Fortifying my nerve I started up the stairs negotiating sand, garbage and a huge pile of wires. Upon reaching the landing, as I was about to climb the second flight of stairs a huge hand knocked against the glass door startling me.  Behind it a man barked, “Where are you going? Go back!”

My heart leaped into my throat, beating frantically broke as I felt my forehead break into a cold. I forgot I was holding my daughter, turning so quickly that I almost dropped her. I imagined that the soldiers would open and when I turned, I saw the rest of the kids behind me. I told them to go back quickly and we all ran down the stairs, making a lot of noise in our hurry. When we reached my parents-in-law’s house, the soldiers shot two bullets skywards, and someone shouted in broken Arabic “Go home”.

Terrified, we ran for the refuge of my in-laws home. The soldiers were still in my house.

We had breakfast and prepared bread, which came out exactly in the same way it did the first time. It did not rise. No one complained. At about lunchtime, we heard on the news that the curfew was to be lifted from 3-5 in the western side of the city only, which meant that we in the eastern side were still under curfew. The soldiers in my house poured water from our windows down to my parents-in-law’s backyard. We didn’t know why but thought perhaps they were trying to get rid of our water reserve, so that by the time they left we would have no water.  I guess that they wanted to make it hard for us even after they left. Still, I just wanted them to leave even if it meant we'd have no water at all. I don't mind dying because of lack of water. What I can't bear is their stay in my house.

So many times, I wanted to go and tell these soldiers: 

“Excuse me! I am the owner of this house. I left with my family before you came, seeking a safe place for my children. When we left, we took nothing with us. I need to go in and get some clothes, food, milk and diapers for my little girl. I am unarmed. Mr. Sharon told his people yesterday that he wasn’t against civilians. He was only against terrorists. I am not a terrorist. I am a mother who is concerned about her children’s safety and health and I love my house just like you love yours.  If you don’t want to let me go in, let me at least clean the stairs since they are full of sand, empty cans, wires and toilet paper. My stairs have never been so dirty. Let me just have a look inside. Does it look as dirty inside as outside? How long are you going to stay here?"

Saturday April 13, 2002

Yesterday, the children made me sneak a look at our stairs when we heard the soldiers sing and laugh loudly. We could see and count about twelve of them going up the stairs. It was so hard for me to imagine this number of enemy soldiers in my house. How did the house look from inside? So many questions kept crossing my mind. Where are they now: upstairs or downstairs? Where do they sleep? Are they using our beds, our sheets and blankets? How do they spend the 24 hours of the day? How do they manage their way during the night without electricity? Where have they placed their machine guns? Are they hiding tiny cameras and explosive objects in the children's bedrooms? Are they looking at our photo albums? Are they damaging our official documents, such as birth certificates? Why didn't we take our passports with us when we left? What things have they damaged so far?

The BBC news reported on the catastrophe in Jenin camp and how the bodies of dead civilians had been taken away by the Israeli soldiers in their tanks to be buried inside Israel. The reason behind this was to hide the size and the horror of their crime. Do the people outside our country know what is happening? Do they watch these things on T.V.? I doubt it. I guess people are busy watching football and movies. I feel we are abandoned and neglected, and no one cares about what is happening to us I had always felt bad whenever I heard about disasters in the world. Although the only thing we could do was to feel sorry, at least there was something that we did. The whole world community is blind to our suffering, though. Even God is blind, or turning His back to what is happening! Israel is becoming a superpower. (Actually Israel is a superpower possessing 600 WMD's and the 4th largest military in the world.  Only the US, China and North Korea hold more power).

After what has happened in Palestine, Israel is clearly capable of invading any country including America. America will then realize that the terrorists are not just in Palestine; they are also in Israel. Why is killing the occupying Israeli forces unjustifiable and is considered an act of terrorism while killing Palestinians is considered self-defense? What logic is there in interpreting killing in two different ways? Why are their dead people holy, sacred and have blue blood in their veins, while our dead are dirty and their blood is rotten?

As my son discussed with his sister how horrible war was, his sister corrected him, stating this is not war. "War needs two equal parties with two armies that have planes, tanks and soldiers. Israel alone has all these things, while we have nothing and our rights of our lands and homes have been taken away from us”.

Then we heard the sound of breaking glass. We listened carefully and discovered that the soldiers in my house were smashing glasses, cups and plates against the wall in front of us. Some of the broken items were crystal glasses that I had received as a gift from my sister from Saudi Arabia. Others were tea and coffee cups. I myself had never used these items; now I watched as they were broken before my eyes. I felt bad as I imagined the amount of damage that might have been done inside the house. I prayed to God for an end to this. My husband then hoped that they wouldn’t damage the furniture. No compensation was expected because we had no insurance, and even if we had, it wouldn’t cover war. What right is there for anyone to invade the house of someone and use and destroy his own property? What reasons justify such actions?

My mother-in-law decided to clean the fridge after lunch. Everything in the fridge was rotten and smelled bad. We threw away all the vegetables and food and cleaned the fridge that stood in the kitchen corner as a neat empty box. By then, we had consumed all our reserve of fruit, vegetables, meat and frozen food. We were left with dried food such as rice, macaroni, lentils, beans and peas. We wondered what to prepare for lunch. We asked the neighbor for yogurt, and my father-in-law who was the bravest so far went to the backyard that overlooks a garden between the neighbors and us. The garden was open to the soldiers. As my father-in-law took the bottle of yogurt from the neighbor and turned back towards the door, the soldiers shouted at him “Go home”. Then he told them that this was his home, but they kept saying, “Go home”.

All of a sudden a bullet came out and shattered the stillness. We all rushed inside the house. My father-in-law threw himself to the ground and crawled his way into the house quickly. The soldiers then opened fire and we heard 3 bullets. My father-in-law came back with half the yogurt. We cooked yogurt and rice for lunch. The kids didn’t like it. They ate tuna instead. I told them that they should expect innovations regarding food and cooking. My father-in-law could have been killed or injured, or he could have had a heart attack. Was his life worth the yogurt? I guess not. I guess he was a brave man who sacrificed himself. We all love him and respect him.

In the afternoon, Nana told me that she was having her first period. We were expecting this, but due to our preoccupation with the situation we had forgotten all about it. As part of our preparations, I had bought her new panties and sanitary napkins. We remembered that all these things were left in our house and that we couldn’t go and get them. Nana felt bad and cried. She was shy that her little feminine secret was no longer a secret, and that the family knew about it. I calmed her down, and asked my mother-in-law for a clean sheet that she didn’t need. I cut the sheet into pieces and with a needle and thread I made her sanitary napkins out of cloth. I thought of using her little sister’s diapers, but didn’t, because then we would run out of them, and we would have a real problem. Although Nana was restless, she tried to accept things as they were. It was very hard for me to see her cry. I hope that she'll go over this normally. Nana is sensitive and cute. She tries to please me and help me all the time. I believe that she is older than her real age. It is true that Palestinian children are grownups and more mature than other children. I hope that by the time her next period comes, the soldiers would have left our house, and she'd be able to use decent diapers just like other girls of her age around the world.

The curfew was still on in our area. Curfews are killing. When you are imprisoned inside your house and inside your city and inside your county, you wish you were in a real prison instead. There at least, you would receive food, water, electricity and company. My son and his little sister came to me quickly and asked me to go out with them. I did. They told me to listen carefully. I did. Then Nammor told me: “Isn’t that music coming from Nadeen’s teddy bear?” “Yes, it is”. I told him. Nadeen who remembered her toys in our house started to cry as she recognized the sound. She wanted her toy. We tried to convince her that we couldn’t go to our house to get her toy for her. But it was useless and she kept on crying. How would anyone convince a 3-year old child that she couldn’t see or even touch her own toys because a stranger, an enemy, a soldier had been playing with her toy. It was hard to see her cry. After a while she slept with tears in her eyes. Nammor then remembered the candies and sweets that he had left in our house. He was dying for a chocolate bar.

At supper, we had tuna and white salted cheese. There wasn’t enough bread. I don’t believe that anybody was satisfied.

In the evening the B.B.C carried the news about foreign reporters including Israeli reporters who visited Nablus and Jenin and came back with horrible pictures and stories of the devastation, destruction and damage that had taken place in these cities. They also talked about hundreds of dead people and tens of rotten bodies in Jenin camp. However, the Israeli reporters said, “They saw nothing abnormal”. Whom are these reporters trying to deceive: the Israelis, the Palestinians or the world? All, I guess. They can hide the facts today, but history will never forgive their crimes. Time and reproach will be their enemies. The truth will never be hidden.
 

The news also reported about the attempts of the Israelis to take the dead bodies away and to bury them in Israel in an attempt to cover-up their crime. This we were shocked to hear, that the killer, the invader, the attacker takes the bodies of his victims to his own land and bothers to bury them there. Why? I was so tired of thinking. That night my mind felt heavy though for once it remained relatively quiet, except for the occasional gunfire here and there. Sunday April 14, 2002 Our first mission today was to make bread. We doubled the amount and divided the job among us: my mother-in-law made the dough, my father in law cut it into small balls, I rolled out the dough and my husband baked them. The whole process took about 3 hours. Our second innovation for lunch was grape leaves; stuffed “dawali”. In our yard, a grapevine still existed, holding onto its few green leaves. We collected the green leaves, added boiling water to them to soften them, and stuffed them with rice and onion. What was missing from dish was ground meat. The dish looked exactly the same as in normal situations but tasted different. The kids welcomed the idea and ate it. Our neighbor asked us for a recipe for her 6-month-old grandson who was suffering from diarrhea. My mother-in-law advised her to use starch and water (a folk remedy) since the medication that we had was in our house and we couldn’t get it. At about 2 o’clock, a heavy vehicle lumbered onto our street.  It sounded like a truck. We inspected the street, and yes, it was a huge water container that was distributing water to the houses that hadn’t received water supply. My father-in-law went up to the street. The street was muddy and full of water because the pipes that supply the houses on the other side of the street had been broken. One of the neighbors there had no water and tried to open the door to his house from inside but couldn’t because it seemed that a tank had backed into the frame of the door and damaged it. The neighbor who was shouting handed the buckets to the truck driver from over the wall that surrounded the house. Then the soldiers in my house shouted at the man and the other people who were looking from their windows since it was a golden chance for them to open their windows and breathe fresh air instead of the stale air inside their houses. The curfew was still on. We were getting tired and haggard. The curfew is hard when people are stuck together continually in a small space. Tensions erupt under such circumstances. That was exactly what happened in one of the nearby houses where shouting and yelling were heard. It seemed that two teenage-boys were fighting and their parents were trying to calm them down. The Israeli radio station said that the curfew would be lifted from 3-7. We hoped that this time the whole city from west to east would be included. We were waiting impatiently. Unfortunately, the curfew was lifted on the western side of the city only for 30 minutes. The soldiers were terrified to see the huge number of people out in the streets of the city, filled with anger at the size of destruction and sabotage, so the soldiers re-imposed the curfew. At about 3 o’clock, the military vehicle that supplies the soldiers with food arrived. The kids dared to look at what the soldiers were carrying: a huge box of fruit (apples, bananas and oranges) another big box of cans and containers, another of covered objects, plastic cups and plates, bottles of mineral water, bottles of Coca Cola and other kinds of soft drinks, and nylon sacks full of things. Three soldiers were carrying all these things from the vehicle up to our house. Nammor then said, “They are lucky. They have Coca Cola”. Nammor is a Coca-Cola addict. All this food could feed many families that had been under curfew for two weeks now. On the street, and next to the tank, there was a huge pile of garbage sacks that was similar to the tank in size. The soldiers had been throwing these sacks from the windows of our house to the street. It seemed that all that these soldiers were doing was eating, drinking, having our home as shelter and leaving their garbage in our homes and streets. Their only duty was to disturb us and make our nights darker and our nightmares even worse. These soldiers were not threatened. They were relaxed and enjoying themselves in my house. It was like vacation for them, while for us it was hell. We were their victims and hostages. Their power came from frightening our children and old people. Their power came from using their American weapons that blow up our bodies and houses. In fact, these soldiers are cowards.

the Abaas' The humiliation of a family Story and Photos by Mohammed from Rafah One of the issues the Courage to Refuse Soldiers address is the humiliation and terrorization of civilians as this picture shows. This is not an isolated incident. Naji Abaas (in the ground above) 35 year old tailor and dressmaker husband and father of two led a quiet and frugal life, supporting his family of four on meager wages when possible. Often work was scarce. Though life under occupation is difficult, Naji, nor any member of his family ever engaged in any terrorist or political activities. They are just a family, trying to survive in the city of Beit Lahia. Around seven o'clock one morning a group of Israeli soldiers arrived in tanks, parked outside, walked up to the house, smashing in the front door rather than knocking and entered the home. Naji, his wife and children were still in bed, the noise jettisoning them from their sleep. The faces of the soldiers were covered with make-up and paint., much like the war paint popular with native tribes.  To the family, with faces obscured in such a way, they did not look human. Shocked and terrified, the family moved aside, filled with fear. The soldiers shattered, broke and tore all the furniture and all of the belongings the family owned, shouting and screaming as they did.  Nothing remained intact. Once all was destroyed, they commanded Naji to come with them handcuffing him, while another soldier assaulted his wife, forcing her head on the ground by digging his knee into her neck,  all while  verbally assaulting her with vile and derogatory comments. Naji's wife cried in pain and confusion, pleading with the soldiers as to why they were doing this to her family. Instead of and answer, the Israeli soldier smacked  her head with the blunt end of his weapon. The other soldiers continued to smash and destroy anything they could find. In the kitchen they found nothing but bread and tea in the cupboard, which they trashed while cynically joking about the poverty of the family, now made worse as the soldiers had destroyed what little the family  had. With the mother humiliated and subdued, the soldiers turned their attention to the children. One reached up and knocked the little girl Malak across her face.  Immediately her mother screamed, "Why do you hit her? She is just a child!" The soldier answered: "We hit her because she has brown eyes. We will take her with us, because she is our child, not yours and you have stolen her from us!" After a pause, the soldier released the little girl, commanding Mrs. Abaas and her two children to stand in the corner of the room, adding if the family moved, the soldiers would kill them.   Naji Abaas' Children Then the soldiers left as quickly as they came.  Mrs Abaas and the children stayed in the corner for the next three hours, afraid the soldiers might return. Even when her neighbors arrived to check, Mrs. Abaas and the children could only cry.   Nothing could be said. Around 8 o'clock in the evening, Naji appeared, half of his clothes torn off and his face strewn with tears.  Throughout his body serious injuries began making their presence known through bruises and cuts. Even his breathing labored after spending the day buried up to his chest in the ground.  "They (Israeli Soldiers) put me in a very narrow hole," he told his wife and neighbors.  "And hit my head with iron balls repeatedly. I don’t know any thing after they cover my eyes. One of the soldiers put his leg at my head, and put more and more sand on my head, I felt that they want to bury all my body; it was horrible. I ask them for help, but I didn’t hear anything. After that, they left us and went back to their centers. I was afraid that they are still nearby and would shoot me when I leave the hole, and because I was so weak I could not move any more. Finally, a man helped me to get out of the hole."  See the Original Story

The Israelis said that they had taken over the cities, purified the country of terrorists and that their mission was over. We admit that they are stronger, more powerful, and crueler.  We admit the Israelis are capable of not only crushing us, but capable of wiping us off this earth in a short period of time. We admit all that. But why are their tanks in our streets? Why are their soldiers in our houses and their planes in our sky? Why are they still here? Why don’t they leave us and give us time to raise our heads a little, to breathe, to see the sun, to see God and let God see us. What are they afraid of? It seems that they are afraid of the Palestinian will and spirit, which they will neither touch nor scratch. We hurt, but we will never complain to America or the United Nations. It is humiliating to complain to human beings. Complaints should be sent to God only who is more powerful and stronger than human beings. NEXT

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