Also, this is the last regular bulletin until September. During the intervening period, occasionally we will keep you posted on breaking events.
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PALESTINIAN LIFE UNDER MILITARY CURFEW & OCCUPATION
The following testimony was sent today (6/27/02) by Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American
who
lives with his family in Al-Bireh, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank. It gives a
powerful taste of daily life under military curfew and occupation that
is not available from the
media. Sam may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com
*******************
We finally had a house visit of our cities uninvited guests. Sixteen
fully armed Israeli soldiers
entered our home as part of the house to house searches that they have
been carrying out for 4 days now in Ramallah, while we sit under 24-hr
curfew.
Our home compromises of 3 flats. My in-laws live on the ground level,
we live on the 1st floor
and my parents on the 2nd. My wife, Abeer, and oldest daughter,
Areen, spent all day baking to
fill the time while under house arrest (in international law they call
that "collective punishment"). It was 7:30pm when Areen wrapped a
tray of the sweet "Haresah" that had just come out of the oven and was
excited to send it to her grandmother in the flat below. When we
are under curfew, like now, we use a basket and rope from our front porch
to send things below since we are not allowed out of the house. When
the basket swings into the door my in-laws know that they should open to
see what we have lowered. This time Areen was alone on the porch
and started lowering the basket when she saw a soldier's helmet at her
grandmother's doorstep after the basket was half way down. She hurried
and pulled the basket up and in and left the window wide open. She
came running saying the soldiers are in our house. She was scared,
more than she has been since we became under curfew. I had just got
off the phone with Corky, a New York Daily News reporter, and was at my
computer.
I went to the front window to see a lot of soldier's kneeling in front
of the stone fence in front of
our house. My dad happen to be with us at the time. As
we sat to see what was going to happen
our doorbell rang. When my wife answered via the intercom it
was her mom saying that the
soldiers are here and we should open the door. When we did no soldiers
entered, only Fadwa,
Abeer's mom. I met her in the stairway and she advised that they want
one of us only to come
downstairs. I proceeded to go see what was up. When I reached
the doorsteps of my in-laws I
looked in to see their porch packed tight with fully armed soldiers
kneeling in a full alert
position.
One soldier was kneeling at the doorway and trained his rifle on me
as I approached. I greeted
them and asked what is needed. He asked me if I spoke Hebrew
and I told him English or
Arabic. He proceeded in perfect English and asked who was upstairs.
I answered that my family
and father were there. He demanded that everyone come outside
in front of the house. I asked if
the children should come too because the weather was a little cool.
He snapped back and said
"everyone". I yelled upstairs and asked my family to come down
and bring their ID papers with
them. As I waited the soldier asked my mother-in-law where was
Marwan Barghouti, as if she
should know. I told him that although my mother-in-law has the
same last name they are not
related. I told him each are from a different village.
He said, sarcastically, "no this is Ramallah". I answered back and
advised him that he was in Al-Bireh not Ramallah and that my in-laws are
from Dir Ghasannah and Marwan was from a village called Kober. He
seemed to be confused so I just answered his original question and told
him Marwan was in "your jail". He smirked and seemed to accept the
answer, which is true.
My wife was now approaching with my daughters and father. Areen,
my oldest daughter was
shivering with fear. I held her and bought her in front of the
soldiers who were absolutely
crammed in the doorstep and porch all in the kneeling position, weapons
pointed. I told her, "see
they are just like us, they don't scare us." My father tried
to comfort her too and told her the
same. My father was itching to engage the solders but we convinced
him to pass this time so no
one ended up sleeping in prison. Areen relaxed a bit, but did
not say a word as the soldier in the
doorstep demanded that my wife open the car garage. I told him
the key was upstairs and she
would need to get the key. He approved and as we sat waiting
for Abeer I told the soldiers, " we
have a long way to go yet." No one answered but 2 or 3 of the
soldiers, young boys, shook their
heads in agreement. We sat their looking at them, each looked as if
they were fearing for there
lives. They were in a foreign land in a stranger's house and
had a whole Palestinian (that is
terrorist) family in front of them. They just stared at us as we hugged
our children trying to relax
the shock and shed the fear.
As Abeer came with the key to the garage two soldiers asked her to open
the garage (in
international law they call that being "a human shield"). As
she opened our empty garage, the
soldiers, full of fear, entered step by step guns ready to fire.
I could not tell if they were
disappointed that they fund only dust or if it was a relief to them.
As the two soldiers returned to the house, as we sat outside in the
cool breeze, one soldier
extended his hand with all of our ID's. My mother-in-law spoke to them
in Arabic, she said,
"maybe one day you will come back in time of peace and not be so scared".
No one answered.
The lead soldier called for the soldiers to exit the house. On
his way past us he quickly said
"bye", as if he knew had did something wrong by violating our life.
They left, one by one, in full
alert. It turns out they had searched and taken refuge in every
home of the house not just the
porch. As they exited gunfire could be heard a little way up
our street. It was another Israeli
unit for sure but they took no chances moving slowly and cautiously
back to the street. As the
walked past us, one by one, each with a heavy weapon or radio equipment
or backpack, my
daughter just hugged me tight. As the last soldier left the house
my father-in-law emerged and
stood at the top of the steps. Frustrated, he bid them farewell
and told them in broken English,
"Be sure to come back tomorrow."
After they left we learned that they checked each room and closet of the first floor.
We returned to our home and Areen was much more relaxed. She came to
us and said, "you
know I used to be scared of them but not anymore." She went on,
"you know, some of them look
like nice people. I feel sorry for them with all those jackets
and gloves and helmets, they must
be so hot, maybe that's why they did not talk to us." I assured
her that I'm sure they are nice
people but Sharon forced them to come. I am struggling to make
sure she does not view every
Israeli, even those that violate the security of our home, as the enemy.
At last, the fear of those helmeted, armed soldiers running free in
our streets has been broken. I
was hoping for this day so my daughter will not live in fear of our
future neighbors. Nadine my
2 year old daughter can hardly speak but she imitates the whole above
episode in the most cutest
accent and body language ever.
As we settled down after our daily dose of occupation, we joked that
they could have stayed
since we had some of the best sweets in Al- Bireh to offer. More
seriously, tonight we will give
our girls an extra hug and kiss good night, because we know how today
could of ended if one of
the soldiers in the street saw Areen lower a basket above the head
of the soldier entering the
house.
God help the next house they went to search.
Still under military curfew,
Sam
ACTIONS
1) Send a copy of this leaflet to President Bush, your congressperson/senator, asking them to stop sending military aid to Israel:
President Bush
The White House
Washington DC 20500
president@whitehouse.gov
Representative__________
US House of Representatives
Washington DC 20515
http://www.congress.gov
Senator__________
US Senate
Washington DC 20501
http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm
2) Copy this leaflet and share it with your family, friends, coworkers
and faith community.
Discuss it with them.