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While war raged in Lebanon throughout
the month of July and death was a daily occurrence in Gaza, other
regions in this war-torn part of the world also experienced weeks
of torment and torture at the hands of the Israeli Military.
Among these regions is Nablus.
A city filled with tragedy and the knowledge of how unjust and
unforgiving the occupational forces can be. Invasions, incursions
and curfews are not new to the people of Nablus, nor are the
sights of bleeding children and mourning families.
Many people say if you want
to know the Occupation of the West Bank and what it actually
entails then you must go to Nablus and spend some days wandering
in the Old City and surrounding districts talking to residents,
nearly every one of whom have lost members of their family in
the decade-long struggle against Occupation; you need to talk
to the students of An Najar University and listen to their stories
of suffering and how many difficulties they must overcome if
they want to continue their education; you must let the sorrow
of the city soak into your unconsciousness.
And so I went to Nablus and
wandered the Old City streets and talked with families and with
students and listened to their stories.
It was not the first time I
had visited the city, but the first time I had spent more than
a day there.
The people of Nablus are welcoming
of a stranger into their streets. It is not so common for them
to see foreigners there and many stop you to ask what you are
doing in Nablus and how you see their city. It is a hard question
to answer; you want to tell them about the beauty of the ancient
stoned city and its unique geography, nestled in the valley of
two imposing mountains, daring the northern slopes of one to
build almost to its peak; but you can not, because this is not
the feature that strikes you most noticeably as you enter the
outskirts of Nablus.
You are first struck by the
ruins of the Municipality building and the destruction of the
as-yet un-rebuilt Mucata. You are struck by the houses, windowless
and scarred with bullet holes that line every street you walk
down; you are struck by the overwhelming feeling that this city
has seen war again and again and has had no time of respite to
begin to rebuild.
And how can you tell the eager residents of Nablus that all you
see in their city is the ravaging signs of war and hardship and
the heartbreaking signs of children with no future?
The latest of these fierce
and deathly times has left numerous residents of Nablus dead
and many more wounded.
It began in June when the Israeli
army invaded the center of Nablus at midday. They came in twenty
jeeps to arrest one man. On that day they shot three people dead
and imposed a curfew on the whole of the city.
Since then they have been in the city every night and sometimes
during the day.
They have killed civilians
including two children 14 and 16 years old. They have totally
demolished the Mucata and have bulldozed an apartment block that
housed 9 families. They have invaded the refugee camps and have
carried out assassinations against militants whose posters now
cover the walls of every shop in the city.June, July August and
September 2006
The streets now empty at 9
pm and the only sounds in the night time are those of gun-fire
and explosions.
'This is Nablus.' My taxi driver
said. This is the prison of the West Bank.
I was to speak with Fadi, a
leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Nablus. A friend from Nablus
had talked to Fadi and Fadi had agreed to speak with me on Saturday
about his life and his resistance against the occupation.
But he is now dead.
I arrived in Nablus the day
after he was assassinated by Israeli Special Forces.
The city salutes him and every
shop displays his poster, prepared by himself for himself. He
stands one-armed and defiant. He lost his right arm in the struggle
a year ago.
I came too late to speak with
him. So instead of his story I will write of him, as told me
by his family, his friends and his city that is now mourning
his death.
Ahmad is a medical relief worker
and has worked as an ambulance doctor for three years. I met
him by chance in a youth project office in the center of Nablus.
I asked him about the last
month in the city and he shook his head and said it has been
a 'hell-of-a-time'. He has been evacuating wounded and dead
people almost daily, the most heartbreaking of these he said
was having to try and evacuate Fadi after he had been fatally
injured.
It was late at night in the
old city of Nablus.
Fadi was warned not to enter
the old city, but he did and was shot by snipers.
He had a massive hole through
his belly.
Ahmad told me how he tried to stop the bleeding by pressing two
pillows against each side of Fadi's body, but it was impossible
to stop the bleeding and he and his two helpers were being shot
at the whole time and the ambulance could not approach. His two
friends were wounded.
'Fadi was still alive. But
he couldn't speak. He just looked at us and pointed. I suppose
he was telling us that he was going'
I asked Ahmad if he knew Fadi.
He answered, yes, that he did and it was not the first time he
had tried to evacuate him after an Israeli attack.
'Once he had his whole insides
hanging out of a horrible hole in his stomach and I had to push
them back inside and he said ''thankyou Ahmad!'' and there was
the time when he had his arm blown off.
'But this time was a nightmare.
We were trying to drag him through the street and we were right
in the sights of ten or so snipers sitting on the rooftops. I
could see red laser beams all over my chest. I finally had to
turn and run for cover and that is not an easy thing to do when
you are a trained emergency worker.
After half an hour we managed to drag Fadi to a building, but
by the time we reached the hospital he was already half-an-hour
dead.
He was a good man. Ask anyone
here.
'Every one knew him and every
one loved him.'
When evening came I wound my
way up the mountain to a quiet sanctuary, surprising in such
a battle-wearied city. The sanctuary is in the garden of an old
woman who has been trained as a psychologist and spends her days
working with the women of Nablus. Too often the bearers of tragedy.
'The women must carry too much.'
She said. 'Sometimes all their frustration and fear and torture
come out of their hearts when they sit here in my small garden.'
We talked for hours and I never
thought I could hear so many stories at once that would bring
tears to my eyes.
'.Can you imagine?' she said,
late in the evening. 'That women come to me and talk and begin
to cry and then to shout and then to beat the earth with their
bear fists. Can you imagine what that is like?
When the mothers tell me about
their sons taken from them. Killed in front of them, or arrested
from their family home. Some mothers tell me that their fourteen
or fifteen year old sons rush to them when the army arrives in
their street and cry to them to hide them. Some say that their
sons ask to be put back inside their bellies because they would
be safe there.
Can you imagine this? Fifteen year old boys! And the world hears
of them only as terrorists.'
One mother came to the sanctuary
and for an hour sat on the stones and howled till her heart would
break: 'I could not hide him! I could not hide my son!' She cried
over and over again.
To us, arrest may not seem
like the end of hope, but we do not know the reality of the arrest
system in Palestine. The women of Nablus know.
They know that they will not
hear news of their son for maybe 21 days after his arrest. They
will not know if he is alive or dead. All they will know is that
he will be facing interrogation and torture alone. That his court
hearing will be held in Hebrew. That his charges will be kept
in a 'secret file' and that they might not see their sons again
until they are grown men. This they know.
'And sometimes' the old woman
told me 'the mother needs to cry her anguish, however heartbreaking
it is.
'One young woman is married
to a wanted man. She comes to me because she has become useless.
She can not sleep in the night and can not wake in the day. She
lies in her bed because she is paralyzed with fear.
She has two daughters. The eldest started school today. Four
days ago the young woman's husband visited her with three new
dresses for their daughter. The husband said he did not want
anyone else to have to prepare his daughter for her first day
at school. Later in the evening he sat with his young family
and listened to his youngest girl singing a song he had taught
her. He said to his wife quietly, 'I don't think I will hear
this song again. He was killed yesterday.'
I knew then it was Fadi the
old woman was telling me about. She stopped talking because she
too was crying.
'I loved him like a son' she
finally said; 'and his wife like a daughter.'
She wept because however strong
she is and however many tragedies she bares with her clients,
she too sometimes needs to weep.
It was hard to sleep that night.
I sat at the window and watched the sleeping city below me, wondering
how many homes were nursing broken families and broken hearts.
I could see the ruined outlines of homes that had been bulldozed
and could see the pile of rubble that had been the Mucata, razed
to the ground three weeks before.
I realized that it would take
months to hear the stories this city harbors, months before I
could appreciate the depths of despair the people are driven
to by the harshness of the occupation.
I wondered what future was
in store for all the children I had seen that day rummaging through
rubbish in the Old City because there is not even a school for
them to go to. I found myself wondering at the little twelve
year old boys I had seen running after the militants who roam
the old city with guns slung over their shoulders, looking to
them like they ought to be looking to their teachers.
I found myself asking the question
if it was so very surprising that these youngsters turned to
the military factions of the city and joined them, and by so
doing, giving up any hope of a future except that of imprisonment
or death at the hands of the Israeli forces.
Because that could well be their future anyway
I finally slept as the dawn call to prayer sounded over the city.
When I returned to Ramallah
I knew that it was true about Nablus.
If you wander the streets of
the Old City and listen to even a few of the tales that are imprisoned
within it, you will understand better the reality of this occupation,
and the sadness of the city will seep into your unconscious
'But beware of becoming
hopeless.even the women who cry in my garden grow strong again
and return to their homes and continue to attend to their daily
work. If they didn't do this Israel would have destroyed us long
ago.'
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