This was written as
a report on an ISM action, bringing food and medicine to Palestinians
being held hostage in their home in Nablus because the Israeli
army has commandeered their house. But the imposition of curfew
in Nablus complicates everything even more than usual. It's impossible
to talk about double-occupied houses without also talking about
how Palestinians inside and outside those houses are manipulated
as the army lifts and re-imposes the 24-hour curfew; how the army
has shut down the basic survival infrastructure of Nablus and
the surrounding villages and refugee camps; how Palestinians risk
their lives just by existing in a city patrolled by teenage soldiers
who kill with impunity and have been taught to view Palestinians
as subhuman; and how the presence of internationals -- by reasserting
that Palestinians have human rights and are resisting the Occupation
in thousands of peaceful ways -- enrages the army, and in that
way puts Palestinians at risk for more vengeful violence.
So even
though this was just supposed to be an action report, I've included
a lot of context, and tried to break it up with headings. Sorry
if I've made it more confusing -- it is complex. But it's not
"too complicated for foreigners to understand," as Israeli
pro-Occupation forces like to tell us. It is painfully clear what
is happening here: the Israeli government takes Israeli teenagers
and turns them into animals, so that they can carry out the bloody
task of bringing Palestinian life to a screeching halt, and ultimately
complete the project of making Palestinian survival impossible.
July
7, 2002 DOUBLE-OCCUPIED HOUSES
The army
announced that curfew would be lifted today from 9am-2pm, for
the first time in 4 days. But in buildings where the army has
taken over apartments and confined Palestinian tenants to a few
rooms (or one room), the lifting of curfew doesn't necessarily
mean that people can leave to get basic food and medicine. If
one or two people are allowed to leave, the army may still refuse
to let them, and the supplies they've brought, back into the occupied
house. So internationals planned this morning to visit several
double-occupied houses to check whether residents had been allowed
out, to try to make sure they could bring supplies back in, and
to minimize army harassment of Palestinians in the process.
LIFTING
& REIMPOSING CURFEW
By 9am,
Nablus was packed with people and cars trying to meet their basic
survival needs for at least the next few days -- food, toilet
paper, medicine, clothing, human contact. These things are simply
unavailable when curfew is imposed. The hillsides above the city
center were also filled with cars and people trying to get in
and out of the city before 2pm, when curfew would be re-established,
as usual, by the arrival of Apache helicopters shooting live rounds
indiscriminately into the streets, and patrols of tanks and APCs
shooting on sight.
At 11am,
when Nablus was nearly impassable with cars and pedestrians, the
army arrived early with the helicopters and tanks, shelling and
shooting – re-imposing curfew with no warning, 2 hours after
lifting it, and 3 hours earlier than they'd announced. Concerned
about reaching the families in double-occupied houses, internationals
took a taxi halfway up the mountain to New Nablus.
DENIAL
OF ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE
The army
has double-occupied many buildings in New Nablus, because of the
neighborhood's vantage point over the city. In one particular
building, isolated at the very top of the hill, the army has pushed
4 large families into 2 apartments and has refused to let them
leave during curfew. Aside from the need for food and supplies
for the 15 children and 10 adults living there, at least one of
the children is sick and needs several medicines. The families
have not been able to get them, since no one is allowed in or
out of the house. In a major violation of the Geneva Conventions,
the Israeli army even prevents ambulances from delivering medicine
or basic health care to the residents of double-occupied houses.
We carried
a day's-worth of food and some medicine, hoping to deliver it
to the families trapped inside.
RISKS
TO PALESTINIANS WHO RESIST PEACEFULLY
The taxi
driver drove us about halfway up the hill -- as close to the house
as we felt comfortable bringing him, although he wanted to take
us further. When a Palestinian is seen facilitating internationals
in the act of protecting human rights or questioning the Israeli
army's actions, he or she risks military reprisals, which could
take any form at all -- beating, shooting, house demolition, etc.
Also, by driving on the streets as curfew was being re-imposed,
he risked being stopped, detained, beaten or shot.
"WARNING
SHOTS" AND ARMY SHOOTINGS OF CIVILIANS
As we
got out of the taxi and collected ourselves, we heard an Apache
overhead and showed our empty hands to it. It fired on us anyway,
and then moved on to fire at Palestinians climbing the steep paths
toward their homes. The shots fired during the re-imposition of
curfew are generally called "warning shots", meaning
they're fired into the air, the ground, or "nowhere in particular."
But at least four Palestinians were hospitalized with bullet wounds
by early afternoon. Two were hit in the leg by metal bullets coated
with thin rubber, and two hit by live rounds -- one in the chest/shoulder,
one in the face.
IMPACT
OF ARMY MOVEMENT ON CIVILIANS
On our
hike up the hill we found two buildings where windows are sandbagged
and draped with camouflage, meaning they've been commandeered
by the army. Residents told us that the army leaves during the
day and reoccupies the buildings each night. Any time the army
enters or leaves an area, it's a military operation, and residents
are subjected to restricted movement, fear and/or physical violence
by the army. The residents are clearly terrified, and asked repeatedly
if we could stay with them during the daily reoccupation of their
building.
THE
REST OF THE STORY
When
we finally got close to the house we were looking for, we took
a wrong turn and ended up on a road just below it. The families
inside saw us and waved, and as we turned around to get to the
house another way, the soldiers upstairs from them saw us and
halted us. Two confused soldiers came out to ask who we were,
then told us to wait. We waited, nothing happened, so we shouted
again that we wanted to bring food and medicine to the people
in the house. At one point we waited so long that we thought they'd
forgotten about us, and we started to leave. They halted us again,
but in that strange, confused, semi-respectful way that Palestinians
never get but internationals sometimes do -- "just wait,
like 5 minutes, okay?"
Finally
the soldiers said "okay, you can go", and we said "okay,
we're coming around", and we went around the hill up toward
the house. As we approached the house they never halted us, so
two internationals walked the food and medicine straight into
the house and took some information from the residents, while
the other internationals kept watch outside. Although 2 APCs zoomed
up the road to the house, they didn't stop for the internationals.
After about 3 minutes, soldiers shouted for the internationals
to leave -- and since we were done, we left.
The family
reported to us that they have been double-occupied since December
2001. They told us that, on 5 separate occasions, soldiers have
come down from upstairs, entered the apartments where they've
confined the 4 Palestinian families, and harassed them (details
of harassment to be gathered.) The families were badly in need
of supplies, and clearly starved for contact with the outside
world.
