Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Hi all,
The last few days have been taken up with meetings in Ramallah but this morning I traveled back to Nablus with a friend who had some work to do and people to see in Nablus. She has not visited Nablus before so it was nice to be a guide. We set off at 7:45am traveling in an ambulance from Ramallah. Eventually near Hawwara we met up with an ambulance from Jenin, a patient was transferred and the first ambulance returned with the patient to Ramallah. No journey here is simple even if you are ill. We were taken to near the Huwwara check point by the Jenin ambulance.
At the checkpoint there were many people waiting in line, divided into men and women. We started to queue up with the men but the Palestinians said we should join the women, which we did. When one of the soldiers saw me he asked in a sarcastic way if I was a woman! He told me to join the men, the Palestinians invited me to jump the queue so that my friend and I were now standing adjacent in the two queues. As we waited one soldier continually harassed and humiliated the Palestinians standing in line. Amongst other things he was allocating numbers to them and then asking if they knew their number. Eventually I was called forward and my passport checked, it was found that my visa was invalid for the West Bank, and I was denied entry! My friend was furious but she had the good sense not to cause a fuss. At one time internationals had been able to monitor this checkpoint and prevent some of the human rights abuses that regularly take place here. Now we are not even allowed to pass and they get away with whatever they want. We both left and decided that the best plan was to take a taxi to Tell, so we set off in a taxi along dirt roads which finally deteriorated so much that the taxi could go no further. We then set off on foot and after about half a mile we came to a roadblock, which the taxi could not have passed anyway. It was a beautiful sunny day and the countryside was spectacular, though in places the road was very muddy and our shoes became caked in mud. Then in the distance walking towards us a woman appeared, whom I first took to be an international. When we finally met it turned out to be a very fashionably dressed student in high heels with an immaculate hairdo. She had been trying to get to university. She had tried to enter through Tell and had been turned back and now was very agitated and humiliated because of the mud on her clothes and shoes and the uncertainty of her position. Our taxi had long gone and there would be no other taxi's on this road leaving her many miles to walk. My friend who is always well dressed gave her some solace in that she too was covered in mud! As we continued we passed an empty army check point and it looked as though we were going to get in.
Then a Humvee appeared round a corner and stopped. My friend who is very attractive and resourceful persuaded the soldier that we were going to meet someone in Tell. I don't think that he believed us but let us pass anyway. We eventually reached the hard road from Tell to Nablus and flagged down a taxi that was able to take us to the roadblock just on the outskirts of Nablus. We could then walk into Nablus and catch a further service taxi to be where we wanted. The Palestinians have had to put up with this continual situation for three years; the lack of movement, closures and siege have destroyed the economy.
While we were in Nablus the IDF returned to Balata for the fifth day in a row with about 30 jeeps doing house-to-house searches.
The day before, the father of five year old Mohammed Al Araj had been going to his factory accompanied by his son when he was stopped by a soldier and told to return home. The young son had said hello to the soldier and shaken his hand. Now there were confrontations in the camp. Mohammed Al Araj had just left his house and was standing at his gate when he was shot in the heart by a single live bullet from random Israeli gunfire.
This took place shortly after the funeral of the boy who had been on a life support system since being shot last week, two more deaths to add to the 626 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) who have been killed by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers during this intifada.
For various reasons we did not finish our business before 6:00pm and had to stay overnight as Huwwara closes at six. The next day as we left I was questioned at some length and told that I should not have been in Nablus.
This was a very ordinary journey and we deliberately avoided any confrontation as we had things to do but it will give you some idea of what it is like for Palestinians. We were in no danger of being shot as we are internationals but so far 2,747, not including the two boys, have been killed, many just going about their ordinary business.
All for now, Dave

Christmas.