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Brooke Atherton Reports 25/8/2002

It is hard to know where to start when I sit here and try to write to you of my expereinces here, and what I have learned so far about the experiences of the Palestinian people. So much happens each day that is shocking and horrifying, for example it is noon here on Sunday and I have already heard at least three rounds of heavy gunfire from the Israeli military close to Askar refugee camp. And every day the Palestinians here resist the oppression of Israel's illegal military occupation of their land in countless ways, for example right now children are breaking curfew to play in the streets of the refugee camp, always prepared to scatter quickly into their homes if they hear the tanks approaching the camp. I would like to share with you a few stories of this oppression and resistence. I have changed the names of the people involved in the stories.

At round midnight last night, I arrived at the home that is threatened for demolition where I would be sleeping. This home is a small building with at least 4 separate apartments where much of the extended Marhoud family lives. I would be sleeping with the grandmother, Rufeiy, I mentioned in my last email, who came here to Askar Refugee Camp in 1948 after the Israeli military drove her family out of Jaffa. As we were preparing for bed, we heard commotion next door and went to see what was happening. Salah, one of the younger men in the family had run down the stairs from his apartment with his 10-day old baby, Widad, in his arms and was running down the street in violation of curfew at night. Nighttime is the most dangersous time to violate curfew because the soldiers are even more likely than during the day to shoot and kill any Palestinian that they see outside. I ran after him, and it was clear that his daughter was very sick. We arrived at the house of the closest doctor, and the doctor was not home. We were told to go the refugee camp medical clinic. By then, the baby's mother, Soja, and another female family member had caught up with us. Salah handed the baby to his wife and the two women ran with the child towards the clinic on the egde of the camp, where they would be even more exposed to danger from Israeli soldiers. These women without question risked their lives to get medical care for the baby. We reached the clinic, all the time running and I could hear the women praying quietly, and the doctor was able to treat the child. Returning home, we walked carefully, hoping to complete the trip safely. I Soja this morning and her daughter is doing all right.

I wrote in my last email about the Israeli military bringing a bulldozer into the refugee camp three nights ago and tearing up a large portion of the main street. The bulldozers broke the asphalt into large chucks and blocked the entrances to stores, homes, and walkways between buildings to other streets in the camp. We spoke with one of the families who lives above their store on the main street. The father, mother and their 4 children were terrified throughout the hour and a half that the Israeli military was on the main street with tanks shooting and the bulldozer demolishing the road. They prayed as a family in a back room of their home. The teenage daughter explained that she did not feel like she was in her home as this was happening. When the bulldozers began to push the asphalt towards their store and home, they were convinced that it would be demolished. The Israeli military thankfully did not demolish the home, but when the military did leave and the family went to go outside to survey the damage, they could not even leave their home until other Palestinians removed the asphalt blocks piled in front of the door to their home. The entrance to the family's home was demolished, the doors broken and bent by asphalt, all of the windows broken. When their young son, Mohammad, saw the damage, he asked his parents how God could let this happen to them after they had prayed as a family for protection. His father tried to explain that the Israeli military had done this to their family, not God. If you were in this situation, how would you respond to the child? Three days later, the residents of the refugee camp have moved a lot of the rubble ad stones, most of the entrances to stores, walkways, and homes are passable now. Hopefully the Israeli military will not bring the bulldozer back, although last night it was sitting ominously in a field near the camp all night.

Last night, I drank tea and ate dinner with the family of one of the young Palestinian men, Samir, who work with the International Solidarity Movement here in Askar refugee camp. We sat on the roof of their home from which you can see all around Askar. Samir's youngest brothers were with us, ages four and five. We could see the lights of the two Israeli settlements on the tops of the hills on either side of Askar. We watched the full moon rise, red and beautiful on the horizon. Once we heard an Israeli armored personel carrier and once a tank come down the road in front of the house at full speed and everyone moved out of sight. The four and five year old were hard to get indoors, they seemed fixated with the APC and the tank, luckily their small size makes them hard to see. Many times we could see the lights of Israeli tanks, armored personel carriers, and military jeeps driving quickly on a road farther away. This is what the children see before they go to bed at night. Many children in Palestine go to bed every night to the sounds and visions of the very present Israeli military. These same children fly homemade kites of many colors of plastic, or garbage bags, or even notebook paper every afternoon in the refugee camps and in Nablus and other cities in Palestine as their own act of resistance to the repression of the Israeli military that permeates their childhood. Their kites flying in the blue afternoon sky is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

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