More travel notes from Nablus and Qalqilya
One of the things that really struck me about Palestine is how quickly and drastically things can change there. I noticed that in Jerusalem, life for Palestinians was on the one hand profoundly difficult, full of an endless barrage of obstacles that created frustration and uncertainty about every aspect of life - like how long one may have to wait at checkpoints on the way to work or school or to see family, whether or not they will be able to get to their ultimate destination at all, how long they'll wait in line at the interior ministry for any number of permits or paperwork required by Israel for travel between towns separated by just a few miles, registration of vehicles, registration of newborn babies, permission to go to a hospital or medical center for treatment, just to name a few examples. But on the other hand, I saw Palestinians going about their everyday lives with determination and dignity despite every effort by Israel to create impossible conditions. It was amazing to see how people adapted to these conditions and lived what had become "normal life" in some sense. And I saw the same thing in Qalqilya and Nablus and Ramallah and Abu Dis. But I also became aware of how quickly conditions can change from a frustrated calm to a shattering wave of violence, with no observable pattern or predictability. It so happened that with my visits to Nablus and Qalqilya, my timing was uncanny - by pure coincidence - my brief visits were during times of relative safety and calm. During my time there, I observed the aftermath of what had occurred just prior to arriving in Nablus and Qalqilya - and I later learned of the things that occurred right after I departed from both these places.
After I my time in Qalqilya on Thursday 1/15, I had been lamenting not having gotten pictures of the colossal wall recently built there. I had stopped for quite a while to talk with the group of young men I met just inside Qalqilya. I spent time talking and having them show me various sites of historical and humanitarian interest, and share their personal stories. It was getting late, and I was starting to feel some time pressure. It was starting to get dark, and my friend and driver, Intar, was waiting for me outside the checkpoint. I wasn't sure when the checkpoint was going to close, so I played it safe and headed out. As soon as I got through the checkpoint, I was kicking myself for not getting pictures of the wall, which snakes through the heart of Qalqilya, carving up the town and in the process separating families, keeping people from workplaces, schools, hospitals and shops. I've seen pictures of this section of the wall, but wanted to see the wall for myself, in person. Once I had made it through the checkpoint and out of Qalqilya, it was like buyer's remorse - I got the feeling I should have stayed longer there and gone in to see the wall.
Two days later, on Saturday, I expressed these sentiments to Intar while we were driving to Nablus. He told me that the Qalqilya checkpoint had closed on Thursday evening about a half hour after I came through, and then the town of Qalqilya was completely sealed off and put under curfew. Even as we spoke, almost two days later, Qalqilya remained under siege just as Nablus had been just prior to my visit. Anyone poking their head out of their door or window risked having it shot at. If I had stayed In Qalqilya another half hour, I would have had to find a place to stay for possibly several days. With the hospitality I received from residents there and everywhere else in Palestine, I had no doubt I would have been welcomed into the homes of any number of people who would be happy to help me if I had become stranded inside Qalqilya under siege. But it would have been at least a couple of days before I would have gotten out of Qalqilya and back to Jerusalem. I was perplexed by the Israeli decision to go back into Qalqilya that Thursday evening. I had just been there a half hour before the re-invasion and curfew started and there was absolutely nothing going on. All was quiet in the town of Qalqilya, I had seen it with my own eyes. Why had the Israelis decided to attack again? Perhaps the more relevant question is why I would be surprised, given what I had seen up until now.
Qalqilya had been one of the sites where internationals and Israeli citizens were joining Palestinian peace activists in non-violent protests against the wall and the military occupation. On Saturday morning 1/24, the Israeli army erected 4 new military checkpoints on the main road into Qalqilya. The next day, Sunday, the Israeli put up a sign at the eastern entrance warning that any Israeli entering Qalqilya would be fined 3,500 shekels (about US$900). Qalqilya has been under siege intermittently since I was there two weeks ago; its residents spent days at a time living in what effectively became a maximum security prison during these sieges - only here residents had even fewer rights than most convicted inmates; people have been shot through the windows of their homes (I met a young man whose little brother had died this way), and were not allowed out to find food or other goods and supplies. The siege was interrupted unpredictably with days of "normal life" that were interspersed throughout. How quickly life changes for Palestinians.
The timing for the Nablus visit was similar - we were there on one of the few days in January when things were relatively calm. Nablus had been under siege for 12 days straight up until a few days before we arrived. And the day immediately before we went to Nablus, there had been trouble - not the full-scale invasion and curfew that we saw the aftermath of (home demolitions, major destruction in the historic Old City of Nablus, a school destruction, Israeli soldiers' vandalism in the homes they occupied and used as bases) - but rather a more isolated incident where a man was shot coming home from the funeral of his 5-month-old daughter. I didn't witness this myself, but a young Canadian photojournalist, Brent Foster, saw and photographed the incident and he shared his pictures with us that same evening back at the hotel in Jerusalem. Brent worked for the Windsor Star and was staying at our hotel. We had dinner with him in the hotel restaurant and he told us what he had seen. He saw the man walking with family, trying to get back home after burying his child (who had been sick and died of natural causes). Brent said the man was walking in the open, not doing anything that seemed unusual or threatening, when he was suddenly shot by soldiers. The soldiers then put plastic handcuffs on the man and took him, with his arms bound in front of him, into their jeep. Brent captured a series of images showing this sequence of events. Some of his pictures showed the man with blood running down his face, but it didn't appear that he had been shot in the head. He was able to stand and walk with the cuffs on, and it seemed his head injury was superficial. He had been out of Brent's line of sight a couple of times as the soldiers handled him, and Brent figured either he had fallen and hit his head when he was shot, or he may have been hit by one of the soldiers. In any case, it wasn't obvious where on his body he had been shot.
An ambulance approached but was kept away at gun point by the soldiers - Brent showed us his pictures of this too. While the man was held in the jeep, the soldiers began to look at Brent and point to him as he snapped pictures, talking amongst themselves. Brent said he began to get the distinct impression that they were waiting for him to leave and would not do anything more until he was gone. He waited a little longer and took more photos, and then decided that his presence may be delaying medical care for the shooting victim. He left the scene and headed back to Jerusalem, and here we were a few hours later sitting at the hotel, hearing his story and looking at the photos documenting the experience.
The next day we made the trip to Nablus. We saw the evidence of the horrible things that had occurred over the past days, weeks and months, but life seemed to be back to "normal" there. Beyond the Hawarra checkpoint, there weren't any Israeli soldiers or tanks visible in Nablus. I later learned that there were still homes and buildings occupied by soldiers, but the tanks had withdrawn and curfew was not being enforced that day. Children were back to school for the first time in almost a month (not because of a winter break, rather because the Israeli invasion and curfew had shut everything down). People were going about their business.
However, two days after we left, soldiers picked up their activities in Nablus again. Six days after our visit there, this report was filed by Kelly B, an American living in Nablus. I know Kelly and talked to her on the phone when I was in Jerusalem. I couldn't reach her by phone the day we went to Nablus, so we didn't see her there. Kelly is actually from Wisconsin. A few years ago she attended a presentation by my friend Jennifer and argued with her, defending Israel's actions as self-defense. That was before she went over and began witnessing first-hand life in Palestine. Read on...