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TODAY WE WALKED THROUGH THE STREETS AND WE WERE FINDING FEET
by Brian Wood* in Taybeh, Palestine (5 kilometers west of Jenin)

April 16, 2002, 9:30 PM (in Palestine): At 7:30 tonight, about 2 hours ago, the Israeli military attempted to break into the Church of the Nativity. I got a phone call from a friend in Beit Jala who said she had just received a call from a friend inside the church. It seems this attempt lasted about half an hour. This attempt was going on as I was talking to [my friend], and we had a conversation later, when she had found out that this had happened. When we were talking the first time, [before we knew what had happened], my friend was saying: "My gosh there has to be something going on over there! There is tons of shooting. There are a lot of explosions. Something is happening." Sure enough, the Israeli military was indeed at that moment attempting to break into the Church of the Nativity by climbing over a wall on the Armenian side of the church. Now, the guys inside the church who have guns--which is not everyone--offered heavy resistance and forced the soldiers back out. I don't know of any casualties or injuries. The report from inside the Church didn't comment on that.

IDF Attacks Church of the Nativity

The Israeli military has been throwing sound bombs [percussion grenades] into the church for days such that the ears of the people inside are bleeding. Fortunately, a
convoy of food got into the church today, so the people inside have some food. But the latest report is that there are 180 people inside comprised of families, one of
the armed factions, and Palestinian Authority police. And there are approximately 30-40 priests, monks and nuns on top of that, totaling a bout 220 people. The important point to stress here is that there is not just a bunch of armed guys inside - there are a number of civilians inside, including the priests, monks and nuns. We need to get this report out, that the Israeli military for the f irst time tonight has attempted to break into the church - and they have been harassing everyone inside. Every night they shoot at the church. They start at about 3:00 am and they go until 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. They are shouting on the loud speake r over and overagain, day and night, all kinds of things at the people inside, psychologically torturing them. It's fascinating to me that Christians of the world have refused to respond with a heavy hand to this vicious and barbaric attack on one of Christianity's most holy sites in the world. They have allowed the Israeli military to continue shooting at this church, blowing holes in the sides of the wall to try to get in. They have also today burned completely one of the priests' living quarters inside the church, with people inside, so there wasn't a thing, not even a hair left inside - that's what they said.

Christians of the world have chosen not to act thus that far in a very powerful and unanimous way, and now, because of that, the Israeli soldiers have made their first attempt to break in. It's going to get worse. They have tried it once, it will get bigger and stronger the next time they try, if this situation is not resolved by forcing the
Israeli military out of Bethlehem.

The situation in the Jenin Refugee Camp

Today, also, I talked to one friend Chivis, who is originally from Ohio. She has been in the Jenin Refugee Camp for the last few days doing whatever she can to help the people there. She is one of only a handful of internationals who are trying to actual ly help the people inside, unlike the Red Cross and other international organizations that continue to stand by while these atrocities are committed. She told me: "Today we walked through the streets and we were finding feet." We also spoke with other friends that are staying in Jenin city, which is also under curfew and heavily bombarded still on a regular basis.

We tried to get into the camp today because yesterday, when we got in, we had the opportunity to hand carry in food and water from UN trucks from outside the camp inside the camp. The reason why we had to carry the food and water outside the camp was bec ause the Israeli military forced these two loaded trucks to just sit for 8 hours outside of the camp. They would not all ow them to enter to take food and water inside. So, only three of us were able to grab what we could and to bring it inside. Today we wanted to bring more internationals. We could create quite a significant impact by bringing a lot of water and food by hand. But the soldiers today forbade entry of any food, any water or any medicine that our international friends were trying to enter by hand.

The Israeli military continues to forbid people to bury their dead. There are dozens of bodies under the rubble. The Israeli military bulldozes homes on the top of the people who were still in their homes. I'm sure this is creating a massive health crisis for the people remaining in the camp and anyone in the surrounding area because
flies and all kind of insects are eating these bodies and then they move on to the next place. The possibility for massive health problems in the camp and the surrounding areas, including the Israeli cities, is growing day by day. Even today our friends were trying to help one of the injured women from inside her home to get to the hospital, and the soldiers were shooting at them. There is no other way to describe it but continued genocide.

Village of 2000 has taken in 700 refugees

The Red Cross claims their communications with Israeli authorities have broken down and they are not able to do their work. But I have been here in Taybeh, outside of Jenin, where there has been no Israeli military and other villages around here where the re are thousands of Palestinian refugees from the Jenin Refugee camp. The [Red Cross] could have come here to visit those villages, bringing humanitarian aid, supporting the local councils who are housing, feeding, clothing and providing health care to these people. Not one single Red Cross member, to my know ledge, has shown up yet, and it has been well over a week now. Neither has the UN shown up. As far as I know, the only international organization that has shown up in these villages--which I might add are in the middle of any clashes-- have been a few representatives from Amnesty International who brought lawyers with them, took statements from some of the refugees, and filed cases against the Israeli government. However, it is important to provide humanitarian aid to these people. Fortunately (the inhabitants of the surrounding villages) have done a marvelous job this far.

The current situation in Taybeh

As expected we had a kind of invasion today. At 4:50 a.m., four Israeli military jeeps came through the village by the main road. They had their sirens blaring and flood lights flying everywhere, shining at people's homes, and they came through the village shouting over loud speakers: "People of Taybeh, you are not allowed to come out of your homes. If you come out of your homes, we will punish you." And "punish" means one of two things: either they will be arrested and taken away to some unknown location, for an unknown period of time, where no one has access to them, or they will be shot.

This was at 4:50 this morning. We were all sound asleep. The soldiers were totally obnoxious as they came to the village. It was the most harrowing awakening that any of us have had in a long time. It was hysterical inside our house for several minutes while the Israeli military was going through. First we had no idea was going on. It was a very frightening experience for everyone even though we expected the Israeli military to come at some into our village. We have been under curfew all day today. We haven't heard from the Israeli military since they came in at that point.

At Least 20 Internationals Detained

They have detained and arrested or deported--we are not sure--at least 20 internationals who were under their way to Jenin today from Taybeh. There are reports from two hours ago saying that the soldiers are on their way back to Taybeh. There have been some very strange things going on, a lot of explosions out in the distance, flashes in the sky that disrupted the phone service.

The Israeli military are after the press and foreigners right now in these areas. So we have actually to be careful. The group that was detained today was taken to erusalem, and we don't know if they have been taken to Tel Aviv and been deported, or not. They are not hesitating to take foreigners and get rid of them.

Among the people who were taken today, one was a friend of ours, and she was staying in this house for the last couple of nights. She is Italian, a photographer, and a journalist. She was taken with them. People who have been taken are not, so far, part of the International Solidarity Movement.

* Brian Wood is one of two members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace joining internationals in nonviolent direct action to protest and end Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.



THEIR BODIES ARE DECOMPOSING; ALL KINDS OF MAGGOTS AND LICE AND FLIES EATING THEIR BODIES
Reports from Brian Wood* near and in Jenin Refugee Camp

April 15, 2002: I am still here in the village of Teiyba, just five kilometers from Jenin. The internationals I'm with are still interviewing the refugees from the Jenin Refugee Camp, gathering their stories with as much detail as possible to reconstruct what happened to them personally and their families and what took place in the Refugee Camp from start to finish.

Yesterday seven internationals that were with us in Teiyba made it into Jenin City. Last night we got a call that two of them made it into Jenin Refugee Camp, which at this point everybody thought was totally impossible. But they were able to sneak around, and got around soldiers and made it all the way into the center of the camp which is where the heaviest fighting was and which is where a lot of the Israeli soldiers were killed.

We haven't heard a whole lot from them, but they said the homes they've seen in the refugee camp are absolutely totally destroyed, absolutely nothing left of them. They reported seeing the remnants of thousands of the rockets fired from the Apache helicopter gunships. These rockets have these wires that come off of them so that they control where they hit. And they reported there are thousands of these, all around the fields, all throughout the camp, in the city.

Five of the internationals that made it into Jenin city went through several checkpoints, which everyone thought was totally impossible. But after trying for several hours throughout the day they made it all the way into the center of the city. At the last checkpoint they reached the military commander told them they couldn't go, because the military was "going to do something that night." He told them they could come in tomorrow. After the commander left one of the Israeli soldiers gave them directions about how to get around the checkpoint and into the city.

It was by accident how we four internationals ended up in the Jenin Refugee Camp. We weren't planning to go there today because we've been interviewing refugees that are in the villages outside of Jenin. We got to a village adjacent to the camp to interview some people and one of our friends who just came from the camp said, that we could go in just for a couple of hours and have a look around and see how we could help.

So, we decided to go in, the four of us, one from Italy, named Patricia, Sofia, Matt and myself. There is a lot of military on the way. You have to go through several villages and these villages have been systematically invaded over the last few nights.

We finally reached the camp. The first things we saw were houses with large holes in them from tank shells. On the outskirts of the camp things aren't so bad. From the interviews that we've done with the refugees, well, it's not so bad relative to the center of the camp-I'll explain to you in a minute.

The refugees that we've interviewed have told us that all the fighters had congregated at the center of the camp. When the Israelis came through the edges of the camp they were able to penetrate it fairly easily, because there wasn't a lot of resistance, and actually, some people have reported that there was no resistance.

On the outside of the camp, the houses are, generally, still standing. The majority that we saw are not for living in. There are still people on the outskirts of the camp. It's not totally deserted like we thought we would find. The people obviously have no place to go; so, they are still in there homes with huge holes and the inside trashed, because soldiers have gone through them, breaking everything.

We walked through, we slithered our way to the center of the camp. When we made it to the center of the camp we viewed the paths the Israeli bulldozers had cleared so that tanks could enter the camp because the camps have very small alleyways and there's not enough room for tanks to get through. As the refugees we interviewed had told us all along the bulldozers bulldozed a path from the north to the south end of the camp, about 10 meters wide, so of course this took down dozens and dozens of homes with it.

These homes, many of them, had families still buried inside, under the rubble. Some of them are still alive, though perhaps, a lot of them are dead.

We met up with another friend in the camp and she said that one guy was buried under the rubble of his home for 10 days, and he worked himself out, dug himself out. And now he's walking around talking like a normal human being.

We maneuvered our way to the center of the camp where all the resistance had gathered and where I guess, something like 13 Israeli soldiers were killed. The first attempt of the Israeli soldiers to enter the center of the camp failed drastically, with their ground troops, because they lost 13 of their soldiers. At that point the Israelis began bombarding the camp with F-16s, with Apaches helicopter gunships, and reinforcing their ground troops.

There is an area right in the center of the camp that must be 5000 square feet where it was all full of homes and now there's just piles of rubble everywhere. There's people buried under these homes, they're dead.

As we walked we saw many bodies buried under rubble, just in the remains of their homes and were killed. Their bodies are decomposing, there's all kinds of maggots and lice and flies eating their bodies. I won't go into more detail than that, but I'll just say that it's the most gruesome thing I've ever seen in my life, with body parts lying all over.

These bodies have been in the homes, we actually viewed six bodies, people that were killed inside homes. They've been there for about six days now and these last few days it's been quite hot, so the rate of decomposition has rapidly increased at this point.

The people in the camp are still very afraid as the Israeli military is still inside the camp. When they move APC's and tanks around everybody runs, but for the last three days the people have been out and about in the camp, but of course they are absolutely frightened for if they see any soldiers or tanks they run for cover and run to hide. Of course it's for good reason because of the massive, massive destruction, a large amount of executions and the number of people killed in the camp itself.

There is no food, water or electricity in the camp. I kept asking people what they eat and theyd say," we have something." But when I would ask them at first if they had any food or water, they'd say "No."

And the number one thing they need in the camp right now is water. The Israelis not only bulldozed dozens and dozens of homes on top of people, they also destroyed all the streets and all the water manes

If the Israeli military would leave the camp at least the Palestinians could repair the water lines under ground and water service in the camp could continue. But the
military is still in the camp full force.

The camp is just an absolute disaster, so much of it is in total ruins. Anywhere you walk around you know exactly where there's a body because you can smell them. When you walk by a house and if there's a body inside, you smell it without going in and seeing it. Because the smell is the most raunchy thing I've smelled in my life.

The people are still making do with what they have. The United Nations (UN) is trying to get food and water into the refugee camp but the Israelis continue to forbid them to enter the camp. We were actually with two big trucks that had been stalled by the Israeli military for eight hours today to get into the camp to deliver food and water.

Where we met up with the UN we asked if they'd mind we could take what we could carry up into the people and sure enough they were very happy to let us do this. So we took whatever water and bread we could carry. There was only three of us and we had to walk about a half of a mile, so it was very difficult to take very much.

We need internationals to come here as soon as possible. We have some more coming from Jerusalem tomorrow to help us, to continue to bring food and water to people. The UN has food and water for them but they're not allowed to enter so we will do what we can to carry what we can by hand.

QUESTION: What about reports of mass graves, have you seen anything like that?

ANSWER: In interviewing refugees people have said they had seen with their own eyes these mass graves. We were only in the camp today for maybe two or three hours this afternoon and actually the only thing we did besides bring food and water, was when Palestinians stopped us and told us they knew where there were people alive still under the rubble of their homes. So we were trying to find them but of course we didn't' have any luck because the people aren't exactly sure where they are now.

We did not personally see these mass graves today. Some of the refugees we've interviewed in the last few days have seen these and one we met up with in the camp was with an Israeli journalist who lives in the West Bank and this Israeli journalist confirmed that the Israeli military had said they removed bodies from the camp and took them into the Jordan Valley to bury them in some graves that they have out there.

I've heard these reports on television here, on different news services, Arab news services, and people on the ground have said this and now Israeli journalists confirmed that the Israeli government or military had said they had trucked bodies from the camp to the Jordan Valley near the border with Jordan.

QUESTION: But what about the possibility of the UN doing air-drops - is the airspace restricted?

ANSWER: I'm not sure if the UN has the capability. All I've ever seen in the year I've lived here are ground vehicles. If they could do airdrops I think it would be difficult for two reasons. For one there's F16s always flying around, over the camp, over Jenin city and even last night there were about ten of them. It was night time and we could see their lights flashing and they kept flying over.

The other difficulty is if people tried to obtain food from some place, any time they try to retrieve bodies of people, any time the UN even tries to distribute food without permission the soldiers shoot at people, the UN people and the refugees in the camp. So it would be very difficult.

The soldiers did let us walk around. We encountered a lot of soldiers when we were carrying the food and water and they tried to stop us but we just told them "we're taking bread and water to the women and children" and just kept walking.

* Brian Wood is one of three members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace that have joined many internationals in witnessing the Israeli invasion and trying to end the Israeli illegal military occupation of Palestine.




LIAD IN RAMALLAH
by Liad Liad

"Hey baby, what's a nice girl like you doing in Ramallah?" You may ask.

On Friday, April 5, seven Israeli girls from good Jewish homes
entered Ramallah. I was one of them. Our goal, simply stated, is to
express objection to our government's war against the Palestinian
civilian population currently taking place in Ramallah, as well as other
cities in the West Bank, and to show solidarity with the Palestinians.
It is currently illegal for Israelis to enter the Occupied Territories.
Illegal, that is, unless you're a soldier. We know that the government
does this to keep us Israelis from seeing what really goes on over
there. That's the reason they also don't allow photographers in and
shoot at them. But we were determined to see for ourselves. And we did.

We enter Ramallah by a combination of driving and walking. The whole
process, while it only takes half an hour at most, makes us feel like
outlaws on the run, like moving targets. Being Israeli, it's clear that
we're facing danger from both whichever Palestinians would not happy
with our presence in their neighbourhoods and see us as enemies and by
the Israeli occupation forces that may capture and arrest us, plus
whatever crossfire we may get caught in from either side. We can't be
left alone for a minute. So we make arrangements for a Palestinian "tour
guide". The first thing he asks of us is that if at any point after he
leaves us we get caught, that we don't mention his name to the military.
On the drive there we take a nice tour of every nearby refugee camp and
the slum neighbourhood outside of Ramallah. The streets are empty and
the stores are closed. Every once in a while we pass a car. The driver
stops and talks with our driver, and based on that our driver knows
where the tanks are placed and which route to take. We can't get caught
because there's curfew and they can either shoot us or arrest us. At
some
e point we have to get out and walk in an open field. This is
particularly dangerous because we're exposed. Every time we reach a
crossroad, our guide instructs us to hide behind the nearby building
while he goes to check if there are tanks or soldiers around the corner.

The guide lets us out 200 meters before the Ramallah hospital. The
last 200 meters we have to walk by ourselves, no guide, just us seven
women, and a group of ten Italians who know as little about the
situation as we do. He gives us twenty bags of pita bread to bring to
the people on the inside, and tells us to be careful. Those were the
scariest 200 meters I've ever walked in my life. We're all wearing
white, so that if the soldiers catch us, they can identify us as
Internationals and know not to shoot. Apparently they don't shoot at
you as long as you're marked as a non-Palestinian. We have to walk very
slowly in the middle of the road, to make sure we're visible. We walk
with our hands in the air so that the army can tell that we have no
weapons.

We make to the hospital ok, and are greeted by the medical team and
some fifty activists who've been staying at the hospital for over a
week. No one has taken a shower in eight days because there is no
running water. The only water available is in bottles, and the supply is
limited. There are a number of international journalists there, no
Israeli press of course - not only is it illegal for any press to be
there, what Israeli, journalist or not, would risk their lives to be in
these conditions and illegally, only to conjure up some report? The
international press wants to interview us, but they're afraid that
through their reports the army will detect that they're staying in the
city illegally and will kick them out.

We don't get exposed to the patients too much, and our only experience
with the horrific tales of bloodshed are through stories we here from
doctors and activists. Yesterday morning, we are told, a 55-year-old
woman somehow made it to the hospital. The cast on her foot was broken,
and she had to get it changed. She left the hospital at 11:00 am. At
11:15 she returned to the hospital at the arms of an activist who
carried her dead body back. She was shot twice, in the cheek and the
neck. Two days prior to that, the military blocked the entrance to the
hospital with a number of tanks. They did not allow ambulances filled
with injured patients and dead bodies they collected from throughout the
city to even get near the hospital. The army knew that there are lots of
activists staying in the hospital, and threatened to break in, forcibly
pull the activists out, and destroy everything inside.

Another phenomenon we're informed of is mass arrests, particularly of
Palestinian men. There have already been around 3000 arrests. The army
takes the men into an undisclosed location, blindfolds them, and tie
their hands behind their backs. They go through 3 or 4 days blindfolded
and tied, generally without food or water, until the army investigates
who they are. Then the army dumps their bodies, which are still
blindfolded and tied, in some field in the middle of nowhere. They give
them a note which says they've already been checked out, in case they
get
arrested again. One of these men made it to the hospital a day before we
arrived. He was injured by the army. He said that there are fields full
of these men, who can't even move and certainly can't make it home.
Somehow, he was able to make it back home, after a very long walk. He
was stopped by the army, and some soldier stopped him and wrote
something on his hand which he couldn't read, because it was in Hebrew.
The activists took a picture of his hand and wanted us to look at it and
find out what they wrote. I think that instead of giving him a note that
he was arrested, they just wrote it on his hand. Kinda reminds me of
some means of marking cattle.

We decide to go to the headquarters of the Union of Palestinian Medical
Relief Committees (UPMRC). There is a shipment of food there that was
sent in by Israeli organizations and is going to get distributed today.
The food reached Ramallah two days ago, but hasn't been distributed
because of the curfew. There's been a curfew on the city for the last
seven days, and anyone caught outside will get shot, though more likely
so if they're Palestinian. The curfew was lifted only once so far, three
days ago, for three hours, to allow people to stock up on food or run to
the hospital if they need to, but apparently even during the lift of
the curfew the army shot and killed people who were out on the street.
The curfew is going to get lifted again for three hours today. This is
probably because General Zinni is going to be in Ramallah for a meeting,
and the Israeli government wants the place to look normal, so that he
doesn't get to see what it's like under curfew. Things are crazy once
the curfew is lifted. People run like mad to get as much food and
supplies as possible, because they know that within a few short hours
they'll be stuck in their houses again for an indefinite amount of time.
And on top of that, most stores and businesses are not open, because all
the owners and the workers are themselves busy running out trying to
load their houses with food and water. The only place where people will
be going to get food is the UPMRC, and the entire neighbourhood is going
to be there. So we decide to go there and help before the rush.

Apparently, as long as you are identified as an International, you are
not outright shot and are somewhat free to move about at certain
neighbourhoods of the city, despite of the curfew. The headquarters of
the UPMRC is about a five-minute walk on a regular day. But today we
can't get straight there, because of the tanks which are blocking some
streets on the way, and soldiers stationed at certain corners on the way
that we'd like to avoid. We have to take some bypass route. We begin our
journey, and are accompanied by Huwaida and Adam of the International
Solidarity Movement, and a Palestinian volunteer the UPMRC.

There are trenches in the middle of the streets every so often, and the
roads have tank marks all over them. There are bullet shells and tank
shells everywhere. I've never seen tank shells before. They look just
like the bullet shells, but are about twelve inches (30 centimetres)
long. I start picking them up as mementos, but I quickly realize that
there are far too many to pick up. Had I gone one block's length and
picked up all the shells, I would not have enough room for them in my
backpack. We pass by several cars that were either run over by tanks or
set on fire or blown up to the point that they are without recognition.
People will be left without cars after this is over. There are several
electricity poles that have been torn down and are lying in the middle
of the street. Apparently tanks have this habit of running over cars
and electricity poles. The building themselves are of course not immune
either. There are holes in them everywhere. In some buildings the holes
are as bi big as my head. It's scary to think that there were people
inside the buildings when they hit. Several buildings burned down from
the bombs, and are entirely black. one of them is Ramallah's biggest
nightclub Rumours, which served as an infamous hangout to Israelis as
well as Palestinians before the beginning of the Intifada. What was the
army looking for at a nightclub?

We get stopped by soldiers twice. The first time this happens we turn a
corner and two soldiers come at us from a building and stop us. Within
ten seconds there are four more. They start aiming their guns at us and
up at the windows of the building above. They want to know what we're
doing on the street. Don't we know there's a curfew? They demand we go
back. They spot a Palestinian among us and demand that he comes into the
occupied building with them. Fearing that we may not see him again, we
refuse to let him go alone. Adam begins arguing with the soldiers, and
I join him. What am I going to do to him? says one soldier. He pinches
himself, I'm only human, see? He's not trying to convince the
Palestinian. He's talking to us. The hardest thing is speaking to the
soldiers. I want to lash out at them in Hebrew. They treat Israelis with
such a different level of respect than they do of internationals, which
they see as a bunch of fools who blindly support Arafat and his
terrorists and have no real understanding of the situation. I know that
if I or any one of us speaks in Hebrew, we'll be arrested in no time. We
will be put on trial and our sentence could lead to several months'
worth of jailtime. So we don't take the risk. We send Adam with our
Palestinian companion into the building. We wait outside for over half
an
hour. We hear shillings. tank fire, guns. It gets closer. We hear cars
coming towards us. We're standing in the middle of the street and are
totally exposed. We start shaking. Adam and the UPMRC volunteer return
eventually.

The second time we get stopped, the head soldier and his assistants are
searching a car. People where told that the curfew will be lifted at
12:30, and it got changed to 2pm. People have been coming out believing
that the curfew is lifted, including this poor guy who took his car out
to get food for his family. The soldier refuses to speak any language
other than Hebrew to the guy. He's ordering him to open his trunk, and
asks him a bunch of questions like what are you doing outside, where do
you think you're going. The poor man is having difficulties taking the
soldier's orders and answering his questions. It's obvious that he can
hardly understand a word he's saying. As soon as the soldier spots us,
he orders us with our backs to a nearby wall. After some interrogation
he lets us go "with a warning."

The UPMRC office is located in a building that is also host to the
Mandela Centre for Political Prisoners, a seamstress shop, and a law
office. Perhaps because of the political nature of two of the offices,
the entire building got raided just days ago. The law office upstairs
suffered the most damage. First the military fired fun and tank shells
at it, then they blew the doors open, entered, and confiscated all the
documents inside. The door is hardly hanging on. The wall with a window
facing outside is no longer there. The wall behind it is hardly hanging
on and with holes of all sizes it looks like a strainer. The entire
office is full of rubble. Everything is torn down and broken, except for
a picture of the lawyer's daughter which is still hanging on the wall.

We begin distributing the food as soon as the curfew is lifted. People
bang on the doors and push each other to try to get to the window. We
can't even control them, and we certainly can't work fast enough. We
talk on the phone with Israeli journalist Amira Hass who lives in
Ramallah. Speak in Hebrew, she says, it's important that the
Palestinians know who you are and that you're there.

After several hours of work we head back. The street is filled with
frantic people running around in chaos. We must leave the city before
the curfew comes back on. We get as far as the checkpoint outside of
Kalandia refugee camp by car. We have to cross the checkpoint by foot,
as no cars are allowed through. The checkpoint is experiencing a
bottleneck as one by one each person puts their possessions aside for a
search, steps forward, lifts up their shirt, and turns around before
they're either allowed or denied passage. We're scared to pass the
checkpoint, because we don't have international ID. We can get stopped
and, once more, face arrest and trial.

We are let through without problem though, as we pass the soldiers one
by one. The last one to pass through is Shelly. After we move away she
tells us that she know one of the soldiers at the checkpoint. He was her
classmate. She went to school with him for seven years. What can I say.
We are everywhere.






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