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Jayous report

We made our way down the hill towards the Israeli bulldozers which were working on the Apartheid Wall. I know that Radhika and I were in front and behind us a line of French internationals, arms linked, in white T shirts. Radhika and I were not alone in heading the peaceful procession, but the situation was so tense and noradrenergic that my memory is unsure. I remember Radhika, myself, some blurred faces, a line of white Francophone T shirts, and then a chequered crowd of internationals and Palestinian women. And I remember the soldiers.

“Stop”.

We stopped.

A few of us went round the back of the soldiers with cameras and snapped shots of Israeli guns pointing at the procession. The French volunteers looked rather worried but ISM workers were relaxed. We were trained to expect this.

And yet, as events unfolded, I found myself again today.

We remained in a relatively calm stand-off with the soldiers and private security guards for some minutes. This was broken by the sudden arrival of the Israeli border police. The crowd broke apart like he sea before Moses as the police jeep bludgeoned its way through and rolled down the hill. Israeli soldiers took out what looked like baseball bats and dispersed the internationals with threatening gestures. I found myself smiling at a soldier as he raised his bat towards my face. I always smile when I’m nervous.

Life in the Palestinian territories is strangely predictable. The border police always means trouble.

Sound bombs are easy, they really don’t bother me. Tear gas is a different story. It chokes and makes your eyes water, and can permanently damage the epithelium of your airways. The tear gas used by the Israeli army is far more pernicious than the variety used by western governments. Onions help some.

Young Palestinian men responded by throwing stones and the spiral of violence was set in motion. Rubber bullets were flying everywhere. A young Palestinian cameraman was caught in the double crossfire, his shoulder dislocated by a stone and his thigh struck by a rubber bullet. In some way, I suppose he symbolised the bizarre tragedy of this conflict.

Let me draw a brief sketch of our situation. A hundred metres down the road, two jeeps. About ten Israeli soldiers and border police standing round these jeeps, and others hidden in the fields on either side of the road. Most of the internationals dispersed behind us. I can honestly say that I only saw ISM volunteers holding their positions, but perhaps this is because they were my friends. Two houses bordering the fields on the edge of Jayous were occupied by men, women and children, trapped by the crossfire. Daud, a native English Muslim, and myself had decided to stay on the road near these houses, to protect as well we could the two families.

As the guns fired and the stones rained, eventually one of the families decided to vacate their home. I asked Malin and Ruba to go into their house to escort the women and children out. The other family decided to remain in their home. Daud, myself, Lovisa and a Palestinian journalist by the name of Mustafa stood at their door.

Again, a lull in the conflict and again, it was deceptive. At this point, the Israeli soldiers took decisive and immoral control.

Radhika was walking downhill towards us with some food and beverages wrapped in a clear plastic bag. She handed me the bag. As we looked on, some soldiers marched up the road. They seemed to be heading past us, up towards the town. And then suddenly they snatched Mustafa.

I guess this was a personal failure on my part. Mustafa was behind Lovisa and me. Radhika tried to grab him back but an Israeli soldier knocked her to the ground. She’s only a slender girl so she went flying. The soldiers retreated rapidly, dragging Mustafa with them, waving their guns in our direction, as we watched on helplessly. My only excuse is that I had never been in such a situation before and it happened so unexpectedly. Anyway, it happened.

Lovisa and I started walking towards the soldiers. We held our hands up in the air and advanced slowly down the hill. I had my passport in my left hand. We were about eighty metres away the first time they yelled at us to stop.

“Let him go,” Lovisa shouted back at them, but we stopped. “We only want to talk”.

One of the Israeli soldiers sitting on the front bumper of the jeep yelled, “We don’t want to talk”.

We advanced a few more steps until a soldier pointed his rifle at us.

“One more step, and I shoot you”.

The soldiers were young and nervous, and we stopped again. Patrick and Lisa had now joined us. Lisa spoke loudly to the soldiers in hebrew. “Why point guns at us? Let’s just talk”.

The soldier dropped his gun just a fraction and we advanced a few steps. Again the rifle cocked up towards us and we stopped. I quietly whispered a prayer that we would secure Mustafa’s release. This innocent Palestinian journalist would surely suffer at the hands of the border police. They are infamous for their brutality, even towards internationals. And then we advanced a few steps further. It was a strange process. Lisa in Hebrew and I in English, speaking loudly but calmly, and advancing a few steps until the gun pointed towards us. Then repeating the process again and again, until finally we all four stood just twenty metres away from the two jeeps. All the time, the Israeli soldiers and police were jeering and dancing and making faces. They knew and we knew that they held all the cards.

The jeep started up and now Israeli soldiers were marching up towards us en masse. Lisa recognised the face of the soldier leading them and murmured, “We don’t stand a chance”.

He also recognised her. “So we meet again. This time you are with new friends,” looking at Lovisa and me. He tolds us that they were arresting Mustafa for throwing stones and that we would all be arrested if we did not make way for the jeep. In reality, he did not want to arrest us. Fifteen soldiers and border police just pushed the four of us out the way and the jeep rolled through with Mustafa locked inside. If we had resisted, then Israeli justice would have convicted us of assaulting a police officer. Mustafa had not thrown a single stone.

Both jeeps were now heading uphill into Jayous. We followed in their wake. As they drove through the streets, they dropped cannisters of tear gas. Patrick handed me an onion. I couldn’t breathe, my nostrils and my throat burned. I walked with my right eye half open, my left eye closed tight in pain. But we had to follow because the Israeli army had not yet finished their business in Jayous.

We caught up with them outside a Palestinian house. One jeep had parked outside and an Israeli soldier was kicking the door violently. It opened from inside. Three Israelis marched in holding their guns in front of them. We heard the sound of furniture crashing inside and then they brought two bearded Palestinian men out. Hands up, against the wall, bodies searched. Neil tried to photograph the scene but was told that his camera would be smashed. I just held my camera down by my side and nonchalantly snapped two photos. They didn’t know where the flashes came from and I won’t know what the photos will tell until I return to England.

Radhida and Malin and I were asking awkward questions and doing out best to peacefully intervene, while not responding to provocation by the soldiers. They found nothing on the two men and eventually released them. And so on to another Palestinian home. It was some time before they left Jayous.

Lisa and I now wandered the streets of the town together. As we walked, palestinian children would shout out to us from the balcony windows where they were caged. “Peace be with you” or “Hello”. There was a curfew in Jayous and nobody was allowed to leave their home. Now and again, a Palestinian man or woman would ask us to escort them to their home. It was while we were escorting one young man that we heard more bad news which we had to investigate.

As we walked through the door of her house, Lisa and I saw a red-faced tearful Palestinian woman sitting on the floor, surrounded by family and women from neighbouring homes. Her right arm was in a sling. The two Israeli jeeps had split up and we had not been able to monitor all their activities. We saw now the broken hinge of the door where the soldiers had forced their way in. And we saw the young boy who had been thrown viciously against a wall. And we saw the mother whose arm had been fractured or broken while she was trying to protect her young boy.

One grizzly-haired old man in the family spoke good English. “Who is the terrorist?” he asked. “Palestinians or Israel?”.

They gave us tea to drink and the woman with the broken arm kissed Lisa on both cheeks as we left. Lisa is Jewish, American an anti-zionist. They know this.

Tonight as we patrol the houses of Jayous through till dawn, the old man’s words will reverberate in my mind. “Who is the terrorist?”

There is pain and anger and truth in this question.

Moosa Qureshi
Jayous
29 Dec 2002