[GushShalom] Gaza, scene of extremes
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Wed Apr 9 00:17:35 IDT 2003
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Gush Shalom
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International release
April 8, 2003
Another daylight missile liquidation on the busy streets of Gaza;
another militant on the unending wanted list of the Sharon government who
got a death penalty without trial, and aat least four others, who happened to
be nearby, got killed as well. What Big Brother America does in the War
Against Iraq, that the Sharon government does without it even being called
the War Against Palestine. But that's what it is anyway: this is part of
Sharon's series of provocations to premempt any initiative towards the two-
state solution. That solution Sharon wants never to happen. Therefore -
before Abu Mazen gets a chance to form a government, and before any
'Roadmap' is officially tabled - he needs the terrorist ping-pong to capture
center stage again.
We already intended to send you the incredible report about ISM's
nonviolent action of yesterday -- in the Gaza Strip.
And we add the translation of an article by Ma'ariv journalist Billie Moskona-
Lerman who as a "French journalist" spent 24 hours with the ISM Gaza team
- after one of them, the 23-year old American human shield activist Rachel
Corrie, was flattened by a bulldozer.
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "ghassan_andoni" <rapprochement at palsolidarity.org>
Rafah: The Battle of Tel Zorab
Yesterday in Rafah 11 ISM activists (from England, Scotland, the US
and Italy) engaged in a major confrontation with the Occupying
Israeli Army operating in the south of the Gaza Strip.
At 5 pm the activists were having a meeting at the ISM Rafah
headquarters when they received word that armoured bulldozers were
demolishing Palestinian homes in the Tel Zorab area. Immediately,
they broke up the meeting before scrambling to gather their equipment
(fluorescent clothing, megaphones and banners) before piling into a
large taxi.
When they arrived at Tel Zorab they found a large group of
Palestinians who were peering around the corners of buildings to
watch the bulldozers at work and carefully avoiding exposing
themselves to fire from the tank that accompanied the bulldozers or
the military towers from which snipers dominate Rafah's border
areas. Unfurling their banners the group approached the area of the
where the bulldozers were operating to the cheers of the Palestinians.
Leaving their Palestinian supporters behind, the activists found two
bulldozers working together to tear down a Palestinian home. The
bulldozers were accompanied by a tank, which, upon seeing the
activists, immediately began firing its machine gun into the air and
at the rubble of a building that had already been destroyed.
Leaving a couple of activists behind to film and monitor the
situation, the remainder advanced cautiously as the tank continued to
fire into the air and at nearby buildings so that on a few occasions
the activists were showered with shrapnel. Undaunted, the activists
continued their advanced upon the war machines until they came close
enough for the tank's crew to hurl sound grenades at them.
At this point the activists called the ISM Media Office who began to
alert their consulates of their situation. During the course of the
confrontation the British Consulate was called twice and responded by
alerting the Israelis of that there were British nationals in the
area and later, when the situation escalated, by demanding that their
status as unarmed peace activists be respected. The Italian
Consulate was closed and the Media Office was unable to contact any
duty officers. The Duty Officer at the US Consulate was hostile but
told the Media Coordinator that he would phone the US activists at
Tel Zorab. When the conflict escalated and the US activists told me
that they had not been contacted I phoned the Consular Agent in Haifa
who informed me that, if they were being shot at by Israelis, then it
was the Israelis with whom they had an issue and that I should phone
them. I told him that they had asked me to pass on a request that he
phone them and it was his job to protect US nationals. The latter
point did not seem to have occurred to him before but he still
insisted that he was under no obligation to phone them but did agree
to talk to them if they phone him. When I relayed this information
to the American activists they contacted him only to be told that he
would do nothing to help them and would not even inform the Israeli
military of their presence in this area. The reason he gave for his
refusal was that the activists had forfeited their rights as US
citizens to consular protection by ignoring US State Department
travel advice against going to the Occupied Territories.
When the activists began to block one of the bulldozers in its
demolition work, the driver got out the vehicle and told them to
leave the area since this was his land, not theirs and they had no
business being there. They replied that this was not his land and
that they were civilians in a civilian area and it was he, as a
soldier, who had no business being there. The driver then got back
in his vehicle and attempted to resume his work but was blocked by
four activists who stood in his path.
A battle of nerves then took place as the bulldozer drove very close
to the activists who stood their ground until he withdrew. This
happened several times until the driver gave up and pulled back so
that the tank could fire its machine gun over their heads before one
of its crew opened a hatch and threw a tear gas canister.
Unfortunately (for the tank crew) he had misjudged the wind direction
so that the gas blew back into their tank.
Meanwhile, the bulldozer had approached the house it was trying to
destroy from another direction but was blocked by four other
activists who stood in its path, with their backs towards the
partially destroyed house.
The British Consulate then informed the activists that they had
received word from the Israelis that they intended to arrest the
activists. Shortly thereafter an Armoured Personnel Carrier arrived
on the scene and the activists positioned themselves so that they
could easily withdraw towards the Palestinian areas. (Israeli
soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip are generally terrified of the
Palestinian resistance fighters and almost never venture out of there
armoured vehicles. There are many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who
have lived all their lives under occupation and with tanks roaming
their streets but have never seen an Israeli soldier.)
After the tank had created a smokescreen several soldiers in full
combat gear rushed out of the APC and towards the activists who
quickly withdrew so that the soldiers ran back into the APC without
capturing any of them.
At this point an enormous explosion occurred as a rocket was fired
from the Zorab tower into an abandoned Palestinian home.
The APC then began firing its machine gun at the feet of the
activists as another bulldozer tried to resume its work before being
blocked by a group of activists. Once again the bulldozer driver
approached within inches of the activists before stopping. The
bulldozer driver then began blowing his horn in a musical manner and
then wrote down his phone number and held it to the windscreen while
pointing at one of the female activists.
Shortly thereafter, the soldiers in the APC rushed out to arrest the
activists but failed again as the activists withdrew towards the
Palestinians. When the soldiers withdrew to the APC the activists
resumed their positions.
At one point one of the tank's crew climbed out of the top of the
tank and tried to tackle one of the Italian activists but only
succeeded in partially pulling off his trousers before he escaped.
As the soldier fled back into tank, its machine gun fired into the
windows of some Palestinian houses to cover him. (At no point were
there any members of the Palestinian resistance in the area.)
At about 7 pm it began to get dark and the armoured vehicles began to
withdraw. They were "covered" in their retreat by another rocket
fired from Zorab tower which hit a nearby house and showered the
activists with rocks.
The activists then left the area to by welcomed by the Palestinian
spectators who cheered them and shook their hands.
This was the first action the Rafah ISM team has undertaken to
prevent home demolitions since the murder of their comrade Rachel
Corrie in a similar incident three weeks before.
For further information contact:
Joe on +972 67 628 507 or
Tom on +972 52 694 380
============================================
Ma'ariv - weekend supplement 28/3/03.
[Soon to appear in Hebrew and English on the Gush Shalom website]
I was a human shield
By Billie Moskona-Lerman
The death of human rights activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death while trying
to stop an IDF bulldozer, was reason for Billie Moskona-Lerman to go to the
Rafah Refugee Camp and to spend 24 hours at the most miserable place in the
Gaza Strip. A place where shooting never stops, where shells whistle by the
windows, the walls are covered with bloodstains on the walls, houses turn into
ruins and people walk the streets barefooted and desperate. She came back a
different person. In a rare human document she describes her encounter with
death.
With the above words, the weekend supplement of Ma'ariv newspaper (28/3/03)
introduced to its readers a report, giving a glimpse of Palestinian daily life
which is very rare in the mainstream Israeli press.
I visited hell and I came back in one piece. It happened on the night between
Thursday and Friday last week [March 20-21] when I accompanied Joe and Laura,
two 20-year old human rights activists, in acting as a human shield facing the
IDF. When they asked me do I join in and I answered "yes", I did not fully
realize what I was getting myself into. It was my first experience under fire:
so close to death, so anonymous, my life so easily abandoned in somebody else's
hands. Never did I feel so weak, so defenceless. I did say "I am coming" and we
set out. It was 7.30 PM. we walked through the main street of Rafah, a town
which is in fact just a big refugee camp. We walked in darkness, through
ruins, pot-holes and puddles, torn bits of nylon and plastic, barbed wire and
piles of rubbish. Here and there some stores were open. Groups of young boys
were walking around us, shouting "Sa'lam Aleikum, Sa'lam Aleikum".
Suddenly, one of them picked up a stone and threw it at us. It flew through the
air and fell near us. Joe and Laura were not very disturbed. "We represent for
them the American culture which they hate" said Laura.
I vaguely knew that we were walking towards Rafah's border with Egypt. We
walked towards the last house in the last row of Rafah houses. The home of
Muhammad Jamil Kushta. At a certain stage, after ten minutes of fast walking in
empty alleys, we went aside into a long and narrow alley at whose end I could
see a big pillar. When we came near I could see it was a tall guard tower.
When we came near the tower, Joe and Laura raised their hands high and
signalled to me to do the same. I did as they asked and walked towards the IDF
guard tower with my hands high above my head, walking
quickly - but not too quickly - through the empty alley. Our clothing was
fluorescent orange, with silver strips to make it even more conspicuous in the
night. Joe held a big megaphone in one hand and a big phosphorescent sheet in
the other. 20 metres from the tower we could see, even in the utter darkness,
that we were facing a major fortification - an Israeli strong point at the
exact border between Rafah and Egypt.
A few steps before the tower Laura abruptly pushed me into a small, dark
entrance and whispered "Quick, it's here". I went over the doorstep, feeling
the way with my foot, with the eyes gradually getting used to the sight of of
high, dark corridor. Five steps, and my brow hit strongly against a concrete
block. Passing under it, I went up ten wining stairs at whose end was a door.
A short ring and the door opened to reveal the smiling face of Muhammad Kushta.
Standing in the door, smiling back, I felt relieved that the damned walking was
over and that we got to somewhere looking like a hospitable house. I did not
realize what kind of night was waiting for me. I had not the slightest idea.
Muhammad Jamil Kushta, whose house we have come to defend, opened the door to
see two young human rights activists who had been spending the nights in his
home for the past few weeks, plus a woman introducing herself as a french
journalist. The French journalist was me, at that moment nobody knew I was
actually an Israeli from Tel Aviv. "Tfatdal, Tfatdal" he said as he opened the
door, the greeting joined by his young wife Nora holding little Nancy in her
hands. It was already a quarter past eight when we all sat down on the floor by
the little heater when suddenly it started. A noise which to my ear sounded
very very close, a rolling noise, an ear-shattering noise, a noise which
sounded like hell. It was the first time that night that the house came under
fire, and the first time for me to be under fire. I started shaking. My entire
body was shaking. The noise was rolling by my ears like a series of giant
fireballs. Shooting, shooting, shooting. I understood this is how an encounter
with death looks like. With the first burst Jamil moved his tea glass slightly.
Up and down, up and down. Nora held Nancy tightly. Joe and Laura went to the
baby Ibasan who slept in the corner and her brother the young Jamil and
crouched over them. It lasted half an hour, and for an hour and half afterwards
my body was till shaking. But I did not yet realize it was just the beginning.
I watched Jamil without words and he said: "I goes on like this every night.
For two and a half years". "What are they shooting at?" I asked. "In the air"
he shrugged. "Why?" "Out of fear" he said simply. "They are also afraid, alone
there in the dark. They are very young". "Why aren't you taking your children
elsewhere, away from here?" I asked after getting my voice under control. "I
have no money" he answered. "I have no money for another house, every penny I
had was invested in these walls, and I got into debt even so".
A Dangerous Game
It is not by chance that over the past few weeks, Laura and Joe are spending
their nights in Jamil's house. It is the last house in the row of houses fronting the
Egyptian border. Some twenty metres from this house, perhaps less, the IDF built
a high fortification, destroyed all houses to the right and left and stationed guns, tanks
and mortars targetting the city.
That is why Laura and Joe are sleeping over in Jamil's home. This is the next house
in line to be demolished. There is no way for Jamil and the human rights activists to
know in advance when the army would come at this house with tanks or D-9
bulldozers - and it will be the job of Laura and Joe to try preventing the IDF from
approaching the house. Laura and Joe are members of ISM, International
Solidarity Movement, a group of human rights activists who oppose the Israeli
occupation through direct non-violent action. They are young, politically
motivated university graduates - very extreme and determined pacifists. Their
purpose is to prevent the army from harming civilians.
Every night, with the beginning of the curfew, they are spreading in Palestinian
homes on the first row, which are exposed to shooting from the military
positions . They wear phosphorescent clothing and megaphones. In the midst of
firing, or in the face of IDF bulldozers, they emerge to call out in English the
text of international conventions and block the soldiers when they come in,
shoot, bomb or demolish homes. Until a week ago it worked. They were calling out,
warning, shouting, blocked the bulldozers with their bodies - and the army
turned back. On Sunday, March 17, all bets were off. What happened found its way
to the media of the entire world, caused a storm. A young woman, human rights
activist, was killed by an IDF bulldozer which ran over her. Her name was
Rachel Corrie, she was 23 years old, and Joe Smith recorded her last moments.
He saw her facing the bulldozer, as was her habit, trying to establish contact
with the soldier driving it. A second later she was not visible any more. A
cat and mouse game is how members of the human rights group call the
dangerous game they are playing with the IDF D-9 bulldozers. When a bulldozer
approaches a house marked for destruction, they sit down in their phosphorescent
clothing on the mound of earth carried on the giant bulldozer extended front,
addressing by megaphone the soldier behind the windows of opaque, reinforced
glass. Standing on the front of the bulldozer requires maintaining a very
delicate balance, and there comes a moment when you can overturn and fall off. Until
the day Rachel was killed, the soldiers did not push things to far. They
would always stop and turn back one minute before this could happen. But on that
Sunday, the soldier driving the bulldozer did not stop at the critical moment,
and Rachel was killed. Joe Smith's photos document, stage by stage,
Rachel's folding into death. Like a big strong bird which flies in the sky, gets
a blow, squeezes itself and slowly falls down to become a small crumpled
heap on the ground. Here is a photo of Rachel standing determined in front of
the bulldozer, here she stands on the mound of earth. And here she disappears,
she lies on the ground, her mouth open as if trying to say something,
Alice crouches over her (later, Alice would quote what she said with her last
strength: "My back is broken"), she draws in her two legs, the body lies like a
lifeless sack. Rachel is dead.
After her death Rachel became a Shaheed (martyr). From all over the world,
media was called upon to interview the group of young people, which had
numbered eight and is now reduced to seven. So it was that I also arrived
there. A short phone call from my editor, a contact person at the Erez
Checkpoint, a taxi, a Palestinian photographer from Gaza, and an emphatic
instruction from the contact person: "Nobody must know that you are an Israeli.
>From now on, you are a French journalist - period".
A bad death
I lived with the group for 24 hours. Crazy hours, very frightening, hours of
fear and apprehension in which I felt at my nerve endings, a wildly beating
heart and wet underwear. I understood what it means to live with death for 24
hours a day. A bad death. With guns, tanks and bulldozers targetting your home,
your bedroom, your kitchen, your balcony, your living room. No way of defending
yourself, nowhere to run to. At mdnight in Jamil's home, facing the shooting
tanks and feeling that these may really be my last moments, I decided to open my
cards. I threw aside the instructions not to expose myself because of Hamas and
Tanzim and all the others who may murder me at a moment's notice. With a feeling
of profound finality I suddenly said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I must tell you the
truth. I am an Israeli journalist from Tel Aviv. There was a moment's silence,
then Jamil smiled and started speaking in fluent Hebrew:
"Welcome, Welcome, Ahalan Ve'sahalan [Arab greeting which became, part of
colloquial Hebrew]. I lived for four years on Sokolov Street in Herzlia, I was
the shawarma cutter in the Mifgash Ha'Sharon Restaurant. I have also worked on
Abba Eban Street in Netanya and at the Hod Hotel in Herzlia Pituach. What I
liked most was to eat cherry ice-cream at the Little Tel-Aviv Restaurant. Is it
still open?" Rains of ammunition bullets came down on us on that one single
night. A single night, for me. The shooting went on continuously from 1.30 to 4.15,
near the first light.
Only then it calmed down. My teeth did not stop chattering. "Its' verrry near"
was the only thing I managed to say for four consecutive hours. Jamil and Nora,
with their three babies, tried to calm me. "The soldiers know us, they know
we're clear. You hear it so close, because they are shooting at the wall near
us". "So they never hit your house itself?" I ask him with an enormous burst of
hope. "Oh, sometimes they do. Look at the bullet holes". I raise my head and
look to the sides. The ceiling is fool of holes, the side walls are cut up. So
is the kitchen wall near the tap, near the table, in the toilet, one centimetre
from the children's beds. Some of the holes have been filled up. Every night,
once the shooting ends, Jamil closes the bullet holes with white cement. The
walls are patchwork, and if you dare approach the window you can see that Jamil
and Nora's home is surrounded by ruins on all sides.
Everybody escaped, only he remained because of having no money to take his family
away from here. The bullets are whistling and Jamil makes for his family salad
and omelettes and bakes pita bread on a traditional tabun oven. The bullets
whistle and we are eating. With a good appetite. We bend down whenever the
shooting seems to come closer. It is incredible what human beings can get used
to, I think. A week ago, Jamil took up a big black marking pen and wrote on a piece
of cardboard: "Soldiers, don't shoot please. There are sleeping children
here". He wrote in big Hebrew letters, and Rachel Corrie had climbed on the
building's outer wall to hang it. Now Rachel's face appears on a Palestinian
martyr's poster which hangs on the living room window. Jamil smiles sadly and
tells me and my chattering teeth and my clenched hands and my widely
beating heart: "What can we do? When Allah decides our time has come to die, we die.
It is all in Allah's hands". It does not reassure me.
A stranger among us
24 hours I had lived in the ruined and beleaguered city of Rafah. "Rafah Camp",
as both inhabitants and internationals call it. Most of the time, the people
which I met did not know I was Israeli. It is important to note this, because
the words I heard and the conversations I conducted were not part of an Israeli-
Palestinian pingpong. Nobody tried to accuse me, to convince me or to make me
understand something which I did not understand before. As far as they were
concerned, I was a European journalist. During these 24 hours I did things which
could be described as taking a terrible, irresponsible risk, unfitting for a person
my age. Still, I am glad I did it. I feel now that I am not the same person which I
was before entering Rafah. A person can grow considerably older
in just 24 hours. Now I also understand better the fascination war has for many
men. No other human experience, however ecstatic, can make so much adrenalin
flow through your veins. But I was mostly concerned trying to understand how it
is to live there for more than one day. My trek had began in Tel-Aviv at 8.30
AM, with the nice friendly taxi driver Yehuda Gubali offering me water and a
chewing gum as I got in. He was curious to know what I was looking for at the
godforsaken Erez Checkpoint, on such a nice morning. I told him the truth: I was
on my way to meet the ISM people. "Oh, I read in the paper about that girl who
was killed, what's her name, and let me tell you the truth, I was glad she was
killed. Who is that little busybody from America to come and interfere in our
affairs? Standing on the bulldozer, really! no wonder she was run over. Let
these people learn a lesson. Is this their country? " The sky was grey when I
crossed alone the border crossing at Erez, after signing the Army Spokesman's
document stating that I take full responsibility for my decision to cross and
absolving the army from any responsibility for what may happen to me on the
other side. I crossed past the last bunker, waved back to the soldiers, and stood
near the rolls of barbed wire to wait for my Palestinian escort, Talal Abu Rahma.
Abu Rahma has taken the photo which symbolizes the current intifada more than any
other: the death of the child Muhammad Al-Dura in the arms of his father, during
the exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians. Nowadays,
Abu Rahma is a very busy man who lives in Gaza and works for foreign networks. He
is my official guide, and the first thing he says is: "From this moment, not a
single Hebrew word. Even the photographer must not know that you are Israeli. From
this moment you are a French journalist". With these words in mind I get into a
car heading for Rafah Camp, an hour and half drive from Gaza. We race along the
broken Gaza coastal road, in the direction of Khan Yuneis and Rafah. "You see
these hotels and restaurants? Once they were all merry, full of life. Now
everything is neglected, broken, abandoned". At the "Abu Huly" checkpoint, near
the Gush Katif Israeli settlements, we stop.
We wait for the soldiers' permission to proceed. Abu Rahame is an intensive
person, i.e. nervous. He lights one cigarette with another. This IDF checkpoint
must not be crossed by a car with less than three persons in.
On both sides there are children waiting at the roadside. They take one shekel
from drivers who take them in their car to fill up the required number, then on
the other side they get another shekel from another driver to go the other way.
This is their way of of surviving this collapsed economy.
We wait. "Sometimes you have to wait here for three days. Depends on the
situation". But this time, we get the permission after half an hour. We go through a
beautiful, neglected road, lined by ancient eucalyptus trees. And then we are at
Rafah Camp. A big, ruined place. You can hardly call this place, with 140,000
people, a city. Palestinians are unanimous that it is "the poorest, most miserable,
most damaged place of all: 250 inhabitants killed in the Intifada, more than 400
houses destroyed. Half of those killed were children."
When I enter the apartment used by "The Internationals" I start feeling that here,
especially, I should not identify myself as Israeli. Israeliness, for these young
people, represents the worst evil they know: demolition of homes, brutal killings,
bulldozers, shooting, tanks, humiliations, hunger and poverty. The young people in
the room are not quick to communicate with the French journalist which they think
they are meeting. They are tired of the media, they have not yet completely come
to terms with the death of their friend, they are not eager to answer questions
and they don't particularly care that I have only two hours. I watch the nervously
tapping foot of my escort. "Come back for me tomorrow" I suddenly ask him. After a
short debate, in which I promise to take very much care of myself, he bids me
goodbye with a disapproving look on his face. Joe Smith, the only member of the
groups really willing to talk to me, offers to go together to the internet cafe a
few steps away, and on the way he tells me how he had come to join the ISM.
Seeping fear
Smith is a 21-year old guy from Kansas City. While in high school he read a book
about peace activists and became enthusiastic with the idea. In a political
science course he met with Prof. Steve Naber, read Marx and realized his status as
a white male, with privileges at the top of the pyramid.
He went to Slovakia, joined anti-globalisation groups and decided that what he
most wants to do with his life is to devote it to the weak, to those who don't
have the privileges he has. Especially he wants to challenge the dictatorship of
the strong which is enforced by his own government, which is how he got to the
Rafah group. While talking we get to the internet cafe in the city center, where I meet
Muhammad who does not want to tell the French journalist his full name "because
there is very much trouble around here", but who insists that I sit by him and
read from the screen his online diary and look at the photos he had placed at
www.rafah.vze.com. Muhammad is 18, he has a delicate face and studies English in
the university. I decide to gamble and suggest to him to be my interpreter and
escort in Rafah.I leave Joe behind the computer and walk with Muhammad
through Salah A-Dn Street, Rafah's main street. I notice a bit of discomfort in
Muhammad's look and ask him what is the matter. "You better buy a keffiya and cover
your hair. That way, you will be less conspicuous, and people will feel that you
identify with their suffering. I immediately take his advice. We stop at the
first stall, buy a keffiya, stop a taxi, haggle a bit and agree upon 50 shekels for half an hour an
d
start going around the city. Already on the first moment he asks if I am the
foreign journalist who had come to visit the internationals. Rumors spread swiftly
here. The driver tells me that it was him who had taken Rachel Corrie to her death
on that fateful morning.
The first site Muhammad chooses to show me is at Block G on the northern edge of
the city, where 400 houses had been destroyed. As we come near, inhabitants living
in tents warn us not to come close to the tanks with their guns directed at us.
"When they see something moving they shoot", a woman on a donkey warns Muhammad.
The rest of the way we do half crawling among the ruins, through the narrow
alleys, careful not to raise our heads. The tanks are some 200 metres away,
their guns at the ready. It is important to Muhammad to show me the site of the mass
house demolition. He had photographed house after house and entered the houses
into his internet site, which is daily visited by 900 people from all over the
world.
Row after row of destroyed houses, with personal belongings scattered and
strewn around. Dolls, furniture, bicyles, books. We crawl through the alleys to avoid
the threatening guns of tanks. "They can shoot at any moment, just at any
suspicious movement" he says and leads further in. The fear comes crawling up my feet and
legs. Finally, when we come closer and closer to the tanks and the ruins become
deeper and deeper, I raise my voice: "Enough!". Muhammad yields to the French
journalist, and we get into the taxi and move on.
The next destination is the al-Ubur Airfield which had been destroyed by F-16
airplanes, then the ruined house beside which Rachel Corrie was killed, then a
small hospital whose two ambulances are running around constantly. Most things
we watch from a distance of no less than 100 metres "since shooting can start at
any moment". After two hours I insist on calling a halt. We enter a small
restaurant and order large pita bread with humous, tehina and coca cola, all for four and
a half shekels [About one dollar, less than half the Tel-Aviv price].
"Where do you live?" I ask. "I moved with my parents to a different house. Two
months ago they destroyed our home. I came from the university and found
everything ruined. The computer, the books, the notebooks, my study materials.
Nothing was left. They came and destroyed everything at a moment's notice, did
not give any chance of taking things out. We were just thrown into the street. Me,
my father, my mother, my three brothers, my grandfather. And believe me" he says
to the French journalist "they had no reason. We are just an ordinary family, not
involved in anything. They just destroyed our life in one hour". I look at
Muhammad talking. Only now, after I saw the 400 destroyed houses, do I really
understand his grief.
Muhammad leads me back to the internationals' flat just as they are about to go
pay a coalescence visit to the familes of people killed on the same day as
Rachel. To my surprise, they don't object to my joining them. The seven of us
squeeze ourselves into a single taxi, and we go the water tower at the edge of the
city. One of the group's duties is to guard the water and electricity workers who
repair the water pipes or electricity wires damaged in the shooting. While they do
their work Joe, Laura, Alice and Gordon form a circle around them, to defend them
from the soldiers' shots.
A faceless enemy
In the bereaved families' houses, where I sat with the others on the floor, drank
bitter coffee and ate dates, I hardly ever heard the word "Israelis". Even the
word "soldiers" was only rarely used. What the Palestinians usually say is simply
"they". This is not by chance. During the 30 hours that I lived there I never saw
a flesh-and-blood Israeli soldier. From the Palestinian point of view the enemy
has no face, no body, no human form. The enemy is hidden behind giant D-9
bulldozers, monsters as big as a house themselves, at whose top there are squares
of opaque reinforced glass. The enemy is hidden behind bunkers, guard towers,
metal tanks. The enemy has no face, no expressions which could be interpreted. The
enemy is hidden behind tons of khaki-coloured steel. Massive steel, frightening,
belching fire without warning. For the man in the street the enemy is virtual,
sophisticated, unhuman, inaccesible.
And facing this enemy are the Palestinians I see waliking in the dirty streets.
Many with torn cloths, some barefooted, neglected, manifestly poor. You can see
the traces of sorrow, apprehension., suffering, inadequate food. At 45 they look
old. They walk from one side of the city to the other, seeking some kind of a job.
Man walk in groups, hither and fro. They have no jobs and nowhere to go. They live
squeezed - men, women and children - in narrow houses and small pieces of land.
On the way back from the condolences visit, we encounter a massive group of
marching men. At the front a car with enormous louspeakers, blaring music and ten
masked young men holding swords and calling out slogans against the Iraq War. "A
demonstration, a demonstration" the internationals call out, stopping the taxi and
joining right in among the fiery men. Willy-nilly, the French journalist also
walks with the march, keeping constant eye-contact with the three women of the
group - Laura, Alice and Carol. There are no Palestinian women to be seen.
It is one of these demonstrations which look very frightening on TV. Guys with
black rags covering their eyes, blaring loudspeakers, swords and knives between
teeth. The direct human contact, at close range, diminishes the drama. I look at
the fiery men and toy with imagining how they would have reacted if they knew that
there is an Israeli identity card right there in my pocket. In their sweating
faces I can see how young and desperate they are, looking for action. Alice, Laura
and Carol join the heated chanting of slogans against the Americans and Israelis,
taking out a large colour poster, with the face of Rachel in her role as a martyr.
Alice, a 26-year old Londoner, takes up the megaphone and delivers a fiery speech
on what Rachel had done for the Palestinians and how she was killed. Alice speaks
in English and the Palestinian men listen in admiration. I feel that Alice is the
stongest woman in the group. She is young, charismatic and determined. I had to
watch my chance for ten hours before she consented to peel off her tough exterior,
soften a bit her Jeanne d'Arc image and exchange some words with me.
Alice, who prefers not to mention her family name, grew up in London. After
highschool she studied computer programming, had a nice job and rented a good
appartment."I lived a bourgois life and I found that it leads nowhere. Going to an
expensive restaurant with a new boyfriend, and on the way passing homeless people
sleeping on the pavement. I started to be interested in how the strong exploit the
weak, and for a time I went to work in a factory. Afterwards I became more and
more political. I started to give an account to myself for everything I did, what
did I eat, what entertainment did I enjoy, what does it mean to live in a
capitalist society. I went to demonstrate in Prague and got arrested. I put my
courage to the test, until I finally trained myself to come here. Here it is the
most difficult. What is most interesting to me is to analyse the tactics of force
used by the strong against the weak. Only here, when I help the Palestinians to
face the Israelis, do I feel that my life has a meaning.
We walked for 20 minutes with the stormy march, then we moved aside and started
shopping for the evening: preserved meat, noodles, rice, sugar, cookies and tea.
The group is financed by contributions and lives as a commune. Every spent Shekel
is carefully noted down
Nowhere to escape
At Six PM, a last team meeting ahead of the night. The small commune is conducted
by strict rules. Every morning at 8.30 they meet at the appartment after having
spent the night at threatened Palestinians homes. They discuss the experiences of
the past night, hear from Palestinian friends on developments on the ground, and
divide tasks for the coming day. They stand as human shields at electricity
installations and water wells, collect testimonies, and take footage on small
video cameras. They face the hostile lumps of steel with their megaphones and try
to establish dialogue with the soldiers inside.
These seven people are taking up an enormous load in this chaos. But who is to
take care of these young people themselves, who sleep two hours per night and had
not yet time to come to terms with having intimately witnessed Rachel's death?
They spare themselves nothing. They had insisted on wiping the blood from Rachel's
face, touching her broken back, taking the body to the morgue with their own
hands, wrap it with shrouds, and accomapny it in the ambulance to Tel-Aiv, sharply
debating with the soldiers who stopped them for hot hours at the checkpoint
despite the fumes which started to arise from the body.
The mother role is played by Carol Moskovitz, who joined the group with her
husband Gordon a week ago. Carol is 61 and Gordon seems a bit younger. They are
artists, they live in Canada, and have been travelling the world for the past
three months. When they heard of what happened to Rachel they decided to cut their
trip short and come to offer their help. Since Sunday, they act like parents to
the younger members of the group: preparing tea, asking questions, trying to
address the shock and disbelief which Rachel left behind.
Carol and Gordon have three daughters in Canada. An hour ago Carol got a phone
call from her eldest, 30 years old, with warm greetings for Mother's Day. Carol
and Gordon conceal from their daughters the fact that they are in Rafah Camp. They
don't want to make their children and grandchildren worry.
It was at 7.30 that I went with Laura and Joe to stay the night in the house of
Muhammad Jamil Kushta, the first house fronting the IDF position on the Egyptian
border, an ill-fated house. There, in Jamil's house under the ceaseless shooting,
guns, missilies, rockets and only the devil knows what else, for four consecutive
hours, truly feeling that these might be my last moments, I gambled and revealed
my identtity as an Israeli from Tel_Aviv. Then I said that my own sons might be
among the soldiers shooting at us, not knowing that I was there in the house they
were shooting at, or it might be one of my sons' friends who had visited my home.
And that was the moment we started to look at each other and laugh. Three babies,
two Americans, a Palestinian couple and an Israeli woman all sitting around a big
bowl of salad, with bullets whistling through the air, we started to laugh. A
laughter of despair, of apprehension, of relief at the human closeness which we
suddenly found. I knew that with some luck I would get through the night and run
for my life, but Jamil and Nora had no escape, that they were doomed to raise
their three babies under live fire. And then Laura opened her mouth to reveal that
she was Jewish too, and rather an observant Jewess too. And it turned out that the
fiery Alice, the group's "Jeanne d'Arc", the Israel-hater, was Jewish too. "And
the soldiers" said Jamil "they too are just 20-year old children who have to stand
out there, alone in the dark, shaking, within the cold steel".
We all agreed: life is short and human beings are silly creatures.
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