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Gaza Calling
by Alison
Wier
I don't want to be overly
dramatic, but I was sort of shot at yesterday.
I say "sort of"
because I don't think the Israeli soldiers in their tower were trying to
hit me, or the people with me... if that had been their purpose I have no
doubt that they would have. There is massive evidence here that their aim
is quite good. I think they were simply asserting their power. And I think
they were trying to intimidate me, as a foreigner, into leaving the area.
There were no
"clashes." There was no stone-throwing. Everything was quiet. I
was being shown around Khan Yonis, a bullet-riddled refugee camp in
southern Gaza filled with ragged barefoot kids and angry, resigned,
perplexed parents. "Why are they doing this to us?" people kept
saying to me... "Why they do this Palestine people? They say we guns.
Where guns? Why America help Israel? Why America not help
Palestinians?"
Houses were riddled -- and I
mean riddled -- with bullets. There were 2-foot wide holes in roofs where
mortars had come through. People showed me around their homes -- for the
most part they had moved into areas away from the outside, where, they
hoped, they would be safe -- huddled on mattresses on the floor. They
showed me around one house right at the periphery of the camp. It had
lovely, bullet-riddled archways inside, the remains of a tiled kitchen.
When the children saw I was curious about the bullets, they gathered them
for me by handfuls - smashed, distorted pieces of metal that tear through
walls and people. I'll try to bring some back. I wonder if Israel will let
me bring my souvenirs of their country.
They opened a door a few
inches for me -- they were afraid to do more, they know what happens if
you do -- and I could see a guard tower a few hundred meters away. Even I
was afraid -- usually so easily brave, armed with my middle-class American
feeling of invulnerability -- I've read too many reports of injuries in
just such situations... seen too many pictures of people with bandages
over eyes that had been shot out. Earlier in the day I saw a picture of
four boys probably about 7-12 sitting on chairs in a waiting room
somewhere, looking at the camera with no expression on their faces, and
each with a large piece of gauze where one of their eyes should be. They
were the lucky kids -- these were only rubber bullets, and they hadn't
gone on into the brain...
Did I say no expression?
Perhaps the expression is beyond describing... of
being old far beyond their small bodies.
So when I looked out at
the guard tower where soldiers with sniper scopes
and binoculars were no doubt watching us, I, too, was nervous.
We continued to wander
around the camp -- groups of smiling children coming
up, saying salaam, hello, giggling. The streets were Gaza sand --the
ocean is probably only half a mile away... but these children
never get to swim in it. There are soldiers in-between. Instead they play in the
dirt.
I needed batteries for my
camera, so we went to a tiny store. The owner gave
us small glasses of strong coffee, and would take no money for the
batteries.
Intense, frustrated, he pointed out what his life had
become. He showed the inevitable bullet holes in his store, the larger
hole where a missile had entered a store-room -- destroying what looked
like 50 five-gallon jugs of oil. He showed me his house next door -- full
of bullet holes, and told me about his children who luckily had remained
uninjured, if trauma and subjugation don't count as injuries. He told me
that all he wanted was peace, to live his life. Again, he asked why Israel
was doing this, why America was doing this.
What could I answer? All I could try to do was explain
that Americans don't know that this is going on -- that their newspapers
and television don't tell them. And so Americans think it is a complicated
issue, and that it doesn't involve them.
Amazingly, I don't find people hostile toward me, as an
American, even though they so clearly know America's role in their
suffering. By the way, "suffering" is a word they use often in
trying to tell me what their lives are like. They always smile at me,
shake my hand. When they hear I am from America, they virtually always
say, "Welcome."
We wandered over to another house, on the other side of
town. I saw a family home no longer livable -- bullet holes everywhere,
large hole in the roof -- another once-lovely home, and probably loved
home, with an interior garden and children's toys, and bullets scattered
on the floor.
It was when we went outside of this home that the gunshots
occurred. We were behind a wall, and so it didn't feel scary. Of course,
feelings lie -- I had seen numerous holes through such walls. They showed
us another way out. At the time, I didn't take the gunshots personally.
Once again, a middle-class American, I didn't think anyone was firing near
me on purpose -- I thought it was just an accident, a coincidence.
But as I've thought about it further, I think I was wrong.
Why then? there? In that particular part of town?
And this would fit the pattern I've heard about lately. A
few days ago when the UN team investigating human rights violations was
here in Gaza they were shot at. The Canadian Ambassador was shot at. A
young American documentary filmmaker I met this morning, James, had been
in Khan Yunis a few days ago, and had been shot at. He showed me footage
of the Israelis shooting at him: He is letting the camera roll as he walks
on a dirt road following 5-6 small boys. None are throwing rocks. It is
quiet. There is a tank at the end of the road -- this is nothing unusual.
They continue walking. Suddenly there are gunshots, the camera tilts. No
one is injured. But the Army has made its point. Except it didn't work. He
went back today.
I asked him if he had a time-frame for making his
documentary. He said until he ran out of money or got shot, whichever came
first. It wasn't much of a joke.
Have you heard about the American stringer for AP who was
shot a few months ago? -- a young woman, her name is in another notebook
(I'm at an Internet Cafe in Gaza City with the slowest computers on earth)
-- but I think she was about 26. Mark, a 30-year-old freelance English
photographer I've just met, knew her, and told me about it. The Israelis
shot her in the pelvis, destroying her spleen and uterus. They say it was
an accident. She says they knew quite clearly that she was a journalist.
Israel is apparently investigating how this could have happened. Was this
reported in the press? Will we hear the results of the investigation?
Wouldn't you think this would have been headlines? Shouldn't it have been?
If she had been shot by Palestinians don't you think it would have been?
Another man today told me about working with a Fox film
crew, when suddenly they were being shot at by the Israelis. They finally,
barely managed to escape, and they filmed it all. But Fox never aired it.
He told me the problem with the US coverage wasn't the crews, it was
management back in the States. I believe him.
Some people in the refugee camp told me about a new gas
bomb the israelis shot last weekend at them. They said it had black smoke,
and a "good" smell. At least 40 people are still hospitalized
from it -- I'm going to pin the number down tomorrow -- apparently there
are people in several hospitals, so the true number could be considerably
higher.
From the refugee camp we went to Al Amal Hospital, to meet
the doctor and see the patients.. I saw a 22-year-old man in the ICU. He
was moaning and had IVs in both arms. He said it felt like knives in his
intestines. Sometimes he had trouble breathing. His mother and aunt were
hovering over him. His little sister was sitting next to him. I went to
another ward, and saw six more. I met a father who was obviously
distraught -- two of his sons were in the hospital. I saw two men have seizures
while I was there -- convulsing.
They all said the same thing. They had just been going
about their lives when suddenly "bombs" came into their houses.
some had been outside, and had gone in to rescue people because they
thought the house was on fire. But they said there was no flame, just
black smoke, and a good smell. In most cases nothing happened immediately,
but after 10 to 15 minutes they collapsed... some became unconscious.
Israel is, as usual, denying that there was anything
unusual about this gas. As usual, they are lying.
Apparently, this also explains a lot of the bias in the US
press. The reporters in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv get their numbers and
"facts" from military spokesmen. Information from Israeli
sources is printed, information from Palestinian sources isn't.
You see, an Israeli is one of us. A relative, a friend's
relative, a colleague's relative. We hear distorted versions of what is
going on from these friends, and colleagues, and we think they know what
they're talking about. And that they're not biased. Because they sound so
reasonable and confident and knowledgeable. They say just enough about
what is wrong about Israel, about the "two-sides" to seem
neutral. This is bs.
The problem is when you know the truth, it is far too much
to describe, far too cruel... far too diametrically opposite what we used
to think and what everyone still thinks to express. It is hard not to
sound fanatic, over-wrought, biased. The lie is too big, the repression
too complete, the Palestinians' lives too horrible to write about
reasonably. I find it difficult to write anything -- rare for me --
because there is so so so much. You have to retrieve and redefine the very
words out of the newspeak that Israel has created of "closures"
and "bypass roads" and "security."
So I think maybe I should try to take on just one topic at
a time -- and for now, this new gas... Today I was going to visit the
Ministry of Health for more information, and then back to the Khan Younis
hospitals with Mark to take photos. But he didn't show up at the scheduled
time. Probably something just came up. But over here you always worry...
Tomorrow I'll go.
As I said, there is so so so much to try to describe. Who
will ever believe all this? Israel couldn't possibly be this cruel, this
arrogant. Who will believe it? They must have a good reason... There are
two sides here, of course... just the way there was in South Africa's
apartheid period...
I also visited two tiny encampments of women and children
living in tents on the dirt. They were people who used to have homes in
Khan Younis, but the Israelis decided to make a road through them -- for
"security?" to divide the people? to terrorize them? just
because they wanted to? who ever knows? an absolute conqueror doesn't have
to explain -- so they bulldozed their homes and their date palms and
orange groves. This is already far too long -- I won't go into the details
of how they bulldozed them, how the people fled...
And the people are living in the dirt, and show me a
bent-up aluminum wash pan that they retrieved from where their homes had
been -- everything else, they said, was "under the land" Again,
they asked me why america was helping Israel do this to them. Why did Bill
Clinton do this? Would George Bush still do this? They're on a first-name
basis with our presidents. And we don't even know about them. One old,
newly poor woman knew all the international news -- she had been given a
radio and listens to BBC, French broadcasts, German broadcasts, etc. She
hears the Israeli statements. The US government positions... She's living
in rags in the dirt now. Four months ago she and her husband had two homes
-- they had just built another one for their son, who had been married
just two months when his new home was bulldozed.
But you'll be glad to know the international community
isn't ignoring these people. The Palestinians have been pleading for an
international team for months to come over to protect them from the
Israelis -- but the US keeps blocking this. Why??? Why??? How could this
be even imagined to threaten Israel's "security"??? But you'll
be happy to know that the international community isn't ignoring them --
it contributed the fly-covered, floor-less tents that the people are
living in. Meanwhile, how much aid did we give to Israel today? Eight
million was it? Sixteen million? And tomorrow we'll give it to them again,
and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...
They gave me tea, as we sat surrounded by dirt, and told
me to tell America to stop doing this to them. I'll try. Maybe you could
try too.
Above is the live
report by Alison Weir from San Francisco (a member of Al-Awda-SF),
now visiting the Israeli occupied areas (Gaza).
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Alison
Wier & Al-Awda
by the same author:
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