force the inhabitants to
flee and killed many. it is now a holiday village and beach park.


the third is now an artists' village, with all the beautiful old
arab houses inhabited by israeli artists and one sad-looking woman in
palestinian costume standing by the bus stop selling 'traditional'
produce to the tourists (hence the comment above about appropriation
of culture...).

could carry on saying so much but you'll be delighted to hear, should
you have reached thus far, that i will shut up now.
 
  
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