A Walk Through Jenin
XyZ
April 20, 2002
Gimme Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
By Kathy Kelly
On April 17, we entered the Jenin camp for a third time, accompanied by
Thawra.
We had met Thawra the night we first entered Jenin. She came into the
crowded, makeshift clinic organized by Palestinian Medical Relief Committee
workers, cradling Ziad, an 18 day old infant born on the first night of the
attack against Jenin. Like most of the young Palestinian workers
volunteering with the Medical Relief Committee, she wore ahijab and blue
jeans. She had slept very little in the past ten days, working constantly to
assist refugees from the camp. Her fiancee, Mustafa, was missing. Many
people whispered to us that they were sure he was killed inside the Jenin
camp, but that Thawra still hoped he was alive.
Today was Thawra's first chance to find out what had happened to her home.
She and her family lived on the first floor of a three story building.
Mustafa lived on the third floor.
Entering the camp, we noticed spray painted images that Israeli soldiers
must have made the night before. On the entrance gate to one building, in
blue paint, was a stick figure image of a little girl holding the Israeli
flag... Next to it was a star of David with an exclamation point inside the
star.
We passed Israeli soldiers preparing to leave the house they had occupied.
Five soldiers and an Armoured Personnel Carrier positioned themselves to
protect a soldier as he walked out of the house carrying the garbage. "Five
soldiers and an APC to take out the trash," said Jeff. "That's a sure sign
that something is radically wrong."
Most of the homes at the edge of the camp are somewhat intact, although
doors, windows and walls are badly damaged by tank shells and Apache
bullets. Each home that we entered was ransacked. Drawers, desks and closets
were emptied. Refrigerators were turned over, light fixtures pulled out of
the walls, clothing torn.
I thought of the stories women told me, earlier that morning, about Israeli
soldiers entering their homes with large dogs that sniffed at the children
as neighbors fled from explosions, snipers, fires and the nightmare chases
of bulldozers.
Recovery will take a very long time.
As we climbed higher, entering the demolished center of the camp where close
to 100 housing units have been flattened by Israeli Defense Forces, we heard
snipers shooting at a small group of men who had come to pull bodies from
the rubble. Covered with dust and sweat, and seemingly oblivious to the
gunshots, the men, all residents from the camp, pursued the grim task. With
pickaxes and shovels, they dug a mass grave. They pulled four bodies out of
the rubble, including that of a small child. Little boys stood still,
silently watching. One of the many soldiers who stopped us as we walked into
Jenin City, several days earlier, told us there were no children in the camp
during the attack. That was a lie. But now I wonder if it may have become a
strange truth. The concerned frowns on the little boy's faces belonged to
hardened men.
An older boy, perhaps 10 or 11 years old, helped carry his father's corpse
to the mass grave.
Jeff sat down on a rock and shook his head. "After September 11, I drove
toward New York City, and all along the highway carloads of volunteer
firemen sped past me, coming from all over the country, to help at Ground
Zero. Here, bullets paid for by US taxpayers are being fired on people
simply trying to bury their dead."
A family trudged single file, silently, uphill through the debris, carrying
their belongings on their heads. Their faces were wracked with grief. One
woman carried an infant in her arms. No one spoke as they approached the
hilltop. At the top of the hill, in front of a house that was still somewhat
intact, a large family was seated as though posed for a family photograph,
surrounded by devastation.
Thawra led us to what was once her home. The house is still standing, but
every other house in the area is completely demolished. She quickly
collected some clothes, then went to the third floor and returned holding
Mustafa's blue jeans in her arms. Her eyes welled with tears. We began to
wonder if she had lost all hope of finding Mustafa.
Outside her home, we met 8 year old Ahmad. He had found six shiny, small
bullets which he showed to his neighbor, Mohammed Abdul Khalil. Mohammed is
a 42 year old mason, also trained as an accountant. Having worked in Brazil
and Jordan, he now speaks four languages. In Spanish, he told me that he
built many kitchens in this area. Mohammed nodded kindly at Ahmad.
A few feet away, Hitan, age 20, and Noor, age 16, dug through the debris
with their bare hands to retrieve some few belongings. Hitan found a
favorite jacket, torn and covered with dust. She fingered the pockets, then
set it aside. Noor laughed as she unearthed a matching pair of shoes. Then
Hitan saw the edge of a textbook and the sisters began vigorously digging
and tugging until they pulled out five battered and unusable books. Noor
held up her public health textbook. Hitan clutched
The History of Islamic Civilization.
"You see these girls, they are laughing and seem playful," said, Mohammed,
again speaking in Spanish. "It is, you know, a coping mechanism. How else
can they manage what they feel?" Hitan stood and pointed emphatically at the
small hole she and Noor had dug. "You know," she exclaims, "underneath here,
there are four televisions and two computers! All gone. Finished."
Thawra stared sadly, then persisted with her search for information about
Mustafa.
I asked Mohammed if he knew a man sorting through a huge mound of rubble
next to where we stood. 'He is my cousin. That was our home. He wants to
find his passport or his children's documents." Mohammed's cousin then sat
down on top of the heap that was once his home, holding his head in his
hands.
An army surveillance plane flew overhead.
"We are clear," said Mohammed. "We are not animals. We are people with
hearts and blood, just like you. I love my son. I want the life for my
family. What force do we have here? Is this a force?" He pointed to the
wreckage all around us. "Do we have the atomic bomb?" "Do we have anthrax?"
As we walked away, Jeff pointed at another bone sticking out of the debris.
We stepped gingerly around it. Thawra dipped down to pick up a veil lying on
the ground, then paused a moment and placed it over the bone.
Kathy Kelly and Jeff Guntzel help coordinate Voices in the Wilderness, a
campaign to end the economic sanctions against Iraq. They traveled to Israel
/Palestine in response to calls from the International Solidarity Movement
and other organizations working to reduce violence in the region and
nonviolently resist Israeli Occupation of Palestine. They can be reached at:
in...@vitw.org