Just a fence?

I am now staying in the International Solidarity Movement’s apartment in Nablus, as I have decided to spend my remaining few weeks working back on the ground in Palestine.

Yesterday morning as I was sitting with my cigarette and lemon tea beginning a report for ICAHD, we received a call from the mayor of the tiny village of Izbat At Tabib. The military had arrived to begin construction of an illegal fence.

We were out of the door in ten minutes on our way to find transport. As we approached Izbat At Tabib it became clear that the army had blocked the village with jeeps and soldiers, so we asked the service to drop us further up the road so that we could sneak into the village through the fields.

The brief ISM report of the day can be viewed here.

I am always surprised at how quickly I forget the brutality of the Israeli soldiers toward Palestinians and peace activists. We were among them for several hours yesterday morning; they could see that we were no threat. And yet when they decided to push us back they violently shoved us loading their guns, using sound grenades and threatening us with pepper spray.

Fortunately I have not yet experienced pepper spray here. Like most of the warfare chemicals used by Israel, it is significantly more potent than in most places in the world (after feeling unwell most of last week, we are fairly certain that the seizure-triggering tear gas used at Qalandia contained nerve gas or similar).

Seeing the spray used yesterday was almost unbearable to watch. Two Palestinian men suffered from it. With their faces red from the chemical, they rolled around, screaming on the floor. When an ambulance arrived, the military pushed the demonstrators away from the more serious casualty, forming a line between us and him and not allowing the medics through to assist him.

At this point it was impossible not to plea with the army. We asked the soldiers ‘Where is your humanity? You have to let the medics though. This is cruel.’ We had just one response, ‘It won’t kill, it’s just pepper’.

Toward the end of the day when most people had been chased away, some of the local women came and sat on the rocks on their land, preventing the fence from being developed any further. We joined them and we don’t know if it was this action or the relentless heat or something else, but the five jeeps, 3 police vans, military bulldozer and approximately 30 heavily armed troops decided to pack up and leave.

They pushed us around a bit before they left – squabbling over which part of the road they would accept us standing on and trying to prevent a journalist from filming. The heavier border police who were dressed up a bit like the Terminator kept ordering the younger soldiers to move us. But of course we just laugh at them and don’t recognise any legitimacy in their orders on Palestinian land.

Photos to follow.