International Solidarity Movement
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March 08, 2002

Tell the world...

by Huwaida Arraf

Four-year-old Ahmed Khader’s heart raced with fear; the children of the neighborhood told him that we were
the Israelis back in his home. The eight of us were not occupation soldiers. Rather we were foreign civilians (5 Americans, 2 Belgian and one Irish) who had come to the Balata Refugee Camp to express our solidarity with the people who had been invaded, terrorized and pillaged on a 4-day raid of their home – a refugee camp – by the Israeli military. The Israeli Armed Forces had just pulled out of the camp that very morning of Monday March 4, 2002 when we arrived, and Ahmed, who had been locked in one room (8' X 10') with other members of his family for the 4 days of the Israeli raid, feared that they had returned. Ahmed’s aunt explained that we were friends, and the boy cautiously warmed up to us. Ahmed wouldn’t talk about what had happened to them. He did however admit that he was scared, that he “wasn’t brave.” Four days earlier, armed Israeli soldiers had broken into the Khader home and ordered the 3 women (including one pregnant and one elderly) and the three children aged 4-9 years, that were in the home, into one room. They then proceeded to take over the rest of the home. For the next 24 hours the women and children sat in the room, without food, without relief. And since the
Israeli army had cut the electricity in the entire camp, little Ahmed and his family sat in the dark. The soldiers did once give the family the option to leave, but promised them that they would never come back. Already refugees and with nowhere else to go, the family stayed. The next day the soldiers gave permission to the women and children to go to the bathroom and for one of the women to quickly make sandwiches for the kids….

We walked into a small, meager home, where an elderly woman was sitting on the floor – a static-filled
television set the only piece of furniture in the small room. The woman turned to us crying as news of Bushra Abu Kweik and her children’s killing* was being reported on the television screen. “They’re killing all of our beautiful children. They already took our homes and now they come after us in our refugee camps…” I asked her if the Israeli soldiers had come into her home and she pointed to the gaping hole in the wall behind me… **

Everyone in the streets wanted us to see the damage that had been done to their homes and shops. It was
not possible to see it all. Balata is home to approximately 22,000 Palestinian refugees who had been forced out of their homes in 1948, from towns and villages in what is now called Israel. All had been abused and traumatized again by the Israeli Armed Forces. Everyone had a story. All of the homes we saw were severely damaged - windows blown out, walls dynamited as soldiers moved from home to home, and some homes completely destroyed….

In the narrow streets and alleyways of the camp, people could be seen clearing away rubble. An elderly dark-skinned man began talking to me. “I lost my son, my mother and my home, but I still thank God. I have
my humanity.” Although I was running late for an appointment I stepped into what remained of this man’s home where I was introduced to his 12 daughters. A week earlier, Abdallah’s son was killed by Israeli forces surrounding Nablus. Abdallah’s mother died two days later. The next day, the Israeli Army entered his home. “I tried to speak to the soldiers in Hebrew as I’ve worked in Israel for over 30 years and know Israelis and Hebrew well. One soldier saw a poster of my slain son on the wall and put out his cigarette butt in between my son’s eyes in the photo. He called him a terrorist and said he deserved to die as we all [Palestinians] do.” Abdallah’s daughters quickly forgot their reserve and began hurling questions, statements and accusations at me: “The American president says we’re the terrorists, but who’s doing the terrorizing?” What kind of people would steal the gold off a woman who has so little? On top of taking our homes, killing our sons and coming after us in our refugee camps, they take women’s gold! You tell them. You tell the world that we’re not the terrorists. We want our freedom and we will not give up our land. Never.” “I’m glad my mother died when she did,” said Abdallah.

I want to tell the world what I see. I want to scream out against this injustice and madness, but who’s listening? The refugees who I met in Balata asked me to be their voice, but is the world willing to listen?

If you are a journalist and would like more information or help with arranging an interview with anyone in Balata or any of the foreign civilians that visited Balata, please contact me at +972-52-642-709 or by email at huwaidaa@yahoo.com.

If you would like to help the residents of Balata in their efforts to rebuild their homes, and with the costs of the programs that are being established to work with the traumatized children, you can send
donations to:
Bank: Arab Bank
Acct name: Popular Committee of the Nablus Governate
Acct No: 445000
You may also contact Ms. Samar Hawash at
+972-9-238-3384; +972-9-239-1843; or +972-59-719-785
or by email at pwwsd@zaytona.com

Thank you for listening.