mahsanmilim - we were told

סיפרו לנו. ראינו. we were told. we saw

Faisal Al-Khatib from Hizma, a village north-east of Jerusalem, tells us:

First of all, this story I'm about to tell you started a few years ago, but it has intensified lately. I'm talking about Hizma and Beit Iksa, two villages that cannot be given to the Palestinian Authority. Because there are a lot of Jewish colonies there and these two villages are right in their midst. In the case of Hizma it is right on the main road serving the colonists from Pisgat Ze'ev to Adam, going through to Hizma. That's how we see it.
So there are rumors probably leaked by the army that they want to give our village and Beit Iksa a document under the heading 'Age no. 3'. Or just 'No. 3'. Or 4. Something like that. In other words, neither Israeli nor Palestinian citizen. A third category.
We won't be Shabak-prevented. Allowed to go to Jerusalem and to Tel Aviv. Travel and work. But not belonging – neither to Israel nor to the Palestinian Authority.

Unlike East Jerusalemites, not paying city taxes to the Jerusalem municipality. Not getting any health services. I don't know what we'll do about medical treatment. Probably have to pay.

We think it will happen after the Ramadan. Or at the end of this year. We don't know all of this for sure. But we keep hearing about it. I don't know exactly what the sources are. But the army has been leaking it. The flower vendors heard this, near the roundabout on top of the hill. The army and municipality inspectors came and grabbed their wares. Told them that people from Hizma and Beit Iksa will be getting a new document, so they could work inside Israel.

Years ago, during the Oslo Accords, Israelis talked with Abu Amar (Arafat) about this idea, but he wouldn't agree to a document that has no citizenship/residency.

There are several things related to this. That show it. They photograph us, for example. In our village and in Beit Iksa, same thing. The army came in and took pictures of every family.

This happened several months ago already, perhaps last year. Not now. They would come at night with cameras, enter each house, note down those living in the house, then they would leave. They would come at five, or at midnight, all hours. They'd come, not disrupt anything, not raise hell. Just ask whose house is this, take photographs, sometimes pictures of people as well.

They came to our own house at 8:30-9 p.m. We already heard about it. That they are coming around counting family members. Because they'd already been to the whole neighborhood. But they came just like that, no beatings, no rifles, just wanting to know exactly who lives in the house. Young, old. Didn't even demand to see our IDs. They knew in advance. Just confirmed it.
Say in our house, the parents live on the ground floor, my brother is upstairs. The soldier knew all about that. He knew everything we told him.
Then he photographs the house. Each room. And some of the children.
More than fifteen soldiers came around. But without doing anything. We thought they were on maneuvers.

Then a few days ago they came and photographed the village streets. Didn't enter houses. Just around the neighborhood. Jeeps of the Border Patrol and army. But the ones doing all the photographing are army.
And three months ago they photographed schools. They stood on the roadside, the one leading to Pisgat Ze'ev or to Anata. And took pictures of the village. They photograph everything.

And there's something else, that's connected.
Say I'm from Jaba. So it's written that my place of residence is Jaba, Ramallah municipal district. If I'm from the Qalandiya refugee camp, then the city is Ramallah.
But our IDs are different. We have Hizma written as our place of residence, and near the word city it says nothing. Just 00.
We asked our authorities why this is so in our IDs, and were told there is yet no solution for our village from the Israeli side.

On the one hand people in the village say this idea is not logical, Israel wants to get rid of all Jerusalemites. So suddenly Hizma residents would be permitted into Jerusalem? And suddenly we're not Shabak-prevented? Allowed to cross over. It doesn't make sense. From their side it's not logical.
But I think that it isn’t because our village is good for them. If they give us this document, they'll steal the rest of the land of this village.
That's people's idea. That maybe they're giving this so they can take whatever is left of the village lands.

And also because lately they've built the Adam colony. And they want to enlarge it. And Adam is next to us.
They've already put up a wire fence and taken land. About a month ago. I don't know exactly. They put up a fence and our lands are now on their side.
And another thing about Adam: there was a colonist outpost near Ramallah. And they dismantled it because of all that talk in the world about Israel and Obama, and they moved to Adam a month ago.

Maybe this way too, if people from these two villages come to work in Israel, then
all the workers from the Territories will no longer be allowed in.

I'll explain their method to you, about the fence. You've seen how they sometimes put up a wire fence, and sometimes concrete walls. No one can move a concrete wall, but they can move a wire fence whenever they want. I say you got to check and see if they intend to take the land and then switch from wire fences to concrete walls.
Say near Anata there's now a concrete wall and near Hizma and Jaba only a wire fence, it's because they haven't taken all the land yet. They've taken a lot but not all of it. Hizma's lands are out in the direction of Jericho.
Maybe they want to take them and cut the land in half. Separate. That's what I think.
The upper part will be Nablus and Ramallah districts and the lower part Hebron and Bethlehem districts.

I also think this is just a preparation for what will be done to Jerusalemites. I don't know exactly how it will be done, but that's what I think. To make them go away.

We're worried. There are rumors but we don't know anything.

published 31.7.2009

We have known Nabil for some years now. We first met him with a group of children who used to sell chewing gum at the occupied French Hill junction, and Jerusalem policemen would often harass them. They would beat them up and rob their paltry goods, regularly.

published 26.4.2009

more...

During the Gaza offensive, every Friday youngsters demonstrated next to Qalandiya Checkpoint. The army shot and then the youngsters threw stones, and vice versa.
As has happened countless times in the past.
This time around we witnessed two innovations:
First: soldiers shooting and throwing things at children who are across and beyond the wall, not seeing them nor where they were aiming.
Second: the 'knock on the roof' method tried out in Gaza, is now being put into practice on the children of Qalandiya: Knock on the child. Through loudspeakers, the soldiers growled warnings in polished Hebrew which to the best of our knowledge is not taught in the schools attended by the children of Qalandiya refugee camp. Apparently with the advice of the army's attorneys, they hoped that such warning would enable them to fire away and then avoid prosecution for war crimes.
This is what was said there, and how it sounded:

All children, disperse... We are going to activate procedures. Everyone disperse, quickly. Attention, you with the jeans. You are inciting everyone here. You are going to get hurt...

published 16.2.2009

It was the day after Israel also bombed the UNWRA storerooms that went up in flames. And burnt the flour and food that was to be distributed to the refugees.
First Israel bombed the homes that collapsed over people, and the streets, then the schools, the shelters, and the mosques, and now the food. The flour. So that whoever did survive would not eat.

It was noon prayer time, and most of the people of Qalandiya refugee camp were in the mosque, and decided that the next time each of them would receive their UNWRA rations, instead of taking the food, they would ask that the rations be given, instead, to people in Gaza.
We have no much to give, says S., but we cannot take it.

And we think, how can people who have so little, and mostly out of work, and dependent on these rations, which are meager anyway, and arrive only once every three months, people under occupation, subject to daily abuse, how do they find it in them, even so, to give to those who are being murdered these very days by Israel's soldiers, day after day, to those who have survived and have not even this little sustenance.

published 15.1.2009

One of these days, when everything was happening in Gaza, we got a call from Faisal in Hizma village, who told us excitedly about his cousin's daughter Nauras, the little brave girl.
I entered my family's home, he says, they have this kind of porch and we were sitting out there. And we saw more than fifteen or twenty soldiers downstairs, some of them walking and some in jeeps in the village.
It's been several days, since things started happening in Gaza, that they've been coming to the village every day. But now they suddenly came into our garden.
The soldiers were raising their runs, and one of them asked my cousin if he'd seen children, and my cousin said, what am I , the children's keeper? Then the soldiers yelled at us to go back indoors, that we mustn't stand outside, and I was arguing with him that this is my home, where should I go? But finally we got back inside, we didn't want any trouble.
There's a hill where we live, overlooking the road to Adam colony. Children must have burnt some tires and thrown them, and now the soldiers are searching for them, I don't know. And maybe just so, or maybe because of Gaza they're looking for something to do to us.
My cousin's house is right next to ours, and five minutes later we heard yelling there and children crying. We wanted to go over there but we weren't allowed to. Some twenty minutes went by and I hear them yelling and we got worried. Again I tried to go there, because none of them speak any Hebrew, and my uncle is seventy-five years old and my aunt is over sixty and suffers all kinds of ailments. But they wouldn't let me in. So I said to the soldiers: this is my home, how can you not let me in there? And the soldier said to me, raise your shirt and your hands. So I did. And then he said, no, you cannot go in. I said – there's a woman in there who's diabetic and has an ill heart and can hardly see, and her son is disabled and cannot see either, so finally he let me in.
I entered the house and saw the family. They told me the soldiers want to take Musa. He's their eighteen-year old son, first-year student at Abu Dis. And everyone's crying.
And Musa has already been picked up by the soldiers, and is standing with them near the door.

Suddenly Nauras, a six or seven-year old girl, who loves her brother and will not have him taken away, this little Narus goes over to the soldiers and completely unbuttons her blouse and says – kill me but don't take my brother, shoot me and don't take my brother.
And the soldier yells at her to get back inside.
The soldiers yell at us, take the girl from us.
So I made her get back in, but immediately she went out again. Crying. Let me hug him and don't take him away. And I'm trying to reassure the soldier, this is a little girl. I was worried he'd do something to her. I told him: Say this were your daughter and something happened to you, would she let you go? And he says, yes, she would. Still he stopped yelling, and said he does not want the little girl to be upset. And he apologized.

But there is another soldier who suddenly wanted to raise his hand against the girl, and did, and I caught his hand and said, there are five hundred of you here, and none of you will get out of here, I yelled.
And he said: what are you saying?
I said, I'll have it written in the newspaper if you raise your hand.
I said, give me your name.
And finally the soldier said, then get her back inside.
Get the children back inside so they won't be upset.
And I said, you came here with your weapon and your gear against everyone and tell me you don't want the children to be upset? Is this a joke? Are you joking?

I was also worried about my aunt who's sick, because this is her eldest grandson and she loves him.
And I was afraid she'd get a heart-attack like Um Sa'id when her son was taken away.
Then the soldier said, come over here a moment. That I should translate. And asked Musa, why are you home? Why are you looking out the window? Musa said, I'm in my own home, I heard noise so I looked out. The soldier said, why are you looking toward the hill? He answered, I hear noise so I look. He asked Musa, where were you all day? He answered, at Abu Dis University. Didn't you go up the hill? Musa answered, no, I didn't climb anywhere.
So the soldier grips Musa's hands and smells them. And checks to see if there are any burns.
And Musa says to the soldier, and I translate, this is my home, from here over to the fence, and if I sit in this garden it's on purpose, it is my home. I told the soldier that their border is that hill. Here is their home. And it's not their business if someone else did anything.
Then the soldier made me go away, he wouldn't let me stay.

Then a soldier talked with the boy's father who's an Arabic teacher, and they spoke English. I didn't understand everything they said. Then I heard the soldier say to Musa's father, alright, and they called I don't know whom, and ten minutes later they said: we're not taking him away because of Nauras, we don't want to upset the girl.
And that was that, they let him alone and left.

When Musa went back inside, little Nauras ran over to him and sat with him and hugged him, her big brother, so they wouldn't take him away from her ever again.

My uncle, Musa's father, is certain that it was because of Nauras that he wasn't taken away. Everyone says, what a girl she is! I'm not sure that was the reason he wasn't taken away. They had nothing on him, I think, because just because they saw youngsters sitting on the porch. If they had something on Musa, nothing would have helped, but what a girl she is! What power she had. And how she loves her brother.
Nauras is a dove. No, a seagull.
With wings.

Why do you think Nauras unbuttoned her blouse and told them, shoot me? What was she thinking, we ask him.
Our whole family keeps thinking about this, he says, that's all we talk about.
I think it's because the children learn, and not just because of what they see happening in Gaza. It's from everything, from the checkpoint and from what they do in Hizma, where soldiers kill innocent people. And hurt people who haven't done anything wrong.
So in the girl's mind they come to Musa not for any reason but just in order to kill.
For blood. So if she gives her blood, she thinks, that portion of blood, he will be saved. Perhaps that's how she thinks.
And that's terrible.

published 15.1.2009

Abu Omar called, sounding agitated, and said – I called you two days ago and you didn't answer, to tell you that something happened in Qalandiya. It was a week ago, beginning of last week. There's a 15-year old boy, exactly my son's age, he was near the checkpoint, by the roundabout. I don't know exactly how this went, but a Jew went by and shot him in the stomach. Exactly five days ago, but I don't know exactly how it happened, everyone is telling a different story.
Someone passed by, like in Hebron. I don't know if stones were thrown, no one knows exactly. But someone shot him in the back at close range, the bullet entered his belly, he was hit hard and now he's in intensive care. I mean he's alive, and he keeps getting sedated, they're making him sleep and he had an operation, and at the Mosque they were calling for blood donations, he needed 19 blood donations. He's got blood type O-negative, not everyone has this.
Everyone says something different. Some say there was not a stone thrown, no problems. But something did happen. Some say maybe he wanted to steal a car, but maybe there was nothing. No one knows the truth yet.
They're my neighbors. It's this son they have, and two daughters. He's the eldest. He and my son are the same age. My poor son, he says that's my friend.
It's where the roundabout is, right there. Maybe he wanted to walk across the road.
The guy shot him in the back and the bullet went in, just like it did to Tamer. In the back. Everyone says this is just like Tamer. Musa Zaayed, that's his name. A friend of my son's.
He's just a kid. What has he done?
I don't know what the kid did to deserve this.

published 21.12.2008

I wanted to tell you, Um Sa'id who was killed - Abu Omar tells me her son is out.
He's a nice guy, doesn't hang out with the Intifada fellows. He's a quiet man, just got married.
So they came and took him away. What happened was that they came to get this guy and his mother died. Because he was taken away. Because she gripped him so he won't go.
Finally her son is out of jail, they don't want him there. They have nothing on him. He is not accused of anything…
A collaborator told the army, then they come as if they had no eyes, not seeing a thing, they go 'wham-bam' [one-two-three] and his mother ends up dying right there.
And now he's out.
If he had weapons at home, if he had wanted to go on a suicide mission, and kill people – well, they came and took him away and then things happened as they did. But they come to someone's home, and take him, and he's clean, and only because a collaborator said so and so, they went ahead and did what they did and now his mother is dead. And now he is out, free.
It's a story like in the movies.
It's the fault of the captain in charge, Aiman.
Very sad.
Be strong, I told him.
Poor guy. Such a poor guy.

published 21.12.2008

And something else happened with the settlers in our camp in Qalandiya, on Sunday morning, around five, five-thirty. There's this guy he works in Atarot, about 42 or 45 years-old, I don't know exactly. Got five children and he works in a bakery making cakes. He's got work there. It was dark, really early in the morning, he was on his way to work in Atarot, and a settlers' car came along and they stabbed him with a knife in the belly… There's a checkpoint there, I heard this happened right next to a checkpoint with soldiers…
And Israeli ambulances came, but because he is from the Occupied Territories they wouldn't take him and called the Red Crescent and he was taken to hospital in Ramallah. And now he's alive.
There were four settlers. They came out of the car, stuck a knife in his belly.
And ran. I don't know about the soldiers, but he was alone. Maybe the soldiers called the ambulance. And all the people working there are telling each other to watch out from the settlers, everywhere, in Nablus, all over, everyone's afraid… But he is alright, he came out of the hospital, he'll be okay. God saved him. God did.

published 21.12.2008

I asked Hitham if he heard about the guy who was stabbed in Atarot. He said, sure. Of course he heard. But that it's not just there, not just in Qalandiya, that's what's been happening… That's how (the Palestinians) fall between the soldiers and the settlers.

I was working at the Mahane Yehuda market in West Jerusalem, in 1999, for someone called Aharon who would bring vegetables and fruit to the market. One day some religious Jews chased me, wanted to stab me. And my boss, Aharon, saw me from far away, running. and saw that they had these Japanese knives and were chasing me, three or four of them, so Aharon took out his pistol and began to shoot in the air and stopped them.
Understand? He had my life in his hands, he saved me.
There are soldiers there in the market, Border Patrolmen, they're always there, walking in pairs, so they came, heard what happened and came along and Aharon told them, these religious guys, they wanted to kill my worker.
The soldiers didn't do anything. They took their knives and told them to go away.
And Aharon went crazy because they let them go like that and said, I'm calling their officer to talk to them. And I told him, never mind. Otherwise when I go home they'll catch me. I don't say this because I'm afraid. What if they wait for me, there's no law for them. One of them might murder me and then he'll be declared insane. They'll say there's something wrong with his head. That's what happened when it's a Jew. I'm not a racist, Aya. I told him, let this go. So he wouldn't do anything.
It's a true story, I tell you.

published 21.12.2008

Hitham says: I wanted to tell you something, if you want to write it down. I think it's worth it. You remember those children I told you about, who had to stand out in the street at night, when the soldiers came to their house and told everyone to get downstairs, in their pajamas, and broke everything they had at home, and took away their uncle, and there was this six-year old boy among them, son of my cousin?
So the story is that these two families had a fight. They quarreled.
So people called the Palestinian forces to come and sort it out.
So the kid comes home from school and saw the Palestinian forces, and threw down his school bag, picked up stones and threw them at soldiers. So a soldier was wounded and he began to scream and wanted to beat up the kid.
What the problem? You have got to write this down. He was six years old. First grade. The Palestinian forces wear the same kind of uniform as the soldiers do. The child saw what happened at night, what the soldiers did, and how they came to pick up his uncle and what they did, and in his mind he mixed them all up together, so that the Palestinian forces are like the Israeli soldiers.
People should know this story. There's something frightening and something funny. Funny because it's an Arab soldier, and frightening because the child cannot tell an Israeli soldier who attacked his family from an Arab soldier. It's shocking.
I was just looking out so I went downstairs. The Palestinian soldier was bleeding and the kid ran away. I told the soldier about this. He understood, sure. And was no longer angry. Because he understood the situation. Got a bandage on him and the story was over.
I went down to look for this kid, and told him that not all soldiers were bad. I tried to make him feel better, to convince him that not all soldiers are the same. This happened yesterday.
It's a little thing, this story, but it's a big story because this is how this little kid learns. What happens around him. And it shapes his mind. It's going to dig into his head, into his mind… I managed to calm the child because I know him. I'm his uncle. And he respects me. Because I didn't let the soldier beat him up. Because I know one has to come down to his size, I mean his age.
People don't notice such things. How the child takes this impression to heart, and what they do to him to think like that.
It shocks me, Aya.
I thought I should tell Aya to write this down, what they do to children.
He will be alright, I hope, because I calmed him, I told him that not everyone is the same.

published 21.12.2008

Some say she died because her blood sugar was up, or because of high blood pressure, and that she suffered a heart attack, and that she foamed white at the mouth.
I tell you she died because her heart exploded.
That night, November 26th, 2008, they came to Qalandiya refugee camp with a list, quietly, without our noticing, more than 200 soldiers, on the roofs, in the streets.

And to their home, too. They have two stories. One of their sons, the older one, lives upstairs, and Um Sa'id who’s forty-nine years old, I think, lives downstairs with her husband and the younger children. Her youngest are a fifteen-year old son and a fourteen-year old daughter. She has five children. A daughter and four sons. Nawaf, her son, just got out of three years in prison. Her husband works as a watchman in a building. A good man. When it happened, he was not home. He was working. Later, when they came to tell him, he couldn’t stand on his own feet.
The soldiers came to their house and did what they always do: scare people, bang on the door. The door was opened for them, and they entered and told everyone to bring their IDs, and they took all the IDs and saw that Muhammad was not there and asked, where is Muhammad.
The family said he doesn’t live there. That he is newly married. No longer lives in his father’s house. That he lives in Semiramis. So they gripped the older dbrother and told him, ‘Go get your brother. We’re waiting here and won’t move until he gets here. If you don’t bring him, we’ll take your father and brothers.” And they told Um Sa'id they only came to talk to him. Ask him questions. Not to take him away.
So the poor brother went to get him, because of the threat to the family, and also because the soldiers said it was only for talking. So he went and brought him in the car to their father’s house, downstairs.

Then the soldier said: “You, Muhammad, give me your ID”. So he did, and the soldier it was Muhammad and with no further questions or anything they caught him and shackled his hands behind his back and blindfolded him and came to take him away. And the mother went wild and yelled and gripped her son so they wouldn’t take him. And the soldier pushed her, and she pushed the soldier and gripped her son again and there was a big mess and they took him away, and she fell and had a heart attack right then and there.
Her son didn’t understand anything. He couldn’t see, just heard yelling and voices. His was tightly blindfolded and couldn’t know. They took him quickly and put him inside the jeep. And there were two more jeeps, one in front and one in back, and that’s how they took him away. And he didn’t know his mother died.

Later the doctor examined her and said she should be taken to the hospital right away. So they took her to the hospital but she was already gone. She died. Her heart exploded and she died.

published 11.12.2008

On Friday, August 8th, at 10 a.m., the villagers of Nabi Samuil climbed to face their erased village, destroyed in 1971 – and protested. They protested the fact that they live imprisoned. Prevented from every direction. Isolated. No one may come to visit them. They protested the fact that they are not allowed to build homes, that they are robbed of their land, deceitfully, bit by bit, that they have no work, that their homes are demolished, that they are driven out.
Slowly the villagers arrived, carrying signs saying "No to hunger, yes to food and drink", "Yes to come and go, no to checkpoints", "Yes to life, no to death", "Yes to construction and dwelling, no to demolitions", "No to hate, yes to love".
They stood aside, no shouts were heard, just standing, silently holding their signs.
Several Israelis joined them in their protest. Soldiers and policemen showed up immediately, to monitor them. A policeman filmed the demonstrators, to intimidate them, several Jewish-colonists cursed and called out their racist slogans and whispered with the soldiers. The protesters stood there until the noontime prayer, and then we dispersed.
More protest demonstrations are likely. It is hard to believe that the inhabitants of this tiny, unmarked place will manage to face the forces of dispossession and occupation and land-grab for the colonists in the area. A Palestinian stain. A superfluous Palestinian stain.

published 9.8.2008

photos

We asked people and they said they thought that Palestinians of the Occupied Territories are still forbidden to bathe in the Dead Sea, almost the last recreation site left for residents of the Occupied West Bank.
A year ago we went there and saw for ourselves – it was out of bounds. We saw how the soldiers beat up Palestinians there.
So we got there on Friday, July 25th, at 10 a.m. We spent some time there, and saw what we expected to see. Cars with families on their way to the Dead Sea: if they were Palestinians, they were sent back. If they were Jews, they were allowed to proceed undisturbed.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are stopped, required to show their ID, and usually allowed to continue. They too have an uneasy time of it. They do not belong to the 'right race'.
We met a young man we know from Nablus, who tried to go to the Dead Sea and was chased away. He said the soldiers told him there was closure. He knew it was out of bounds but he tried anyway. It had been so long since he had bathed in the sea, he said.
We stayed for a while, photographed some, became very sad, and left.
On our way home we called the Civil Administration hotline and asked them, in our Jewish voice, if this was true, what we were seeing, that Palestinians were not allowed to bathe in the Dead Sea.
Yes, this is a known phenomenon, the soldier at the other end informed us in his friendly manner. It's political, all that. Political representation and all that. The Palestinians are simply not allowed to go down to the seas. But it will be solved, eventually.
But how do you see it, what is your opinion of this, what do you really know, we insisted. In our nice manner.
It's alright, he said. It's simply to prevent any contact between Israelis who go down to the Dead Sea and Palestinians who go down to the Dead Sea.
Don't worry.

published 26.7.2008

On Sunday, July 7th, soldiers from Qalandiya Checkpoint in their jeeps passed by the poor vendors who sell coffee or vegetables by the roadside between Qalandiya and A-Ram, and threatened to tear down their stands if these were not removed within the hour. They told T. that the road was Area C (full Israeli control) and the land not his. Although it is. Others were told they were a public nuisance, although they were not, and yet others were not told anything, only threatened.
This is not the first time. Soldiers come in jeeps, threaten, destroy, sometimes steal the scales, worth up to 600 shekels, without handing out any sort of official notice, of course.
Sometimes they tell the vendors that if they want their scales back, they should come to the checkpoint. The vendors do not dare go there for fear that if they do, they will be pressured to collaborate, or be arrested and have a file opened against them. Nor do they believe they would get back whatever was taken away from them.
Two months ago, the Shabak (Security Services) came and photographed T.'s stand and took his scales. Come to Beit El, they told the vendor, we'll talk there. Of course he didn't go. He knew what that meant.
On Monday morning, officials of the Jerusalem Municipality came around in their big car, with soldiers from the DCO, to hunt vendors. They stole some of their carts and loaded them onto the municipality truck. They stole some scales, some cash boxes. Other vendors were threatened, and they took the rest of their wares and ran.
How will people live, asks Sh. who owns a cart and managed to get away in time. How do we disturb them, I just don't understand. we don't disturb anyone, we just want to eat.

published 8.7.2008

19-year old A. of Qalandiya refugee camp who – like his entire family – is prevented entry into Israel, was on his way to have medical treatment in Jordan. This is a treatment he is prevented from receiving in Israel, and is not available in the West Bank. He was detained at Allenby Bridge and prevented exit to Jordan. He was ordered to wait. And he waited. Some time later he was summoned into the office of the Shabak (Security Service) official on the spot, called 'the Captain'. Like many others, he was told that if he wants to get to Jordan and have his worrisome hypertension condition treated, he certainly can, and not only in Jordan, even in Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, despite his being prevented entry to Israel. He certainly can, if he would just do this or that for the Captain. In others words, collaborate. Betray his people.
A. said no and was sent back home. If you don't agree, he was told, you will not leave for your treatment. And indeed, he did not go. His condition is stable, so far.

published 8.7.2008

65-year old H. lives in Jordan, and for a long time now he has been applying for permission to visit A., his 74-year old sister who lives in a small village in the Occupied West Bank and is terminally ill, suffering from a chronic disease. His sister misses him terribly, says her daughter, F. He is her only brother and she has not seen him for many years now.
The authorities refuse to allow him across the Allenby Bridge, not even as a tourist, for he is considered a refugee, and as such – according to the Occupation forces – constitutes a 'risk factor' for he might want to implement his
'right of return.'

published 8.7.2008