Added later: A report from Balata Jan 2000. The author, a young American woman with roots in India, spent an afternoon in Balata. The second Intifada had not yet started, and the relativley peaceful days of the Oslo Accord were still there. When I got to Balata it was a different era. The camp had been repeatedly invaded, shot up, houses demolished, and people traumatized.

Saturday June 22 2002

This day started out with me taking about 40 digital camera images of the trashed Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah and ended with Marissa McLaughlin and me in a house in the Balata Refugee Camp with Israeli tanks parked in front of the door. Our hosts tell us not to worry, "This is an everyday occurrence. we can go back to bed." But I am wide awake now at 12:45 am, Sunday, using Marissa’s laptop to capture some of the day’s impressions before tomorrow arrives with a whole new experience.

What these occupied Palestinians take for every day life is to the first time observer almost surreal. Back in Ramallah, we got the word from our Leader, Neta Golan, that we would return to the Faisal hostel in Jerusalem to finish our training, and then be dispatched to one of the hot spots: Ramallah, Nablus, or Jenin. I looked in the Lonely Planet Tour Guide for information on the trip from Jerusalem to Ramallah. It should take about 10 minutes from the Damascus Gate where the Faisal hostel is to the centre of Rmallah. It took us about an hour, and that was fast according to the drivers we had. Recall it takes three separate taxis to make the trip.

Back at the hostel the talk was of Jenin, where an Israeli tank had fired into a crowd of civilians killing three children and an old man. ISMer are there, but the feeling was that more were needed. However, Nablus has been put under siege with tanks in the streets and a curfew in effect. Help seemed to be needed also in the Balata camp adjoining Nablus. But first we finished the training with some dos and don’ts about media. Summary: be careful, let the experts such as Huwaida, George Rishmawi, or Neta interface with the big guys such as CNN, BBC, and so forth.

Our little "affinity group" which had started out as Eric Levine, Rae Levine, Marissa McLaughlin, and me, was augmented by Susan Barclay, a young American woman. The talk was of getting into Nablus. It was to be a 2 to 3 hour hike up mountainous terrain and down, then further walking in the city to get to our goal. Frankly, they tried hard to discourage me, but I have never had good sense, and I insisted on going. However, I decided not to take my laptop, nor the laptop bag. I stuffed my Tilley pants with a few things and joined the departing group of six -- the five of us plus Neta who was to lead us in. Neta doubted that we could get through the checkpoint just outside Nablus, but she knows a way up over a mountain.

After eating more falafel and fruit, and drinking copious fluid, we headed across to the Damascus Gate to hire a minibus to get us close enough to hike in. The driver we talked to told us that he thought we could go right on in through the checkpoint if we concocted a good enough story. Neta was skeptical, but decided it was worth a try. We could always backtrack and go around if we didn't make it. So off we went in German Ford minibus with a 3.0 L diesel.

The driver was a Palestinian who had been living in East Jerusalem when Israel (illegally) annexed it to West Jerusalem. Six years ago he was granted Israeli citizenship, but with a note on his pass that he is an Arab. Jewish Israelis carry no mark on their pass. Now a Jewish Israeli is forbidden to travel into Palestinian Authority areas, the 10% of the West Bank and Gaza that was "given" to the PA under the Oslo accord. But a Palestinian Israeli citizen is allowed to go. Further, only Israeli citizens are allowed to travel the billion dollar settler roads which connect the Jewish colonies in the West Bank to Israel proper.

To go from a beaten down Ramallah to a spick and span and even luxurious Jewish Jerusalem, and then out onto one of these "bypass" roads is hard to take in. Here we were whizzing along a superhighway built for the colonists placed in the occupied Palestinian lands for the purpose of driving the populace out. A Palestinian is not allowed on these roads. A Palestinian cannot cross. A farmer who lives on one side cannot cross to harvest the crops on the other side. By the way these roads are lit up at night for better surveillance. As we sped along there was very little traffic.

About half way we saw a young Palestinian boy by the side of the road seemingly hitch hiking. He was 12 – 14 maybe and, curiously, had partly blond hair. The driver stopped and backed up, there being almost no traffic. He yelled at the boy to get in and he would take him to his village down the road. The boy opened the door, took one look inside and slammed it shut, running away shouting "Yahoud, Yahoud, " (Jews, Jews). He was thought we were Jewish settlers and was afraid of us. The driver yelled at him that we were Americans and Canadians, but he was running like hell. So we drove on.

The settler road was coming to an end, and we had to get around through some villages to get to the main entrance to Nablus. After some negotiation we decided to switch taxis to an old Mercedes with enough room for all of us. This driver took us along a rough dirt road through olive groves and dusty poor villages to the main road. We stopped however for a meal of the ubiquitous falafel.

The driver parked about 100 metres from the main Nablus checkpoint since he was leery of getting too closes. Neta decided to send Eric and his mother Rae up to the checkpoint to negotiate with the soldiers. Eric and Rae are Jewish, but they did not play this card, and indeed it might have backfired. The story was that we were volunteers going in to help the Red Cross (not the Red Crescent), and we would walk to our destination in Nablus, which was a clinic. To make a long wait and a long story short—it worked. We were lectured on the danger of going in and warned not to take any pictures of soldiers or military equipment. We could take pictures of the tourist attractions but were warned that our cameras would be inspected when we came out. Marissa had her video with her and she especially got a talking to. They are afraid that the media might get a hold of some stuff about their operation.

Walking into Nablus from the checkpoint, which is some distance from the city, was again one of these surreal events. Silence, no movement. Not a creature was stirring. We did see on occasion a curious person peeking out to watch a group defy curfew. Nablus, an ancient city of about 150,000, has been locked up tight for several days. All people have been confined to their houses day and night while the Army searches for militants. But then, along came a small, and I mean small, taxi, empty. Neta negotiated a ride to Balata. Suzi and I and the driver in the front, and the other four in the back.

When we entered Balata, we could see that the curfew had been lifted for the camp, and some shops were opening up. We stopped at a short distance from the clinic where we were headed, and I got out, but not without some difficulty. A crowd of young people formed around us, since the arrival of "tourists" to this hell hole of a camp was an event. But I couldn’t get out. I could not bend my right knee enough to get it out. A young Palestinian grabbed it and pulled it out with some pain to me, and I cried out. But then I saw a husky young man within reach, so I indicated I wanted help to get up, and finally my 6’ 5" frame came out. I stood up to a big cheer from the crowd. Someone had found out that my name is Louis, so they started a chant, looie looie, and I good naturedly acknowledged the cheers. For a few minutes I was a celebrity in Balata Refugee Camp. In later days when I would walk down the street, kids would call out looie, looie, but good naturedly. I almost never was asked for anything.

At the clinic, run by the UN, we were warmly welcomed by the director and the chief nurse who got chairs and fixed a delicious tea for us. Tea with some fresh mint in it and sugar. It turned out that they did not at the moment need help with getting the ambulances out and the patients in, but he and the nurse suggested that we might stand guard at a house that the Army is likely to demolish.

Marissa McLaughlin, software engineer at Microsoft in Seattle, and I volunteered to go stay with this family where I now find myself. I need to get a lot more details, but this was the home of an 18 year old martyr, Jehad, who killed himself and some Israelis recently. A cousin and good friend, Mahmoud, was killed by tank shells from a hill top overlooking Balata camp. Mahmoud and three friends were visiting the grave of a dead companion. The execution of Mahmoud put Jehad into a severe depression according to his Mother. Mahmoud was assassinated on May 22, 2002. Jehad's mother, Halima, had not seen her son, Jehad, for two days when on May 27 word came that he had blown himself up. She did not encourage him and did not know that he had planned to commit suicide. Then came the retaliation of the Israelis, not against Jehad, but against his entire family.

They trashed the house, shot up the walls, blew a hole in the wall on the other side, and finally left for the next house.

We were served a small meal, and then it was off to bed at 9:30 PM and instant sleep. But not for long. At 11:30 the clanking of tank treads on the pavement out in front of the house woke me up. They paused a few houses away but with their lights flooding the street in front. I got up and peeked out, and then went out into the living room where Marissa was on the cell phone to Neta. The family kind of laughed at us. This is an everyday occurrence in the camp. The purpose is to annoy people. Show them who is boss. Degrade them. Humiliate them.

They clanked off, and we heard a loud explosion and some machine gun fire in the next street, but the family did not take it seriously. Tomorrow, Inshallah (God willing), we will do a bit of shopping. So at 2:20 AM I quit but anticipate more surreal unworldly experiences and impressions tomorrow.