Saying goodbye
The day before yesterday, I was talking to my mother on the phone, trying to persuade her to come visit me in Palestine. She was tempted. And I started planning what we would see in the week she would spend here, who we would talk to, where we would sit down and have tea. My mother and I were talking on the phone, in a bubble of first-world assurance that we would see each other again. Yesterday, only a few hours after we had hung up the phone, I woke up to a completely different reality. Sharp cracks and screams had rung throughout the night, as Israeli forces invaded Ein Beit El Ma refugee camp in the early hours of the morning.
As soon as they entered, the Israeli military started to fire teargas, concussion grenades and live ammunition into the streets and narrow alleyways of the camp. Returning fire, a group of seven or eight resistance fighters were quickly pinpointed and surrounded. 20 or more houses are occupied around them, the families evicted downstairs to sleep on mattresses behind frontdoors. An elderly lady and her daughter are woken up at half past 4 in the morning by a concussion grenade right outside their window. Unable to go back to sleep, they move into the livingroom and wait for things to calm down. Ten minutes later, 12 Israeli soldiers make a hole in the wall between their neighbours and them with a sledgehammer. While entering the home with large black dogs on leashes, they push a heavy wardrobe onto the bed where the two women had been sleeping only moments before. After locking mother and daughter into the kitchen, they proceed to shoot from their bedroom window for over five hours.
Another elderly lady a couple of blocks away is worried about her three year-old grandson who is being held by soldiers upstairs along with his parents and siblings. As I knock on the door I am surprised to hear a reply. A soldier is telling me to fuck off or he will kill me by blowing up the door. The same door that he is standing behind. At last he opens the door but I can’t see him, only his gun. A second soldier is standing in front of him, his arms shaking and sweat streaming down his temples. Ten minutes, he says. Ten minutes and we will be gone. After three minutes, they evacuate, leaving a large hole in one of the outer walls, punching a hole in the top of a martyr-poster where the head is supposed to be. Other houses exhibit greater devastation – shards of glass hanging from broken window-frames, half-empty tin cans of Israeli sweetcorn and yoghurt stuck in vases and fruit baskets, overturned beds with rubble piled on top of them, childrens’ stuffed toys sliced open and sullied.
The resistance fighters want to leave. I watch as they pull flimsy leopardprint and flowery dresses over their black and green, recognized worldwide as the uniform of the streets. One of them forgets his mendil, and his sister runs after him with it clutched in her hands. It is light purple and looks soft, like she has just wrenched it off her own head. I hope it still carries some of her scented warmth in its fabric as he wraps it around his bearded face. The tall, gangly frames look awkward in the dresses, even with the soft padding of the military style jackets underneath. Some of them are wise and take the time to laugh and adjust each other’s headscarves. One looks like a young girl, serious and heartbreakingly earnest. One of their little brothers stands holding dresses and long coats over his arm, afraid for his older friends and heroes. The guns lay wrapped in the swaths of hiked-up skirt as they dash through the alleyway one by one, live ammunition overhead, the last one triumphantly shooting down the street at the soldiers before making his way out of the camp.
They survive, the quiet fear in their eyes gradually replaced by rowdy gratefulness. Allahu akbar. And they are gone.
One of their companions had been shot in the waist a few hours earlier while patrolling the streets. His name was Baha’ and he was 26 years old. A doctor tried to get to him in an ambulance but the Israeli soldiers would not let him enter the camp so he bled to death in a relative’s home. As I enter the camp at 7 o’clock in the morning, the mosques are announcing his death, and the cries of grieving defiance ring out. Rocks, bottles and pieces of wood are hurled in the direction of the soldiers. This time they do not return fire.
Teargas lingers in invisible clouds outside Baha’s home, off the main street leading out from Nablus city. I walk with Baha’s mother and little brother through the camp. I know she is behind me because I hear her stifling her sobs as best she can. Finally, we arrive and enter into the kitchen. Baha’s body lies outstretched on a mattress, his shoed feet sticking out at the bottom and his jaw tied up with gauze. He appears to be sleeping, a duvet carefully tucked over him up to his shoulders. His cheeks look smooth and gaunt, a babyface. We have the same chin, jutting out in a slight underbite. He looks determined. Like he is in pain but does not want his mother to notice. Better not to say anything. The feeling in the room says that he was a good loving son. At least that will make the goodbyes a little easier.
His mother is crying freely now, running her hands through his cropped hair and along his shoulders and arms, kneading his knuckles between her palms. She is reminding him of something funny he said last week, bowing down her head close to his so that only he can hear her whispers, occasionally overcome with frantic grief and offering it to the world, to anyone who will take it. She beats her cheeks and rocks to and fro. The women are soon joined by neighbouring men, stamping their feet and shaking their heads at the tragedy like horses at flies. Soon they are shooed out and told to come to the funeral instead. There are still soldiers in the camp and we do not wish to attract too much attention to the place.
They abduct two young volunteers with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC). They were standing at the outskirts of the camp waiting for permission to enter in their ambulance, when they are snatched, handcuffed and blindfolded, bundled into a jeep. There are crowds of young boys on the streets and they start to hurl rocks and big boulders onto the military vehicles, rocking the jeep with the two young men in it. I wonder what they are thinking. They are later released, none the worse for wear except for chafed wrists, after lots of phonecalls have been made to various military units. Alhamdulillah for friends in high places and with white faces.
We leave to find a stretcher for the funeral, sneaking through the camp only to find that the soldiers have left. It is 11 o’clock and the children pouring out onto the streets on tired sleepless legs look grey and drawn. There is a car dumped upside down on the refuge between the car lanes, a pole sticking up through one of its side-windows. A dear friend tells me later that the pettiness of the violence disgusts her. It is devoid of all meaning, good or bad. Other cars are turned upside-down, smashed or thrown into ditches. Two bulldozers have been charging up and down the camp all morning, narrowly missing one of the ambulances, letting their blades hover above people’s heads and homes before crashing onto the tarmac below. I do not know why.
The funeral takes place half an hour later. PFLP flags are unfurled and duets about mothers and sons blare out of a car stereo. Men shoot into the air and everyone chants. The body is carried on a stretcher high above people’s heads and Baha’s mother faints as she says a second, more hurried goodbye among the crowd. I retreat to a couch in one of the post-occupied homes, drinking a cup of tea with Lubna, an 11 year-old girl now propped up against me trying to keep awake. Her brother and I read a text message from a mutual friend, congratulating us on Palestine’s independence day, the 14th November. It is sad enough to warrant a smile. Lubna’s father has spent the entire night waiting at a checkpoint in the freezing cold, worrying about his children in the camp but unable to reach them. He speaks about his life in such poetry and saves my day without even trying. Two of his sons are in prison, four outside. He turns to my friend and says, for the tenth time, that he is not attacking her. Only her government. He has nothing but love for the American people. If he did not, he would say so, for his words flow directly and unmediated from his heart.
We are welcome to share his tears and his laughter. His words sit in my ears like cotton wool as I walk through the narrow alleyways of the camp one last time. Friendly eyes peer out from behind lace curtains, people are still up and busy tidying the mess left by the soldiers. Muddy footprints on floors and mattresses are scrubbed away, glass scooped up into cardboard boxes and lifted out onto the streets, holes in walls stuffed with towels and bedlinen. Stories are shared and compared, the morning’s heroes appointed. Words and cutlery all tucked away into history - the bustle of everyday existence must be allowed to continue quickly, the children must be allowed to feel that they are alive amongst the living. And so life is jumpstarted once again.
As soon as they entered, the Israeli military started to fire teargas, concussion grenades and live ammunition into the streets and narrow alleyways of the camp. Returning fire, a group of seven or eight resistance fighters were quickly pinpointed and surrounded. 20 or more houses are occupied around them, the families evicted downstairs to sleep on mattresses behind frontdoors. An elderly lady and her daughter are woken up at half past 4 in the morning by a concussion grenade right outside their window. Unable to go back to sleep, they move into the livingroom and wait for things to calm down. Ten minutes later, 12 Israeli soldiers make a hole in the wall between their neighbours and them with a sledgehammer. While entering the home with large black dogs on leashes, they push a heavy wardrobe onto the bed where the two women had been sleeping only moments before. After locking mother and daughter into the kitchen, they proceed to shoot from their bedroom window for over five hours.
Another elderly lady a couple of blocks away is worried about her three year-old grandson who is being held by soldiers upstairs along with his parents and siblings. As I knock on the door I am surprised to hear a reply. A soldier is telling me to fuck off or he will kill me by blowing up the door. The same door that he is standing behind. At last he opens the door but I can’t see him, only his gun. A second soldier is standing in front of him, his arms shaking and sweat streaming down his temples. Ten minutes, he says. Ten minutes and we will be gone. After three minutes, they evacuate, leaving a large hole in one of the outer walls, punching a hole in the top of a martyr-poster where the head is supposed to be. Other houses exhibit greater devastation – shards of glass hanging from broken window-frames, half-empty tin cans of Israeli sweetcorn and yoghurt stuck in vases and fruit baskets, overturned beds with rubble piled on top of them, childrens’ stuffed toys sliced open and sullied.
The resistance fighters want to leave. I watch as they pull flimsy leopardprint and flowery dresses over their black and green, recognized worldwide as the uniform of the streets. One of them forgets his mendil, and his sister runs after him with it clutched in her hands. It is light purple and looks soft, like she has just wrenched it off her own head. I hope it still carries some of her scented warmth in its fabric as he wraps it around his bearded face. The tall, gangly frames look awkward in the dresses, even with the soft padding of the military style jackets underneath. Some of them are wise and take the time to laugh and adjust each other’s headscarves. One looks like a young girl, serious and heartbreakingly earnest. One of their little brothers stands holding dresses and long coats over his arm, afraid for his older friends and heroes. The guns lay wrapped in the swaths of hiked-up skirt as they dash through the alleyway one by one, live ammunition overhead, the last one triumphantly shooting down the street at the soldiers before making his way out of the camp.
They survive, the quiet fear in their eyes gradually replaced by rowdy gratefulness. Allahu akbar. And they are gone.
One of their companions had been shot in the waist a few hours earlier while patrolling the streets. His name was Baha’ and he was 26 years old. A doctor tried to get to him in an ambulance but the Israeli soldiers would not let him enter the camp so he bled to death in a relative’s home. As I enter the camp at 7 o’clock in the morning, the mosques are announcing his death, and the cries of grieving defiance ring out. Rocks, bottles and pieces of wood are hurled in the direction of the soldiers. This time they do not return fire.
Teargas lingers in invisible clouds outside Baha’s home, off the main street leading out from Nablus city. I walk with Baha’s mother and little brother through the camp. I know she is behind me because I hear her stifling her sobs as best she can. Finally, we arrive and enter into the kitchen. Baha’s body lies outstretched on a mattress, his shoed feet sticking out at the bottom and his jaw tied up with gauze. He appears to be sleeping, a duvet carefully tucked over him up to his shoulders. His cheeks look smooth and gaunt, a babyface. We have the same chin, jutting out in a slight underbite. He looks determined. Like he is in pain but does not want his mother to notice. Better not to say anything. The feeling in the room says that he was a good loving son. At least that will make the goodbyes a little easier.
His mother is crying freely now, running her hands through his cropped hair and along his shoulders and arms, kneading his knuckles between her palms. She is reminding him of something funny he said last week, bowing down her head close to his so that only he can hear her whispers, occasionally overcome with frantic grief and offering it to the world, to anyone who will take it. She beats her cheeks and rocks to and fro. The women are soon joined by neighbouring men, stamping their feet and shaking their heads at the tragedy like horses at flies. Soon they are shooed out and told to come to the funeral instead. There are still soldiers in the camp and we do not wish to attract too much attention to the place.
They abduct two young volunteers with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC). They were standing at the outskirts of the camp waiting for permission to enter in their ambulance, when they are snatched, handcuffed and blindfolded, bundled into a jeep. There are crowds of young boys on the streets and they start to hurl rocks and big boulders onto the military vehicles, rocking the jeep with the two young men in it. I wonder what they are thinking. They are later released, none the worse for wear except for chafed wrists, after lots of phonecalls have been made to various military units. Alhamdulillah for friends in high places and with white faces.
We leave to find a stretcher for the funeral, sneaking through the camp only to find that the soldiers have left. It is 11 o’clock and the children pouring out onto the streets on tired sleepless legs look grey and drawn. There is a car dumped upside down on the refuge between the car lanes, a pole sticking up through one of its side-windows. A dear friend tells me later that the pettiness of the violence disgusts her. It is devoid of all meaning, good or bad. Other cars are turned upside-down, smashed or thrown into ditches. Two bulldozers have been charging up and down the camp all morning, narrowly missing one of the ambulances, letting their blades hover above people’s heads and homes before crashing onto the tarmac below. I do not know why.
The funeral takes place half an hour later. PFLP flags are unfurled and duets about mothers and sons blare out of a car stereo. Men shoot into the air and everyone chants. The body is carried on a stretcher high above people’s heads and Baha’s mother faints as she says a second, more hurried goodbye among the crowd. I retreat to a couch in one of the post-occupied homes, drinking a cup of tea with Lubna, an 11 year-old girl now propped up against me trying to keep awake. Her brother and I read a text message from a mutual friend, congratulating us on Palestine’s independence day, the 14th November. It is sad enough to warrant a smile. Lubna’s father has spent the entire night waiting at a checkpoint in the freezing cold, worrying about his children in the camp but unable to reach them. He speaks about his life in such poetry and saves my day without even trying. Two of his sons are in prison, four outside. He turns to my friend and says, for the tenth time, that he is not attacking her. Only her government. He has nothing but love for the American people. If he did not, he would say so, for his words flow directly and unmediated from his heart.
We are welcome to share his tears and his laughter. His words sit in my ears like cotton wool as I walk through the narrow alleyways of the camp one last time. Friendly eyes peer out from behind lace curtains, people are still up and busy tidying the mess left by the soldiers. Muddy footprints on floors and mattresses are scrubbed away, glass scooped up into cardboard boxes and lifted out onto the streets, holes in walls stuffed with towels and bedlinen. Stories are shared and compared, the morning’s heroes appointed. Words and cutlery all tucked away into history - the bustle of everyday existence must be allowed to continue quickly, the children must be allowed to feel that they are alive amongst the living. And so life is jumpstarted once again.
posted by lina at 11:53 AM
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