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
