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.
