“Facing violence is part of our daily life”

PALESTINE: LIVING WITHIN FENCES

 ”Why do you want to go there?” asked Mohammed, the owner of the hostel I was staying at in the heart of Old Jerusalem. “The Israeli army will bomb it in the next few days.”

 Mohamed was a Palestinian in his late twenties. He sat on an old couch in the reception area, looking at me with curiosity and suspicion as I made my request: I wanted to visit the West Bank, the eastern side of the Palestinian Territories.

 “There were two suicide bombings in Tel Aviv. I went to where they happened. I saw the bodies—or what was left of them. I talked to the people who survived, and those who got hurt. Now I want to see what life is like in Palestine,” I responded.

The terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv killed 23 people and injured more than 100. Due to these explosions, Gaza and the West Bank were under harsh restrictions, including curfews day and night and rigorous checkpoints. It was almost impossible to get in or out of anyplace on the West Bank. Tours to the Palestinian Territories, including Bethlehem, were canceled until further notice. A military retaliation—at anytime, anywhere—was expected.

“Are you a journalist?” he inquired, seeming puzzled by my determination. He wanted to make sense of my motives for going into Palestine at such a security-sensitive time.

“I am a journalist, but I am currently a student in graduate school. I am not working right now, so I don’t have a network or a publication backing me up. I am on my own. I want to go to the West Bank. Will you help me?”

“I can get you a fixer. He will get you in and out if something happens. Let me see how much he will charge you, and if he is willing to take you at this time. It is not a good time, you know,” Mohamed said.

“Thanks, Mohamed. It means a lot to me. Remember, I don’t have the kind of money news organizations have for high fixer rates. Make sure he knows that. I just want to understand the Palestinians’ struggle.”

“I will do my best.” He left to make some phone calls.

I waited for his response. I didn’t have much time left in Israel, so this would be my only chance to visit Palestine. 

Mohamed returned with a smirk. “You are all set, Daniela. He will come tonight to meet you. Be here at 8 p.m.”

“Thanks, Mohamed!”

At 8 p.m., I was sitting on the couch. No one was around. The hostel was almost tourist-free. The war in Iraq was about to break out, and due to the tense situation in the region, few tourists were visiting the Middle East. The room was quiet and a bit dark. A tall man entered the reception area.

“Daniela?” he asked, smiling. He had light skin, greenish eyes, and white, glowing teeth. His receding hairline probably made him look older than he really was.

 “Yes!”

 “I am Khalil! Nice to meet you.” He sat next to me on the couch. “Mohamed told me you want to go to the West Bank. I can take you to Ramallah.”

 “That works. Thanks, Khalil. What do I need to take with me?”

 “Take your passport. Mohamed said you are a journalist. Do you have an ID?” he asked.

 “I have an international press ID. It doesn’t represent any organization, though. Will that be enough to get me in?”

 “Yes. Bring your passport and your press ID. Most important, do not tell anyone you are going into the West Bank,” he warned me. “It could get you into trouble.”

 Travelers who visit the Palestinian Territories—and report it—undergo severe interrogation and luggage scrutiny by airport security agents before leaving the country.

 “See you tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., Daniela. Have a good night,” said Khalil.

 It was a sleepless night: a combination of excitement and anxiety.

 I was ready before sunrise. I had breakfast with Andy, an Australian friend. We had met in Egypt and got together again in Jerusalem.

 “Are you sure you want to do this?” Andy asked.

 “I am 150 percent sure. If I don’t do this, I will regret it when I get home. I saw the Israeli side, and now I need to see the Palestinian side. I don’t want to wonder what if,” I replied.

 “Take care, Dani.” Andy hugged me before I left to meet Khalil.

 “I will. As soon as I’m back, I’ll write you to let you know I’m okay”   

 Back at the hostel, Khalil and Mohamed were chatting and laughing over coffee.

 “Ready?” said Khalil with a warm smile. “I think we can make it!”

 As we walked toward Khalil’s old compact car, he said, “We are taking my car to the checkpoint, and then we’ll take the bus to Ramallah. Is that okay?”

 Khalil was a 37-year-old Palestinian. He had a degree in Business and Administration, but he worked as a tourist guide and as a “fixer” for international correspondents covering the conflict on the West Bank. He had a soft voice and an extensive knowledge of the history of the region’s three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. He spoke totally fluent English.

 He told me about how tense the situation had been in the area lately.

 “I am putting my life in your hands, Khalil,” I told him.

 “I know the place like the palm of my hand. I know the right people. If there is an emergency, clashes, or a bombing, I will get us out of there. Don’t worry,” he said.

 Khalil’s confidence, good manners, calm voice, and articulate speech reassured me. I felt I could trust him.

 And then . . .

 “You see that?” said Khalil, pointing a concrete building on the road. “That is a prison. I was held there for a whole year.”

 He didn’t seem like a delinquent or an extremist. What could he have done to be put in jail? I couldn’t to ask, not yet. It was too soon to ask those questions.

 We drove through the rolling hills of Jerusalem, approaching the grazing lands of the West Bank. High fences with pointed rods cut the land into pieces.

 “You see there, Daniela?” asked Khalil. “Those are the refugee camps. That’s the West Bank; on the other side is still Israel.”

 “So this is Israel, but those areas that are fenced are part of the West Bank?” I asked.

 “Correct,” said Khalil.

 The Palestinian Territories consist of two discontinuous areas within Israel: the West Bank (on the eastern side) and the Gaza Strip (on the western side, along the Mediterranean Sea). I knew that, but I didn’t expect one of those regions to be further divided and fenced in.

 How could a Palestinian State be established when its parts are all spread out? I wondered to myself.     

 The Palestinian Territories have been the subject of controversy and dispute since the division of the former British Mandate of Palestine—a territory in the Middle East under British rule—and the creation of the State of Israel at the end of Word War II.

 Jordan and Egypt also occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1940s, but Israel captured these areas in 1967 during the Six-Day War, which was fought between the Israeli army and the neighboring Arab countries.

 After the Six-Day War, the Green Line or the armistice lines of the 1949 Agreement—which ended the Arab-Israel war in 1948—remained in use to set the boundaries between the State of Israel and the sections of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

 About two million people live in the West Bank. Almost 90 percent are Sunni Muslim Palestinians. Israeli settlers in this area number over 250,000. Despite these settlements being illegal under international law, the construction of homes for Jewish settlers has not stopped.

 “Those fences prevent Palestinians from getting out of the West Bank without passing through security checkpoints. Palestinians cannot move freely from one Palestinian town to another. They need special permission from the Israeli government. It is hard to get one; usually only women or very old men can do it. The identification plates on Palestinian cars are different from the Israeli ones. Palestinian plates are white or green, while Israeli plates are yellow—and that determines how far you can go,” explained Khalil.

 Due to security, some roads and highways are out of reach to a car with Palestinian license plates. Hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks spread throughout the region.

 “These restrictions on Palestinian movement have harmed the economy in the West Bank. There is a lot of poverty here,” he continued.

 Khalil parked the car near a checkpoint set up amidst a rugged landscape, about six miles from Jerusalem. We walked to the checkpoint, where several Israeli soldiers were checking the documents of the people trying to go in or out.

 “If they ask you, say you are coming to visit me,” Khalil advised me.

 I showed my passport and press ID to one of the young officers. He looked at me, but asked nothing. I walked in.

 “That wasn’t hard!” I said.

 “For you! You are not a Palestinian,” he answered. 

 We looked back and saw dozens of Palestinians who were not allowed to get out or come in.

 According to Khalil, it was sometimes easier for Palestinians to travel abroad than to the Palestinian Territories. Indeed, Mohamed had told me that he hadn’t seen some of his friends and relatives in the West Bank for several years because it was very hard for him to get a permit to visit Nablus, Jenin, or Bethlehem.

 We jumped into a small van crammed with people. Packed like sardines, we managed to get to the center of Ramallah. Ramallah is the economic and political center of Palestine. The headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority—the administrative organization that governs both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—are based here.

For being under such severe restrictions, life in the town seemed pretty normal. Several shops where closed because it was Friday—the Muslim holy day—but people were on the streets, driving their cars, and grabbing fresh fruits and vegetables in the local market. 

“Stop the occupation,” and “Don’t give up,” were written with red spray-paint on the buildings we passed while exploring the town. Posters of Palestinian leaders who had been jailed or killed covered almost every wall in Ramallah.

Tons of debris had accumulated on each side of the road. War jets had destroyed buildings, leaving them crumbling and uninhabited. I saw piles of cars that had been wrecked when military tanks passed over them. Nothing was left of the former police station. 

 “From the Israeli attacks,” Khalil said as we approached the Palestinian National Authority headquarters. The building looked as if it could fall apart at anytime. The bullet marks on the façade were fresh. Hundreds of cars smashed by military tanks packed the parking lot. A few guards stood at the entrance of the compound of the PNA’s leader, which was still Yasser Arafat at the time of my visit—he passed away in 2004.

Palestinian and Kuwaiti TV crews waited outside. A meeting of the Palestinian Cabinet was taking place, and they were waiting for official statements.

“The Fatah movement and the armed wings of the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas—both extremist groups—are the only ways Palestinians fight for their independence,” said Khalil. “Locals help the armed militants and even protect them. Palestinians consider these militants their soldiers and protectors, not terrorists.”

“But how can the actions of a suicide bomber be justified?” I asked. “Many civilians die in these attacks.”             

“Hundreds of children, the young, the adult, and even the old Palestinians are lining up to be the next suicide bomber. They are willing to blow themselves up for the liberation of Palestine. These people don’t have anything to lose, Daniela. They suffer every day, and they think they would go to heaven for killing themselves in the name of the independence and God. For them, it’s the Jihad,” he explained.

The meaning of Jihad seems to vary depending on the Muslims I have talked to. For some, it means to strive to have a virtuous life under the precepts of Islam; but for others, it means holy war.

“Many families don’t know if someone in their homes is preparing to become a suicide bomber,” Khalil continued, “but there are mothers who would prepare their own sons to kill themselves. A year ago, I was talking to a woman whose son was a suicide bomber. She said she loved God more than her own son. She considered him a martyr and a hero. The Koran says suicide is a sin, but in this case suicide is considered the highest demonstration of love for God and commitment to the Palestinian cause. The suffering is such that sometimes there is no difference between life and death.”

As I listened to Khalil, I thought of the Palestinian kids I had met at the hostel in Old Jerusalem. I had gone to the Internet room, where a bunch of Palestinian children no older than 10 were firing guns as they played video games. Suddenly, loud Arabian music erupted in the room. The children surrounded Mohamed’s computer. I thought he was playing a music video. As the kids stared immobilized at the screen, I joined the crowd. Instead of a music video, a web site showed a montage of pictures of Palestinians being killed, children tossing rocks at Israeli tanks, and Palestinians mutilated by bombings. The images were full of blood, violence, and more blood. It was hard for me to watch as an adult, and I wondered at the impact these images had on the kids.

 “The Intifada—Palestinian uprising—and force are the only ways we will achieve Palestine’s independence. Our people have suffered enough, and we will do anything to end the occupation,” said Mohamed as the children returned to their video games.

 Children’s laughter on the streets of Ramallah brought me back to the present. They were running carelessly and playing around.

 “At least it is quiet today, Khalil.”

 There was no curfew in Ramallah, and so far, no signs of military retaliation.

 “Things change very quickly here, Daniela. One moment it’s quiet, and the next minute it’s mayhem. There is no warning. These streets can become battlefields in seconds, but we are used to it. Violence is part of our daily life. Palestinians can carry out a massive demonstration, holding a dead body in the air, and an hour later, they will be opening their shops or having tea with friends. That is our reality,” said Khalil.

 We walked by a wall covered with hundreds of bullet marks and blood spots. Glass protected the wall, a memorial in memory of four civilians killed during the incursion of the Israeli army. According to Khalil, those people were killed in “cold blood.”

 “How do people feel about the PNA?” I asked.

“Eighty percent of Palestinians do not like the Palestinian National Authority, but they only talk about it amongst themselves. We hoped that our lives would be better with the PNA, but our leadership is weak, and the situation is worse than ever,” Khalil stated.

 “How do Palestinians feel about the West?” I asked.

 “They blame the United States as well as Israel for their suffering. They look at the United States as the mother of Israel, and therefore as responsible as Israel is. There is a double standard, Daniela. When Palestinians are killed, no one pays attention, but when an Israeli is killed, then it is a big deal.”

 “Khalil, why were you detained for a year?” I finally felt comfortable asking him the question that had been bugging me since he mentioned it.

“I was a very active student leader at the university, which I think had a lot to do with my detention. I was arrested right after I came back from Jordan. I was traveling in the Jordan, and I ran into a Palestinian leader, a member of the PNA—which wasn’t legal at that time. I took a picture with him. When I came back, Israeli authorities detained me for interrogation. They accused me of being a spy. I said I wasn’t, and that I didn’t have anything to declare.” Khalil explained that other Palestinians had been arrested that night as well. He said, “We were tortured for several days. We had handcuffs on our hands and feet, and we were sitting against a cold wall, unable to move. If we moved, we would be beaten again. We were held in a small room without a ceiling. It was freezing, and we were only wearing underwear. There was no food, no water, no restroom.” Khalil’s eyes got red as he recalled the experience.

 “How did you get out? Did you get a lawyer?”

 “I had a lawyer, but he didn’t do much for me. They couldn’t find anything to charge me on, yet the Israelis decided to put me in a secret file and condemn me for a year in prison.” He paused. “But that is pretty normal, Daniela. Most Palestinian men have been in jail.”

 According to the PNA, about 11,000 Palestinians were still in Israeli jails.

 We reached a Palestinian refugee camp. It wasn’t anything like the refugee camps I had imagined, with temporary tents and shanty houses.

 Khalil said, “In the beginning, the refugee camps were just improvised tents, but throughout the years concrete buildings were built to accommodate all the displaced people.” 

 “Hallo, hallo!” Smiling kids rushed at us as we walked through the narrow, muddy passages between the concrete residential blocks. While we were there, Khalil received a phone call. When he hung up, he said, “It is time to go back to Jerusalem, Daniela.”

 We caught a yellow Mercedes taxi that took us back to the checkpoint.

 “A Venezuelan?” a heavily armed Israeli soldier checked my passport carefully. “You can go.” He smiled as he handed my passport back.

 Khalil showed his permission. He was let go as well without much questioning.

 We left the checkpoint. As the car drove away, I saw the frustrated faces of those behind the fence. Women, men and children were attempting to go through the checkpoints.

Hours later, a military retaliation hit the Palestinian Territories in response to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.