ni'lin

first let me remember what happened with abed at his house. i left ramallah in the morning and went to arora, and upon arrival we sat down in abed's living room with his whole family, including his brothers and sisters and children and nephews. we all sat together for a few hours and had tea, very relaxed. then i was put to work for a while, which was really interesting. after working i had lunch and then after that i sat and had coffee with the men under the walnut tree in his garden. it was hot, really hot, but under the shade it was beautiful. we all sat there for a while and just laughed a bit, and talked. then we moved back inside and had more tea and talked more, while the kids colored or played around. its friday, the day off, this is what happens here in the quite village. spending time with family. there was so much affection, the boys were always playing on top of one another, holding their uncle's or aunt's hand. the girls were playing around and a family member would pick them up and have them on their lap. always playing, always hugging or affectionate. we walked in the garden and abed's brothers wanted to give me so many things. they wouldnt let me leave without two types of mint, sage, zatar, cucumbers, tiny almonds, tomatoes, limes, and grapes, all from the garden. they couldnt give me enough. i was very honored. then we sat inside and abed's oldest brother gave me a special root from the village to be ground and mixed with oil that is for bruises or sprains - its very hot, in fact just a tiny bit burned my sensitive skin. he gave me two pieces, a large piece for use and a small piece with roots to try to plant back in the US. leaving was very difficult, i never know if i will see these people again. over lunch i asked abed about the political situation and the future, and he said he was scared of the future. he said that so many people are afraid of what will happen to palestinians if israel goes to war with syria or iran. it looks really bad, he says, and he is not sure what they will do. he has no money, and no place to go. its not like if there were a war his family could simply leave. there is no place to go. jordan wont accept them, no place really will, and no one wants to live a refugee again. leaving makes me sad, because abed is so kind and his family is so wonderful, and goodbyes are never something to be taken lightly.

i returned to ramallah and had dinner with some of the trainees, a goodbye thing, it was very nice.

then the next morning i went to the palestine medical relief building in ramallah to meet with some friends and the ambulance going to ni'lin. we left at 9am and in the ambulance, with the music playing loud, i was sitting in the front seat and very excited. talking to the ambulance driver about his work i remembered that his profession is one of the more dangerous in the west bank, as they are repeatedly shot at. in fact, this driver has a wound, not even yet a scar it was still healing, on his forehead from a bullet that passed through the windshield and skinned his head, barely not killing him. and he laughed a bit, i guess because he had to. then i thought, shit, being in an ambulance may not be the safest place in the world here. what a crazy place. i knew this from my time here in 2003, but its been a while. so a mixture of excitement and fear was going through me as we speed through the streets of ramallah on our way to ni'lin. we get to the atara checkpoint right by bir zeit university and the line is longer than i have ever seen at that particular one. it must be 50 or 60 cars long, both ways, and one driver next to us tells us that he has been waiting two hours. we speed along past all of them until we are halted by the guns of several soldiers. our driver speaks to them and basically tells them to get out of his way, and the soldiers reluctantly let us through. it feels weird to pass everyone by, but i understand why we need to. there are people with urgent needs in ni'lin today, both from the protest that will be and the result of months of israeli terrorism in the village in the construction of the wall. we speed along, i swear faster than i have been in any car in my life, and we get to ni'lin rather quickly. before we enter the village i see across the small valley on top of a hill shining white houses with orange roofs, behind a wall. classic settlement. and we get into ni'lin and the only word that comes to mind is rubble.

broken concrete and trash everywhere, destroyed houses, serious poverty. and then in the ruins of one house i see a peacock. unexpected and strange, nobody else seems to pay attention.

the protest at ni'lin elicited the use of a rather new weapon in israel's arsenal, a tear gas gun that shoots thirty cannisters at once. dozens of people were injured from the gas, many were injured from the beatings with guns or batons of the soldiers. others were hit with rubber bullets. the protests at ni'lin are focused on trying to prevent the construction of the apartheid wall, one that is being built in violation of all international law and is stealing the majority of the land from the village of ni'lin and will in effect leave the village completely engulfed by the wall, so that the people will neither live in the west bank nor in israel, simply within a wall. the wall will also strangle another small village nearby.

at the clinic many people come for their injuries from the protests, but hundreds are there for treatment that they cannot recieve because they are geographically and economically limited by the occupation and the construction of the wall. there are more women than men this day. i help treat dozens of people. one 45 year old mother of 7 wanted help for her eyes and skin, a result of tear gas being shot into her house. she was not even part of the demonstration. her youngest daughter 8 years old joins us, she has cuts on her face from some sort of explosion near her. her mother told me that her daughter played a trick on her yesterday when she came running into the house crying and bleeding saying that she was dying, but really it was just the tear gas that made her have so much tears and swelling in her eyes. she said that her daughter laughed about it, but could still not open her eyes for several hours. one man had bruises all along his arms, torso and legs, from beatings from the soldiers. a young boy came because his shoulder hurt because he threw too many stones. many came with neck injuries, back injuries, and other strange and complex pains. we obviously couldnt help everyone, and it was difficult to have so many people. the mobile clinic that we were in withphysicians for human rights and with palestine medical relief only comes once a week to ni'lin. they go all over the west bank, not just to places where there is active and ongoing protest and violent repression from israel, but all over because there are so many places across the occupied territories that are left stranded. many of these villages have no wall around them, but are rather surrounded by settlements and people are often beaten severely or killed by settlers as they try to leave. another barrier to their health is the obvious restriction in movement, imposed by checkpoints both permanent and flying.

here is a small article about the other driver i was with, who was shot at last week by the israeli soldiers at ni'lin.

Ramallah, 26-06-08: The Israeli military deliberately targeted PMRS health worker Ahmad Ayyash on the 16th of June as he attempted to reach one of the non-violent protesters injured during a peaceful protest against construction of the wall in the Palestinian village of Ni‘lin. While 29 year old Ahmad was approaching a youth injured in the thigh by a rubber-coated bullet, an Israeli soldier fired one bullet at the PMRS vehicle in which he was traveling. "I made every effort to show the soldiers that I was a health worker" said Ahmad. "I sounded the siren of the vehicle, I called to the soldier in English, and I clearly showed the PMRS logo on my vest". Ten seconds later, soldiers fired 14 more bullets at the vehicle, damaging the body and smashing the windows. "This was a deliberate and targeted act of violence", said Ahmad. "This is not a one-off incident, but its part of a wider series of attacks against medical staff. I have been attacked three times before under similar circumstances in Bil‘in village", he added. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, medical staff are afforded special protection and should be given full access to emergency situations in conflict zones. However, the Israeli military frequently denies the access of health workers to such areas and there have been several cases of soldiers attacking medical staff.