Collective punishment in Palestine.

Peacemaker News

e-mailed June 5, 2002

Father Bob Holmes, C.S.B., is a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT). Earlier eyewitness reports of how the Israeli occupation looks from the local level were printed in April and July/August 2001. Fr. Holmes returned to Hebron in May 2002.

This letter tells two stories of life under the Israeli occupation here in the West Bank where collective punishment of the civilian Palestinian population is the primary mode of operation for the Israeli army.

Monday 27 May we received an early morning call from Beit Ummar, a small town of 13,000 north of Hebron. At midnight Israeli soldiers had rounded up men from all the houses near the highway -- collective punishment in response to a fire bomb (Molotov cocktail) thrown on the highway. The men were still being held. Could we come?

From where the taxi drops you, at the barrier closing off access of local traffic to the highway, it's about a two km walk to Beit Ummar. Along the way we noticed three Palestinian men working beside a new barrier bulldozed across a farm lane. The Israeli army bulldozer had torn up a water pipe. They were trying to repair the damage, which we documented with photos.

As we walked on we noticed a bus with 13 bullet holes in the back window parked near the road. The driver told us the story. The day before, at noon, when the bus was full of Palestinian high-school students, an Israeli soldier fired a canister of plastic-coated marble-sized steel bullets into the bus, wounding four students and the driver. Again we documented with photos. He gave us a ride to Beit Ummar, stopping well short of the Israeli checkpoint there.

A very agitated Israeli soldier at the checkpoint yelled at us, "Go back!" When Kathy, Greg and I came forward instead, he told us we were under arrest, demanded ID, poked at Greg and I with his gun and made us lift our T-shirts (not Kathy!). Fortunately he was joined by another soldier who asked what we wanted. He told us we could not approach Beit Ummar this way (not saying why: that the men of Beit Ummar were being held behind a building at the checkpoint) but we could go back and around another way.

Going around as he directed we heard the story from several families. A father told us a soldier had broken his son's arm. One house had the windows shot out. We saw a grocery store where the soldiers had broken the glass doors of their refrigerator unit. A 15-year-old boy who had been released in the morning told us there were more than 70 men being held. They had been given water but no food. We learned that the mayor had gone to intercede and was himself detained.

At 11:30 a.m. we returned to the checkpoint from another direction in time to see the men released. Sufian, our translator in Beit Ummar, and his brother Ayman were among them and they invited us to their house. They said eighty-five Palestinian men had been treated like animals, made to kneel, sit back on their legs and put their heads down with hands behind their necks for over Four hours. Anyone moving or talking was kicked. All but one were released after twelve hours. The one was taken away in an army vehicle.

On Sunday 2 June, Greg and I accompanied the CPT delegation of twelve people from the US, Canada and Scotland to an action at Deir Ibzia just north of Ramalla. Arriving from Jerusalem at the Ramalla checkpoint we joined 200 people waiting to be ID'd - a very slow process. After an hour and a half, as we neared the front of the line which had itself slowly edged closer to the barrier, the Israeli soldiers closed the checkpoint and ordered everyone to move back. This was more easily said than done. This impatient soldier then aimed his gun at the crowd and brandished a tear gas grenade as he yelled orders in Hebrew. Either these armed teenagers are untrained in crowd management or delight in harassment and intimidation. Over two hours to enter Ramalla, an inconvenience for us, an everyday reality for those who live here.

As the Ramalla taxi-van approached Deir Ibzia it was stopped by locals warning of soldiers ahead on the road. We walked the last two km approaching, with some trepidation, a huge blockade guarded by an APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) and six Israeli soldiers. Following a 10-minute questioning of who we were (a Christian tour group), why we were here (to visit a family), which family (Mohammad's), we were allowed through. The towns- people were amazed - they are never allowed across this checkpoint. Their alternate route to Ramalla includes a mountain hike, always in danger of being shot if seen by soldiers. There were fifteen internationals already there from France, US, Germany, UK, etc. who had approached by the mountain route.

The APC followed us into town to check out what was afoot. The soldiers left after observing the milling crowd in front of the mosque. A march to the blockade began. Internationals went first with the CPT women in the front line, followed by about 200 Palestinian townsfolk. An Israeli army jeep suddenly appeared on the road behind us. I was asked to speak to the officer in the jeep. Advised that this was a nonviolent march to the checkpoint, he surprisingly said only that we were to take no photos of soldiers.

Armed soldiers stopped the marchers in front of the blockade. The townspeople sat down and proceeded to hold a press conference. Speaking with great passion Palestinian leaders told the story of months of blockade - farmers unable to move their produce for sale in Ramalla, men travelling with great difficulty and danger to work in Ramalla, medicine scarce and food expensive - collective punishment because six months ago Israeli soldiers died at this checkpoint. One French woman engaged the soldiers, questioning their cruelty in punishing the people of Deir Ibzia for an action of Palestinian gunmen that even the Israeli army admitted were from elsewhere.

The walk back to town was peaceful, largely because the leaders were able to control the youth always ready to throw stones at soldiers. We CPTers returned to the checkpoint for a prayer action of our own. Prayer is always disarming to men with guns - they're unsure how to react. Sunday Eucharist, in the midst of barb-wire, trenches, mounds of earth, stone barricades and nervous armed Israeli teenagers, will not soon be forgotten by any of us. We prayed for the Israeli soldiers, for the people of Deir Ibzia, for sanity, for peace.

On return we found the checkpoint between Ramalla and Jerusalem closed. It would open soon, the Israeli soldiers said. We waited two hours. Every thirty minutes or so soldiers came to move the waiting crowd back from the barrier by threats of teargas and plastic bullets. There was ample evidence on the ground that this was their normal way of crowd control - each CPTer took home "souvenir" canisters and/or bullets. At 6:00 p.m. they declared the checkpoint closed for the night. The Israeli officer offered to seek special permission for the CPTers to cross which we refused. He then fired a shot in the air as a warning to those still lingering. The twelve CPTers knelt and prayed instead of dispersing, confounding the oppressors and delighting the oppressed.

Intrepid taxi-van drivers offered to help us get to Jerusalem. They took us up into the hills and dropped us at a deep trench bulldozed along the border. Crossing quickly we slipped through a cut in the razor-wire fence. Palestinians running towards us to catch our vans warned us of soldiers up ahead. Another fearless driver waved to us from the top of a hill on the left. As we climbed we heard an APC approaching. Crammed into one van we bumped across several fields and then, following small roads, ended up on the main road to Jerusalem not far past the checkpoint. A third van took us into the Holy City.

Besiege the heavens with your prayers. Besiege the governments with cries to end the occupation.

Salaam, Shalom, Peace. Bob