Two students from the University of Manchester were not able to reach An-Najah their twin university in the West Bank due to the city being under siege, curfew, and attack from the Israeli army.
The students were in the west bank on a family visit, and agreed to visit an-Najah for the purpose of collecting important documents for the UMSU. However for the duration of their visit, the city of Nablus was under incursions from the Israeli army, to the damage of 40 million Israeli shekels, and the injury of 38 civilians including 2 disabled civilians and medical staff.
The students had arranged with the staff of the university and the students’ council to visit the university but every time they tried to travel from Bethlehem to Nablus (around 50miles) they were turned away by Israeli checkpoints around the Nablus.
Also, the journey, straight from Bethlehem to Nablus should take no more than one and a half hours. However, due to the status of the Manchester students, they were not allowed to go through Jerusalem, so the detour including waiting at the Israeli checkpoints took them up to four hours each time.
Palestinian students from An-Najah were clearly disappointed the visit was not allowed to happen when he said: “I was looking forward to meeting students from UMSU, the support we had from them is amazing, but it’s different when it’s face to face.”
Rana Batarseh, from UMSU was equally disappointed, “I guess this is why we choose to twin with a Palestinian university, the travel restrictions are collective punishment embossed on a whole people, they don’t allow a normal life to go on, we had been looking forward to this visit for a long time, I really hope, these the conditions change for the sake of the people who are living here. I was also shocked to hear that students from An Najah university were illegally detained by the Israeli army during the incursion without charge, and to this day haven’t been charged. I really think that UMSU should do something to support these students, who add to the 56 already being tortured in Israeli jails.”
The twinning between UMSU and An Najah University began after the motion to twin the two institutions was passed at the March 2006 General Meeting. Since then the two institutions have hosted shared events. The twinning has ignited many a debate on campus surrounding the situation in Palestine and has faced some opposition yet many students support this link and also defended this twinning at Nov 14th General Meeting 2007.
Dr Nabil’s thoughts on the invasion “The invasion happened at a time when the governor of Nablus was able to restore order to the City by collecting arms from all armed men who roamed the streets of Nablus. The invasion disturbed the students who live in the City away from their families after commuting has become impossible because of the atrocities and harassments they are exposed to at the roadblocks. The invasion increases frustrations among the young population of university students, who were anticipating an ease up of the situation after Annapolis only to face a new wave of unjustified harassment. The Israelis always like to abort all attempts made at improving the Palestinian conditions under the pretext of Security. Palestinian young men are aware of the fact that detaining, humiliating and killing helpless young men will certainly not help in promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli acts of violence against Palestinians aim at evacuating Palestinian young from their land after driving them to the limits of despair. The invasion renewed scenes of bloodshed in the street of Nablus; one Palestinian young man was shot in the head on his way to the Friday prayer right in front of The Old Campus of An-Najah National University. The killed man was a father of two young children and the Israeli soldiers admitted killing him by mistake. During the incursion, the University was closed for three days, and several young people were arrested.
Nabil Alawi, Ph.D., Director, Public Relations Department
Anna Baltzer writing from Nablus, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 14 March 2007
6 March 2007
I don’t know where to begin. It would make sense to start at the beginning, but the beginning was ages ago, long before I arrived. Nor is there any end in sight. I was plopped into life in Nablus for one short week and I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover. And as I write from a place of safety, the people of Nablus continue to struggle, not just with the nightly incursions, bombings, and assassinations, but also simply to remember their own humanity in spite of the most inhumane treatment. I’m trying to rediscover my own, to revive the parts of me now polluted with anger, or worse — shut off, as if a part of me is dead. And I was there for just one week.
We arrived on Sunday to help volunteers from the UPMRC (Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees) deliver food and medical services. Dozens of jeeps and hundreds of soldiers had surrounded the Old City and declared curfew on all of Nablus. Their stated mission was to capture or assassinate eight fighters from Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement. Meanwhile, the 40,000 residents of Nablus Old City were trapped in their homes, inside a war zone, unable to go to work or school, or even to buy food for their families.
According to many families, this invasion posed a greater threat than those of the past because it was coming on top of an already desperate economic situation caused by the US-led embargo after the Hamas elections. Whereas in the past residents would stock up on food and supplies in case of an invasion, these days people hardly have enough to meet their current needs. People are working to buy bread for that very day, so the invasion was not only leaving them out of food, but preventing them from going out to make the money they needed to buy more.
The Medical Relief volunteers led us into the Old City. Families called to us from windows above the twisted cobbled streets: “We have no more food!”; “My baby needs milk!”; “My mother has diabetes and is out of insulin!” As we rounded each corner, we would call, “Internationals! Medical Relief!” knowing soldiers were less likely to shoot foreigners breaking curfew than others. Sometimes around the corner we came face to face with soldiers, their guns pointed at us, jumpy and angry: “GO BACK!” “PUT AWAY YOUR CAMERA!” Often they were holding back large muzzled dogs. My heart was beating and knees shaking so fast I was sure I would collapse, but we followed the Medical Relief volunteers’ lead. They were not interested in challenging the soldiers’ actions and authority, just in getting treatment and food to people who needed it. I recognized that this is one major difference between direct action solidarity work and humanitarian aid.
Sometimes the soldiers allowed the doctor and medical volunteers through. Often they didn’t. As night fell and soldiers refused our passage to the hospital, we decided to call it a day and hoped we’d have more luck in the morning. As we were making our last bread delivery, eight soldiers walked by our group with one Palestinian. The man spoke quietly as he passed us, and the medical volunteers immediately relayed to us the message he had given them: “I am being used as a human shield.”
for the rest of the story and part 2 and three
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6672.shtml