Jenin Zahkaan
Jenini | 06.05.2003 13:51
This report is dated and late - apologies for the delay! Tanks are growling around Jenin as I tap this out - not inside the town centre or camp but around the surrounding roads. Everybody's been expecting an invasion or curfew (there's been none for over a week aside from the
incursion on Tuesday which I'll come to later) following the deft theft of three large tank guns, a whole belt of heavy bullets and some teargas bombs by three young Jenin kids from a settlement/military base named
Qadeem. During their 'operation' one was shot and captured by settler police and dragged off to Afula hospital. Allegedly. The others - and their booty - are still at large. 'Tikolaerfi to the lot of them. Despite
expectations of an IOF attack, its been eeriely quiet - just the odd slow rumble in and out of a tank and APC into the city and then a vroomed departure. A fighter managed to injure a soldier on an army road a few days ago. But im not sure where on his body or where this road was /: As usual information here is hazy, warped by rumour and exaggeration.
Tuesday saw 5 members of Saaraya al Qds - tactical military wing of Jihad Islami - all meet up for lunch in a house on the edge of the camp. A Jayyssous (collaborator - theyre breeding like maggots) told the IOF and they came blazing in - 2 tanks and 2 APCs and an apach - spewing out
rockets into the earth in sci-fi quick succession high-pitched bursts. I went straight down to the edge of the camp, to where the school is at the back road to Burquin. The soldier in the APC i tried to talk to aknowledged me, even if it was just to wave his hand for me to fuck off.
Aknowledgement, however small, is always better than a face-down with the steely, hatch-shut humm of an unpredicateble death-instument, wondering if or when and in which direction it will start spitting out bullets.
Anyway, 7 more international volunteers turned up and formed a hand to hand chain across the road in which the APC was waiting and facillitated the passing of all the kids still left in the school who wanted to go home. As this was happening, hell was breaking loose behind the row of houses behind us.
Soldiers riddled 16-year-old Hamas fighter Mossab Ibrahim Jebber with bullets - first in the legs, then in the head, ending his short life in seconds. Soldiers surrounded the house with the wanted shebab (dudes, yoot), shot their way in and arrested them.
I had no idea this was all happening and even if I did - what can you do in the middle of a shoot out? Get out of the way or pick up a gun and join in. Myself and the magical Nancy (we climbed trees and picked flowers on Mayday in the heady pine valley behind the Jabbryyat, behind
the camp) went down to the hospital - we heard there were tanks there. We arrived to see an APC shooting erratically into the wall of the house beside it, before it shifted it's gun slightly to fire intimidation shots
at a wall approximately 10 ft from us. We stole behind the wall along some bright green scrubland to be with a group of kids fighting the APC with their endless IOF supplied rubble-stones. After about 5 minutes a
young boy got shot next to me - in the leg and another was shot in the shoulder - above our clash-spot, out of our sight. They were aged 12 and 19 respectively. I temporarily went deaf in one ear as whizzing bullets ricoched off a rusted mangled oil drum behind me. Directly behind me /:
In the past I would never turn and run, but since the targetting of solidarity activists or international witnesses to IOF operations has become Isreli government policy in all but name - Brian, Tom and Rachel being cases in point - myself and Nancy turned and legged it with all the kids as bullets hit and cracked the tarmac around us, and again, when the tank and APC came roaring down the street towards the hospital, tearing up the street, shrouding itself in exhaust and dust; the panic was blanket, people pressed themselves up against the inside walls of the
hospital, spread out and away from the gaping entrance, ducked behind
cars. 'They'll shoot you, they'll shoot anybody, Arab, foreign, male,
female, Jewish, anybody. They don't care', the shebab yelled to us,
gesticulating urgently with their hands, pounding their chests,
immitating the 'tokh tokh' we could expect from 50 callibre bullets
ripping through our chests. Later a family lured us away for tea. Shebab
beckoned us to sit with them in the shade, smoke a cigarette - Get Out Of
The Road.
Two nights ago there were heavy clashes - as heavy as 'clashes' can get
between densely aromoured tanks and APCs zooming down the street, 2am,
and sporadic gunfire from flimsy t-shirt wearing shebab hiding down
alleyways. But the fight-back was intense. Noone was injured.
Yesterday, 4 PA politicians were supposed to come to Jenin. Tomorrow,
Fateh chiefs tell me that Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) Palestine's
cabinet/US regime imposed new Prime Minister might be coming to the
camp. Mazen, the Road Map, the defeat of this intifada, the capitulation
by so many to a really inevitable reality of the continued occupation
brokered by the PA, sanctioned by the PA - have all worn people down.
Fighters are becoming increasingly aware that the path they walk, strewn
with the corpses of their murdered comrades and flanked by the
ever-watchful gazes of Jaysousseen (collaborators), is leading them to
prison or death. Practically and strategically, the armed struggle is
becoming increasingly untennable. Is It Worth It Now? The honour of
resistance, the glory and heroism and joy of fighting against the
oppressor, even if its just have him hear the tummult and tirade of lead
upon his death-machine, a burst of defiance into a moonless, hopeless
night - is it still worth it now? Now, now that the resistance is being
gored out and the security apparatus is flexing its new high-tech
American muscle, ready for the final assault. Can The Wanted keep going
if the people around them are beginning to gradually un-stick, lose their
faith, turn, and come to really not want them so much anymore? Now more
than ever is the time to fight back, politically and physically, in the
face of such a sick, sell-out, Oslo continuum, re-ification of the Isreli
state and its facts on the ground plan, the Road Map to a hoofra, a
jiora, a marghsoom (a roadbloack, a hole, a checkpoint), a 'Map' with
Israeli expansion, transfer of Palestinians, and further resource theft -
water, more land, Iraqi oil - as it's compass-points, a map which
redraws, and paves the way for further re-drawing, of the history and
future of a colonised, blood-soaked and combative culture, into a map for
its demise. Now is the time to fight back but the resources just aren't
there, the people, theyre just not there, they're in prison or dead or
their spirits have been broken. The energy and zeal and experience needed
for people to collectively rise and resist has fallen. The pain and anger
and power of the suppresed truth behind every towering injustice, a truth
which carries its own, accumilative energy, inter-generationally and
historically - it's all all still there but the fire this time, is
licking low. Spirits here are at an all-time low.
In the Road Map, the Security Wall is unaddressed, ignored, just another
towering, staggeringly oppressive, matter-of-fact fact on the ground
which confiscates 10% more West bank land, running inside the Green Line
by 6km in parts, stealing 31 groundwater wells, cutting off 12,000 people
from their jobs, land and essential public services and trapping 6 whole
villages between the wall and the 1967 line in Qalqilya alone. Thousands
of homes have been bulldozed in Rafah to make way for its southern front.
Also according to the RoadMap, no significant settlement dismantlement
will take place - just a handful of military outposts - built two years
ago, are to be withdrawn. Al Qds (Jerusalem), ringed by urban
settlements, complete with their Jewish militias which regularly attack
neighbouring Arab communities with total impuinity, is to remain a
divided, colonised city. And the right of return? What right of return?
There is no mention of the millions of Palestinan refugees concentrated
in Lebannon, Syria and Jordan and their forced divorce from their
families, friends and homes.
Ask anyone what they think about the roadmap and they'll tell you its
crap, its shit, its not worth the paper its printed on, its sick, or they'll just tut, suck their teeth and carry on staring into the economy-crashed, daily stagnation and dust swirled abyss that is the air of JeninCamp and the city.
incursion on Tuesday which I'll come to later) following the deft theft of three large tank guns, a whole belt of heavy bullets and some teargas bombs by three young Jenin kids from a settlement/military base named
Qadeem. During their 'operation' one was shot and captured by settler police and dragged off to Afula hospital. Allegedly. The others - and their booty - are still at large. 'Tikolaerfi to the lot of them. Despite
expectations of an IOF attack, its been eeriely quiet - just the odd slow rumble in and out of a tank and APC into the city and then a vroomed departure. A fighter managed to injure a soldier on an army road a few days ago. But im not sure where on his body or where this road was /: As usual information here is hazy, warped by rumour and exaggeration.
Tuesday saw 5 members of Saaraya al Qds - tactical military wing of Jihad Islami - all meet up for lunch in a house on the edge of the camp. A Jayyssous (collaborator - theyre breeding like maggots) told the IOF and they came blazing in - 2 tanks and 2 APCs and an apach - spewing out
rockets into the earth in sci-fi quick succession high-pitched bursts. I went straight down to the edge of the camp, to where the school is at the back road to Burquin. The soldier in the APC i tried to talk to aknowledged me, even if it was just to wave his hand for me to fuck off.
Aknowledgement, however small, is always better than a face-down with the steely, hatch-shut humm of an unpredicateble death-instument, wondering if or when and in which direction it will start spitting out bullets.
Anyway, 7 more international volunteers turned up and formed a hand to hand chain across the road in which the APC was waiting and facillitated the passing of all the kids still left in the school who wanted to go home. As this was happening, hell was breaking loose behind the row of houses behind us.
Soldiers riddled 16-year-old Hamas fighter Mossab Ibrahim Jebber with bullets - first in the legs, then in the head, ending his short life in seconds. Soldiers surrounded the house with the wanted shebab (dudes, yoot), shot their way in and arrested them.
I had no idea this was all happening and even if I did - what can you do in the middle of a shoot out? Get out of the way or pick up a gun and join in. Myself and the magical Nancy (we climbed trees and picked flowers on Mayday in the heady pine valley behind the Jabbryyat, behind
the camp) went down to the hospital - we heard there were tanks there. We arrived to see an APC shooting erratically into the wall of the house beside it, before it shifted it's gun slightly to fire intimidation shots
at a wall approximately 10 ft from us. We stole behind the wall along some bright green scrubland to be with a group of kids fighting the APC with their endless IOF supplied rubble-stones. After about 5 minutes a
young boy got shot next to me - in the leg and another was shot in the shoulder - above our clash-spot, out of our sight. They were aged 12 and 19 respectively. I temporarily went deaf in one ear as whizzing bullets ricoched off a rusted mangled oil drum behind me. Directly behind me /:
In the past I would never turn and run, but since the targetting of solidarity activists or international witnesses to IOF operations has become Isreli government policy in all but name - Brian, Tom and Rachel being cases in point - myself and Nancy turned and legged it with all the kids as bullets hit and cracked the tarmac around us, and again, when the tank and APC came roaring down the street towards the hospital, tearing up the street, shrouding itself in exhaust and dust; the panic was blanket, people pressed themselves up against the inside walls of the
hospital, spread out and away from the gaping entrance, ducked behind
cars. 'They'll shoot you, they'll shoot anybody, Arab, foreign, male,
female, Jewish, anybody. They don't care', the shebab yelled to us,
gesticulating urgently with their hands, pounding their chests,
immitating the 'tokh tokh' we could expect from 50 callibre bullets
ripping through our chests. Later a family lured us away for tea. Shebab
beckoned us to sit with them in the shade, smoke a cigarette - Get Out Of
The Road.
Two nights ago there were heavy clashes - as heavy as 'clashes' can get
between densely aromoured tanks and APCs zooming down the street, 2am,
and sporadic gunfire from flimsy t-shirt wearing shebab hiding down
alleyways. But the fight-back was intense. Noone was injured.
Yesterday, 4 PA politicians were supposed to come to Jenin. Tomorrow,
Fateh chiefs tell me that Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) Palestine's
cabinet/US regime imposed new Prime Minister might be coming to the
camp. Mazen, the Road Map, the defeat of this intifada, the capitulation
by so many to a really inevitable reality of the continued occupation
brokered by the PA, sanctioned by the PA - have all worn people down.
Fighters are becoming increasingly aware that the path they walk, strewn
with the corpses of their murdered comrades and flanked by the
ever-watchful gazes of Jaysousseen (collaborators), is leading them to
prison or death. Practically and strategically, the armed struggle is
becoming increasingly untennable. Is It Worth It Now? The honour of
resistance, the glory and heroism and joy of fighting against the
oppressor, even if its just have him hear the tummult and tirade of lead
upon his death-machine, a burst of defiance into a moonless, hopeless
night - is it still worth it now? Now, now that the resistance is being
gored out and the security apparatus is flexing its new high-tech
American muscle, ready for the final assault. Can The Wanted keep going
if the people around them are beginning to gradually un-stick, lose their
faith, turn, and come to really not want them so much anymore? Now more
than ever is the time to fight back, politically and physically, in the
face of such a sick, sell-out, Oslo continuum, re-ification of the Isreli
state and its facts on the ground plan, the Road Map to a hoofra, a
jiora, a marghsoom (a roadbloack, a hole, a checkpoint), a 'Map' with
Israeli expansion, transfer of Palestinians, and further resource theft -
water, more land, Iraqi oil - as it's compass-points, a map which
redraws, and paves the way for further re-drawing, of the history and
future of a colonised, blood-soaked and combative culture, into a map for
its demise. Now is the time to fight back but the resources just aren't
there, the people, theyre just not there, they're in prison or dead or
their spirits have been broken. The energy and zeal and experience needed
for people to collectively rise and resist has fallen. The pain and anger
and power of the suppresed truth behind every towering injustice, a truth
which carries its own, accumilative energy, inter-generationally and
historically - it's all all still there but the fire this time, is
licking low. Spirits here are at an all-time low.
In the Road Map, the Security Wall is unaddressed, ignored, just another
towering, staggeringly oppressive, matter-of-fact fact on the ground
which confiscates 10% more West bank land, running inside the Green Line
by 6km in parts, stealing 31 groundwater wells, cutting off 12,000 people
from their jobs, land and essential public services and trapping 6 whole
villages between the wall and the 1967 line in Qalqilya alone. Thousands
of homes have been bulldozed in Rafah to make way for its southern front.
Also according to the RoadMap, no significant settlement dismantlement
will take place - just a handful of military outposts - built two years
ago, are to be withdrawn. Al Qds (Jerusalem), ringed by urban
settlements, complete with their Jewish militias which regularly attack
neighbouring Arab communities with total impuinity, is to remain a
divided, colonised city. And the right of return? What right of return?
There is no mention of the millions of Palestinan refugees concentrated
in Lebannon, Syria and Jordan and their forced divorce from their
families, friends and homes.
Ask anyone what they think about the roadmap and they'll tell you its
crap, its shit, its not worth the paper its printed on, its sick, or they'll just tut, suck their teeth and carry on staring into the economy-crashed, daily stagnation and dust swirled abyss that is the air of JeninCamp and the city.
Jenini
Homepage:
www.palsolidarity.org