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introduction Two years ago, America launched its war against terror in Afghanistan. A few months later, God launched his earthquake against Afghanistan. Both wars were against man and nature. The following March, Sharon intensified his war against the Palestinians. His army invaded Ramallah as the whole world witnessed the human disaster Israeli soldiers
unleashed on our people. It seems we in Palestine have three Gods: the Almighty God in the sky, America and Israel on earth. The last two prove capable of being almighty and launching disastrous man-made earthquakes. Both nations proclaim their justification, a “War against Terror”, though it soon became obvious this is a war against civilians, trees, animals and homes. Unarmed people, children, olive trees and houses can never be forms of terror
according to the civilized world in the West or the primitive peoples in the East. After the incursion of Ramallah, the cities of Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Jenin and Bethlehem were invaded and reoccupied. Then it was our turn. We in Nablus had been expecting the invasion for two or three days, but never could we have imagined or predicted the horrors accompanying it. The following contains excerpts from a diary I wrote during a time when an occupying
army, ostensibly fighting terror, invaded and took over my house. It has taken me a long time to pick up this diary and look at it again. -- Wafa Abu Shmais Part 1: The Invasion Wednesday April 3, 2002 9:00 pm The tanks and other heavy machinery began to move towards our city of Nablus, and the sounds of heavy shooting and explosions could be heard all around us. We were expecting the attack but not before midnight. They invaded from both the north and the south, and the sounds of bombs, shelling and
explosions were so intense that our windows and doors shook, and some were even shattered. Apache helicopter gunships in the sky supported the tanks on the ground; they were flying low when they opened fire and watching missiles shot from those helicopters hit their targets was terrifying. Only then did my husband and I decide to stay with my parents-in-law since our home, located on the upper floor, was in greater danger of being hit by missiles. My mother-in-law lives in a big house below ours. The windows of our house overlook the entrances to her
house, which is located below the level of the main street. The area where we live is usually quiet, peaceful and beautiful. I told my children to carry things like pajamas, some bread, canned food, and diapers for our three-year-old daughter. We put out all the lights in the house except one as a precaution against burglars. We locked the main door and closed the glass one and ran down the stairs to safety. We could see bullets and huge fireballs in the
sky hurtling to the ground. In the distance, we could make out the lights of tanks as they moved slowly towards the city. There were tanks in several streets, and the shelling was coming from all directions. We arrived breathless, and fourteen-year-old Nana, twelve-year-old Vino, ten-year-old Nammor and little Nadeen were really afraid. We entered the house quickly, and my husband and his mother tried to calm them down, cautioning: “You must get used to these sounds since this may take days, even months. Let us all pray now that God protect us and keep
us safe.” Since we were expecting an electrical failure, we decided to serve supper so that the kids could go to bed. Half an hour later, when it was completely dark, we looked from the door and saw that there was a total blackout, no electricity throughout the city. We understood that the Israeli army’s first target was the electrical generator, leaving us without light or even a little heat. The bombardment intensified and we were getting increasingly scared. The lights of the tanks were bright as they wound through the streets in long lines, and their disturbingly loud clanking could be heard for miles. Four hundred tanks were expected to enter the city from three different directions. We made some calls and received others to make sure that friends and relatives were okay. Now that there was no TV, we had no idea whatsoever was happening outside. Since we were declared a
“closed military area” and the press was not allowed; no one else would know. We were alone.
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We decided that one room was safer than the rest, so we spread blankets and sheets near the walls and prepared the children for bed. Nana, who had a clogged nose, couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t breathe freely, Vino was complaining of a headache and Nammor decided to sleep next to me, but little Nadeen was hyperactive with all the excitement, blissfully unaware of the danger surrounding us. She couldn't sleep and kept running and shouting, laughing and babbling about Israelis,
bombs, shooting etc. My father-in-law, stating that if death came it would strike regardless of location, decided to sleep in his room in his own bed,
thursday
April 4, 2002 12:00 am:
It sounded like hell itself outside. Sleep was impossible. We all took many turns using the one bathroom. I myself used the toilet six times between 9 and 12. We had not expected a power failure immediately quite so early in the invasion and were really worried about the meat, chicken, vegetables and bread we had stored in the fridge. 2:00 am:
We put out the candles because of the smell, leaving a lamp next to the candle in case someone needed to get up. The room was stuffy due to the smoke. My husband, a heavy smoker, was smoking more than ever and the room had become quite stuffy. All the kids went to bed except Vino, who said she couldn’t sleep because she thought that there would be an end for all this soon. She kept talking and asking questions: what might happen to us, and
whether we’d be killed or not. Finally, she got tired and fell asleep. My mother-in-law was also tired and struggling to keep her eyes open. |
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The most frightening sight for any Palestinian is to see the gathering of tanks, fortified troop carriers and armored bulldozers, most supplied by the United States at little or no charge on the edge of their city. This group is preparing to enter Gaza August 7, 2004. On April 3, 2002, a similar group would have been stationed outside of Wafa's city of Nablus.
COMMON
MISCONCEPTION: The
Palestinians do not have an army. They have never had an army. They fight against the fourth largest military in the world, a nuclear superpower equipped with 600 WMD's and the best America has to offer: tanks, gunships, missiles, bulldozers, and jets. They fight against massive armaments and the biological and chemical weapons frequently used on them with rocks, homemade bombs, the occasional smuggled rocket and other small arms. They've been doing this in
one form or another since the first Massacres prior to statehood in 1948, which killed thousands and displaced 750,000, and through Israel's invasion of the West Bank, Gaza, Northern Egypt and the Golan Heights in 1967.
The West Bank is home to the largest single reserve of Natural Gas on the planet.; Israel continues to illegally siphon this off. The Palestinians get nothing. The terror levied on the Palestinian Christians and Muslims only occurs because the United States continues to fund and protect Israel, allowing it to continue its campaign of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid unchecked and without accountability. The main reason this continues is because the average American
has no idea what they are supporting, nor do they realize this conflict is why terrorism against Americans exists and will continue to exist. It is the root cause behind 9/11 and terrorism promoted by pharisaical leaders for reasons of self-interest: religious, political and economic. Arabs don't hate Israelis because they are Jewish.
And they don't hate America for its "freedom". Their anger is because of what Israel is doing to them, protected and supported by the US: dehumanizing, exterminating and starving them, treating them as the Nazis did the Jews during the 1930's and 1940's, making this nearly sixty year holocaust, that much more unfathomable and completely without logic.
Photographs courtesy of Mohammed of Rafah
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4:00 am: The noises outside were terrifying and they sounded closer and closer. It was as if our house was being targeted. Everyone was asleep or half-asleep, jumpy and restless. My head felt hot and ready to explode. Although it was cold and rainy outside, I felt warm and my feet kept getting warmer. It was a long night. Thursday April
4, 2002 6:00 am: Daylight was breaking. A bird was singing outside. However, shooting and explosions interrupted the song. We understood that one of the targets was a nearby refugee camp, (Balta). The same scenario was repeated: shooting, shelling, explosions,
bombardments, shooting, shelling, explosions, and bombardments, on and on. We heard later that two people were killed and many injured. It was raining and soldiers were calling through the loudspeaker for a family in the camp to evacuate their house because it was going to be destroyed. The occupants were ordered to leave the house with their hands up and were given to the count of ten. That was all the time they were given: we could hear the soldier counting down: 10, 9, 8 and by the time he reached 1, the doors of hell suddenly opened. There was shelling from
many directions, loud explosions, and the smell of dynamite and dust. Our friends called and told us that a three-story building had been completely destroyed within seconds. The occupants fled for their lives, leaving everything they owned behind them inside the house. These people became homeless in an instant, and had to take refuge with their neighbors. 3:00 PM: In the afternoon, we discovered that we had little water left in our storage tank. We decided to use the water that we had collected and stored in containers of different sizes and shapes, including Coca-Cola bottles. We advised the children to economize and not waste water. We used a container for washing dishes and another in the bathroom to avoid using the faucet. We prepared sandwiches for supper in order not to use dishes and wash them. Every now and then
someone would turn on the lights only to discover that the electricity was still cut off. The children were getting bored being cooped up inside the house. They couldn’t watch TV and had to keep quiet so that we could hear what was happening outside. We remembered that we had kept batteries in readiness for such an emergency and could listen to the news over BBC radio. We heard that seven people had been killed and their bodies left on the streets of the old city of Nablus. The soldiers were bombing, shelling and destroying houses in an attempt to enter the
old city, their second target. Evening: It was another long night. The kitchen was located below the level of the street, only 5 meters from the cement wall that supported the street. Next to the kitchen was the room that we chose to sleep in. From the window we could see the red lights of two Apaches in the sky right above us. We thought that they were going to bombard our area. But no, the target was the old city: we counted six rockets coming from the Apaches
aimed over there. The Apaches continued their mission throughout the night. 3:00 AM: As I was lying in bed at about 3 a.m., I could see that it was extremely dark from the window to my left, although the moon was visible from the window right in front of me. The moon was half-hidden behind the clouds, as though it did not want to witness what was happening. Even the clouds were moving quickly. Aren’t they tired of treading and revolving over our suffering? I wondered if the same moon had witnessed our dark and cruel history over the years? Palestine has always been occupied, and
we Palestinians have never enjoyed true freedom. All my life, I have dreamed of living in a free, independent state. I got married and had children and we are all still living in the longest dream on earth. Why is this happening to us? Why is man cruel? Why is nature cruel? Why is our history dark? Is it true that there is light after long darkness? When will we be able to see a flash of light? Preoccupied with such thoughts, I began to feel it was a crime even to think since my thoughts were constantly interrupted by shots and sounds from different
directions frequencies and distances. It sounded like a gang of maniacs playing various kinds of harsh, unpleasant, noisy and crazy instruments. Friday April 5, 2002 We prepared breakfast; sandwiches again. The house is surrounded by a small garden of 2X8 m2 where my parents-in-law have planted some rose bushes and three or four shrubs. The kids took their sandwiches outside the house and into the little garden. We could hear the heavy, noisy movement of the tanks and
military vehicles not very far away and could imagine what was happening. Bulldozers preceded the tanks, destroying everything in their path: cars, trees, streets, electric and telephone poles, water pipes, sewage pipes, the doors and walls of houses, even traffic lights and pavement. All these things had happened in Ramallah, and now they were being deliberately repeated in our city. The purpose was simply to destroy the infrastructure of the city. Next |
