In Qalqilia

By Alex.

At 1645 on Wednesday I was sitting in an internet cafe in Qalqilia
with a patient local helping me to download some pictures from my digital
camera. Just at the point of apparent success the news came through that
the Israeli military were entering the town.

Our small team quickly assembled its equipment and set out for the high street close by. As we walked we passed shopkeepers hurriedly taking their stock inside and
closing the shutters on their premises. A mixture of worry and having
seen this many times before seemed to show on faces we passed staring out of
side gates, shops and upper windows. Then there was the nervous
excitement on the faces of some of the youngsters clutching fistfuls of stones to
be thrown at the armoured cars in a David and Goliath like battle in which
the Davids stood little chance of slaying the mechanised Goliath. On the high street two men were busy trying to drag their display of ornamental plants to safety even as the first armoured jeeps sped up and down ordering people off the streets.

As the jeeps passed there was the clonk of stones on armour plating as they bounced harmlessly onto the road. Occasionally a small group of youngsters would emerge onto the
street to pelt the vehicles at closer range dispersing when a jeep
decided to give chase.

As this happened we could here the report of sound bombs
some way from our position. We decided to try to observe and record the situation as it unfolded to the best of our ability cautiously exercising our privileged position
as white Europeans and North Americans. We set off down a side street in
the direction of some of the bangs until we reached a junction from where
we could see two Israeli soldiers. One of the soldiers was standing between a seated elderly Palestinian man and a young boy. We were unable to get close as the soldiers became agitated when some of the group tried.

It appeared from our position that the man and boy were probably being
used as 'human shields' - something which has been reported from other parts
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and outlawed in a recent ruling by the
Israeli Supreme Court.

At this point one of the soldiers raised his
rifle to firing position and aimed out our group. We remained where we were
as he followed us around as individuals moving slowly around on our patch
of street.

This experience felt very personal. While I think the soldier
was having some 'fun' or wanted to try and scare us the knowledge that he
had his finger on the trigger of a lethal weapon in a high tension
situation made the episode a little disturbing. The difference between
living to see another day, to love, to eat, to laugh, to breathe and
all those other clichés was dependent on him not doing the simple act of
squeezing that trigger. Living as a Palestinian under occupation this
feeling must be the norm and the danger of the trigger being pulled
that much greater.


Back on the high street some armoured jeeps sped by with sirens blaring
while others had pulled up outside a building up the road. We could see
a Palestinian teenager some 100 meters from our position; while it was
difficult to see clearly he appeared to be being made to stand in front
of the building that the soldiers detaining him wanted to enter and I
could see a rifle being pointed at his upper body. We crossed the road to
escape a jeep which had been harassing us with its siren and began to walk
slowly towards the house which the soldiers had entered.

I have little recollection of how I felt at this stage and think that all of my senses
were just too occupied with the environment I was in and with my colleagues
around me. Our small group plus a handful of pressmen were the only
people this close to the 'action'. There were some tense moments when a car,
taxi or pedestrian strayed into the path of the Israeli operation to be
stopped and ordered away. Tension mixed with the surreal as a middle aged man
with a broom ignored broadcast orders to go away and insisted on calmly
trying to sweep clean his high street in the midst of all this.

Onto this scene from a side street emerged two tracked armoured personnel carriers, their
turrets bristling with automatic weapons, that rumbled by us leaving a
ribbed scar on the road surface. For me these machines left a real flavour
of evil and potential for immense destruction in their wake.

In counterpoint to this a sweet seller pushing his barrow emerged from the
opposite street and ignoring the armoured vehicles opposite us continued
down the road in search of equally brave or foolhardy customers.
Surprisingly he went unmolested by the jeeps.

It was not long after this surreal interlude that reality returned with
our first experience of two bursts of live gunfire being fired further
up the street. We were unable to determine who had fired or why and after
the huge bangs of the sound bombs the gunfire, to me, sounded deceptively
harmless although my mind was certainly thinking about what we should
do if the bullets got any closer.

Further shots reached us coming from the direction of the building opposite in which the soldiers were. A short time later several soldiers emerged escorting three frightened looking women, one of whom must have been at least 70, another perhaps in her early 20s.

The soldiers were apparently searching for the brother of one of the
younger women. The sister said that a soldier had held out a 'bomb' in his hand
and threatened to detonate it in front of her if she refused to lead
them to where her brother was. The women asked us to accompany them which we
did by trying to stay close to them in a sort of protective circle.

As we walked the visibly terrified women pleaded with us not to leave them.
All the time we were followed closely by an armoured jeep. Turning onto a
side street we were met by two more jeeps and a dozen foot soldiers. A tall
english speaking soldier addressed us politely enough but with a
limited repertoire telling us we were in a dangerous situation, we were
interfering with a military operation and that they wanted to question the women.

I told him we were accompanying the women because they had asked us to do
so, as is their right, and that we were not preventing him from asking
any questions.

Other soldiers began trying to separate us from the women.
Susanne suggested that she at least should be allowed to stay with the
women which she managed to do as the rest of us were firmly pushed back
up the street.

We calmly tried to verbally engage the soldiers. During this one soldier lunged at the tallest member of our group grabbing him by the collar and shoving him towards a wall, this luckily was the only real assault during the incident.


I was not mentally fully prepared for such a scenario which had
developed so quickly. I was still busy trying to document what was happening as
Susanne and the women were led to the rear of a jeep.



The most important thing at that moment was that she had managed to stay with the women
offering her presence as an independent witness as requested - an act
recognised under international law and protected as such.

As a white European passport holder Susanne’s safety was more guaranteed than that of the women she accompanied but by staying with them she was
able to offer them perhaps some little extra security. My concern that
Susanne might be arrested and or deported was trifling in comparison to the
women or there families. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip
do not have the luxury of human rights while their country remains subject
to occupation.

Our group still had one last task. One of the women had been forced to
leave her one year old son in the house they had been forced from. We
went to collect the tearful child from neighbours who had taken care of him
and deliver him to nearby relatives. Returning down the high street
armoured vehicles were still being received with hails of stones. A sound bomb
aimed at stone throwers exploded 15 to 20 meters from us, too close for
comfort.

There followed a couple of worrying hours in which I had been unable to
contact Susanne before my phone rang. I had no idea where she was, some
messages suggested she had been released. It was a tremendous relief to
hear her voice again and know she was on her way back to us.

The women she had accompanied and remained with as long as possible were released too
sometime later. For me the lack of knowing and separation from my
partner, even for such a short period, was distressing and painful; however
again for Palestinians enforced separation of families for years not hours,
uncertainty, death, distress and mental anguish are all too common and
have become a normal and tragic part of daily life for so many.