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Death Under Curfew
From: Bullet Points (used w/permission)
What do you do if you go into labour and you can't get to hospital? How do you keep your children entertained all day long in the house? How do you make your bread last? How do you get to a cash machine so that if the shops do open you can buy food?
What do you do, if a family member becomes sick? How do you take your dog for a walk ? At what point do you call an ambulance and risk being stopped or shot at because of Israeli fears that you may be part of a terrorist plot?
The curfew (or 'MANA' ATTAJAWWAL' as it is broadcast by the Israeli army through loud speakers) was expected in Bethlehem as soon as it was known that the suicide bomber in last week's horrific bus bombing in Jerusalem was from the Bethlehem area. People were immediately out in the shops and streets stockpiling food. They knew they could be in for a long haul. And they were right: today is the 10th day of curfew and noone knows if it will be lifted for the Eid (end of Ramadan) celebration in a few days time, or whether it will last until or beyond Christmas.
Yesterday I saw a one week old Christian Palestinian girl sleeping in her cot. She was born at the Holy Family hospital in Bethlehem by caesarean 2 days into the curfew. The mother could not stay in over night, so for 3 days went back and forth in the car breaking the curfew.
Keeping your enemy in the dark is all part of the plot: last Thursday - the 7th day of house confinement - the Israeli army used local TV stations to announce they would lift the curfew in Bethlehem for a few hours to allow shops to open - but not until they had changed their minds a few times the night before and during the morning. Get people to hope, then retract your promise. Psychological warfare is important here. Confuse over 80,000 people as to whether they are allowed out or not, create fear, then let them out to breath for just a few hours, before they clamp down again.
In my 3 hours of freedom (between 1.30 and 5 pm) I went to Manger Square and into the Church of the Nativity. The tanks there last week had withdrawn. The church was almost empty. An old Muslim lady was attending to the candles. Then the bell began tolling. After a few minutes voices could be heard chanting and I thought I was in for a treat. Then a string of Bethlehemites, men, women and children appeared carrying a coffin. They had had to wait until the curfew lifted to be able to bury some poor sod. Out in the town, the narrow streets were tightly packed with friends and family meeting up and shopping, shopping, shopping before the 'midnight' hour came again. Going home, I felt like Cinderella...that the ball had been a dream, 'pumpkin' time was drawing nigh and the whole town which had been so alive and noisy was disappearing back into silence.
The dream however is a nightmare for many Palestinians throughout the towns and villages of the West Bank and Gaza. Many people have been shot dead because they didn't know the curfew had begun again. A few days ago, a man from one of the villages just outside Bethlehem was shot dead in his car at a checkpoint coming into Beit Sahour. He was thought to be unconnected politically and was shot apparently because he didn't slow down when told to. Did he see the signs?
A family I visited yesterday told me that there were no fresh vegetables when she went out during the brief respite. There was no transport for the produce which would have come from Nablus or Ramallah, and they are both under curfew too. Two people told me independently that their backs ached because they'd been confined to their houses for so long unable to move. These are long dreary days for the Muslims in Bethlehem who are in their final week of fasting all day long.
Bethlehem is in a poor state. The 5 military incursions it has suffered this year (the current one being the 6th) have meant not only the reduction in tourist numbers from over 2 million a year to a handful but also 5 million Euros worth of damage to its infrastructure. All natural life has seeped out of it and there are many poor families.
55 years ago this week, the UN General Assembly vote to partition what was Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state (UNGA Resolution 181/ 1947). Today, Israel has effectively re-taken direct military control of all of the West Bank and Gaza strip, and what were the independent Palestinian areas under the Oslo Agreements (Bethlehem included) no longer exist.
The resulting facts are staggering: Since September 2002 UNICEF says some 250,000 children have been unable to reach their schools. 60-80% the population live on less than US $2 a day and movement is virtually impossible between towns and villages of the West Bank which according to the Bethlehem-based research group Badil, is divided into 64 islands of land, surrounded by 46 permanent checkpoints and 126 roadblocks.
"Israel's self-declared war on terrorism has left approximately 1,800 Palestinians and 400 Israeli civilians dead, more than 20,000 Palestinians injured and some 8,000 in Israeli detention centers...Today, the West Bank is divided into some 64 non-contiguous zones. Israel has introduced a segregated road system transforming all major roads into roads for Jews only." (www.badil.org)
The future of the Palestinian people is grave.The more Israel clamps down in the Palestinian Territories, the more of a breeding ground they become for terror. There were no suicide bombings before the Oslo peace process. They are a new phenomenon which emerged as Israel has exerted more and more control over Palestinian lives whilst appearing to offer them more freedom under the Oslo negotiations. The Palestinians I have spoken to feel completely impotent in determining their future. Despair is at an all time low. The terror they experience on a daily basis has been lost in the rhetoric of the global 'war on terror'.
QPSW (Quaker Peace and Social Witness)
Israel & Palestinian Territories
If anyone would like to reproduce any part of this report verbatim, please contact Floresca Karanasou, on +44 (0) 20 7663 1073 or florescak@quaker.org.uk
