A taste of the "war against terrorism"

Marcus Armstrong in Nablus/Jerusalem
July 12, 2002

Dear all

Thank you again for all for your mails - sorry I have not had time to reply personally. This will probably be my last email from Palestine - I am safely back in Jerusalem for a couple of days before flying home on Monday. I feel very strange, part of me guilty and heavy with loss at leaving, but also relieved to be in the relative sanity of Jerusalems old city.

The last three days have been so insane that I can't even find the words to describe my feelings about them, and I don't really know what it means to write these things anymore, or if it's too long, too much. I'll just have to say what happenned. Please please pass this mail on to everyone you can, especially any press contacts anyone may have - none of this has been reported in the international press to my knowledge.

On tue a team of us carried on doing occupied house visits. We went to a house very high up on the outskirts of Nablus. A rich family of 8 people were living in one room in a half finished house with no windows and rubble everywhere because the soldiers had taken their house. They had no belongings with them. they said to us they would be willing to share the house with the soldiers rather than live how they were.

Four of us went up to the house expecting a few soldiers, but there was a small army there and they started to fire around us as soon as they saw us. Two of them came down to talk to two of us. One soldier was hard and rude, another visibly upset and said sorry, they were having to do things they did not want to do. We talked for a few minutes but they were well dug in at the house and there was no room left for the family. The upset soldier said he would give us his name and number so we could contact his commander to discuss it, the other soldier said no they would not give names or anything and we should go as there was a curfew. I said to them that I hope they knew that if their families were in this situation we would help them as well. This caused the rude soldier to have a complete fit and wave the barrel of his gun in our faces. He said that if we did not go immediately we would be arrested and under his control and he did not know what may happen. We went.

On tue night many tanks and armoured personnel carriers (apc's) entered the city and there was about 2 hours of heavy gunfire and explosions from the Rafidia sector. I don't know what was going on.

On Wed morning we did another house visit. We got in and the family was okay. They wanted us to bring their brothers family to stay with them and the soldiers said this was okay, we could do this the next morning. An amazing result. We were not sure if the brother would want to move into an occupied house, but he did when we called him. He said it was too terrible with overcrowding at the Belata refugee camp where there were 5 of them in one small room in a house with a fmaily in each room.

On Wed afternoon, a tank and APc went down the main road by Askar refugee camp imposing curfew and a few teenage boys threw some stones at the tank. So the tank and soldiers opened fire on them. One 19 year old died with shots to his face and neck, an 11yr old and 13yr old boy were seriously injured. It was a terrible time for everyone. What can we say to these people? How can we answer for or explain these things?

Wed night was my first night off the ambulance night shift and I was sleeping at the medical centre near the ambulance station. About 3am I was awoken by tanks rolling past our door up to the station. We called them and the co-ordinator said they had taken over the station with tanks and apcs and all the drivers and paramedics and 1 international were lined up outside against the wall. He had been allowed to stay at the phones in the office. There were 5 of us internationals at the med centre. There ensued a heated discussion about what to do? Go up there in the dark? do nothing. How many of us? The med centre staff did not want to be left alone, the ambulance co-ordinator was too scared of being shot to go outside and tell the soldiers we wanted to talk with them. We decided that all 5 of us should go up, otherwise what were we there for? but leave by the med centre back door so as not to be seen. We all put on light clothes and I was nominated as negotiator, a job which I didn't really want this night. We left and as we started up the hill I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life.

We all called out as we walked up the hill so as not to surprise them and get shot. They saw/heard us, I walked forward with my passport and my hands up, and two of them walked down to me. I got lucky because they knew me. They had stopped the ambulance I was on a few nights previously and we had talked. After about 10 minutes of discussion they said two of us could go up to the station to check all were okay. The crews were all okay. We then negotiated to get back the ID's of two drivers and two paramedics so that two ambulances could go out on emergency calls which they agreed to, which was good. I spent the rest of the night there.

On Thu morning curfew had been lifted for a few hours so we picked up the family of 5 who were moving in with their brother and took them to the occupied house in a taxi. How crazy. When we got to the occupied house the shift had changed and of course this shift hadn't been informed about the agreement made yesterday. So we negotiated it all again and they agreed.

As we were finishing at the house we got a call to say that though curfew was off, there was a problem at the roadblock about 100 yards from the house we were at and things were getting tense. There was a tank and apc allowing everyone into Nablus but not allowing anyone out to the villages and surrounding refugee camps.

A team of 5 women internationals arrived and went to talk to the soldiers in the tank, and us four went to talk to the border patrol guards in the apc. It was a sad, mad situation, hundreds of people and families with bags and food trying to scrabble over a mountain of rubble and through the ditch left when the israelis ripped up the road to block it. The apc driver looked completely deranged and was clearly completely stressed out and angry. When I approached the soldier who seemed to be in charge he said "if you want problems we can give you really big problems" and I wasn't sure what to say to this. I asked him who he was getting his orders from rather than engage with him and he said an officer in the occupied house we had just been in. So me and one other ran up to the house to talk with this officer while two stayed at the apc. In the meantime the five women had worked miracles with the tank and had gotten the crew to park it off the road and switch its engine off and were telling them riddles.

The officer at the house fairly quickly agreed to let women, children and old men through, which was something. I asked him to let the soldiers know immediately which he did, and we re-joined the other two at the apc. Many people got through including a lot of men. For about an hour or more we helped people over the road block and past the apc, all the while engaging with the soldiers to keep things calm. Then all of a sudden they changed. As if someone had flicked a switch, they said enough and if people didn't go back there would be trouble. I asked him to give us 5 minutes to try and let the people know, he said yes, but after about two minutes the soldiers all got out and started to get things out of the back of the apc, I went to them and was pleading with them not to do anything, but they just ignored me and started to load up their tear gas and stun grenade launchers, so I gave up and joined the Palestinians at the road block.

They fired stun grenades into us first and then tear gas. I thought I was going to die, it was so painful and the sorriest site I have seen in my life. There were many young children and babies in arms and old people in the crowd, all screaming and crying and running away in confusion. Children were collapsing. I was trying to hand out wet-ones to the mums for the children to breathe through but could hardly see myself. The pain does not last long luckily.

There then ensued a horrible game played by the border guards. They would beckon for and allow through a few people, then when the rest surged forward drive at them. Or they would drive away out of sight, everyone would rush to the roadblock and they would re-appear and drive at them again, more tear gas was fired into the crowds a bit later. We saw one taxi driver being punched and rifle-butted through the window of his car. We stayed and did what we could for the next couple of hours as this played out, and got tear-gassed again ourselves. Two of us ran to tell the commanding officer at the house about what his soldiers were doing, but a soldier at the door said it was our word against theirs and the commander was asleep and they would not wake him unless it was something important.

So this is a small taste of the so called "war against terrorism" in our brave new world.

I don't know what else to write. My mobile phone number 07967 819514 has been stolen so there's no point calling me on this until probably about the 19th july by which time I should have a replacement sim card and phone. I can be contacted at The Well on 01908 242190 from tuesday am.

I had the most precious and beautiful thing happen to me last night. As I was walking home to the med centre at dusk through the old town, a small Palestinian boy of about four or five years wandered up to me in the road, and without a word, he took my hand, squeezed it and walked with me for a while.

With much love and in peace

Marcus

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