Tuesday June 25 2002 Balata Refugee Camp by the Titi family

This was the day I was scheduled to take a shower, which I did, and afterward I started shaving. All of a sudden Widad, the younger of the two daughters, came down and insisted I come up to the roof where she and Marissa had gone to hang out laundry to dry. They had spotted an Israeli Army bulldozer, an armored D9 caterpillar, roaming the road on the hillside above the camp. It went south, then back north, and then parked. The family didn’t think it was noteworthy, but in view of what happened that night, the appearance of the bulldozer should have been ominous.

I started talking with Najah, the oldest daughter, about what happened in April when Moneer and his son were injured. She brought up March 1, which we had not heard about before. This is the story she told.

Israeli troopers entered the house and ordered family members to go into one room, the room I am staying in and writing this in. They locked the door and then searched the house. When they came back, they put the family in the living room, and went downstairs, which is the ground level. In the back of the house there is a door opening onto a small paved alley way. The troopers wrecked this door and entered the room behind the door. This room was to be a living room for a son who was to be married.

They piled all the furniture, clothing, and appliances in the middle of the floor then burned them. Next they knocked a hole into the next room, and trashed it. Back to the first room they planted an explosive charge on one of the walls while the family still confined to the living room upstairs, not knowing what was happening. The troopers exited the house so the time delayed blast could go off. When it did the house shook as if an earthquake had hit, Halima told me.

The family was distraught. Crying, cowering, not knowing what would come next. This blast was to weaken the structure of the house to make it easier to demolish with a bulldozer. Najah tells of looking out the second story window to see this huge machine, a D9 cat, moving down the street toward the house. She ran out the back, and down and around where there were TV crews, including Al-Jazeera, the Arab network. She told them about the D9, and they rushed up to film it. The Israelis backed down and retreated. Mrs. Titi was interviewed by Al-Jazeera, and she did appear on their telecast.

The only reason the Titi’s can imagine for this March 1 invasion and threatened demolishment was that the Israelis were looking for Mahmoud, a suspected militant who sometimes visited their house.

Back to Tuesday, June 25, 2002. Around noon Eric and Suzy came over from the hospital where they have been riding with ambulances. Eric had written a press release announcing the ISM project of protecting families from house demolishment, which means that Marissa and I are the first contingent in that operation. The press release was good. I will get him to email me a copy to include in one of these diary entries. Then Neta Golan, our coordinator extraordinaire, came along with the announcement that 10 new ISMers are coming to Nablus and others are going to additional besieged Palestinian cities.

As an afternote I will include here a bible reference that I first saw in Ha'aretz, the best Israeli newspaper.

Ezekiel 18:20, The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

As far as I know, no country in the civilized world punishes the family of a person who commits a crime. Only Israel. I am tempted to fly back to Palestine if I thought I might prevent the montrous crime of demolishing the Titi family house. Even as I write this in mid-August, my heart goes out to the Titis.

Neta told of the killing of a Palestinian riding in a taxi in Nablus. When she and Suzy got there, the man was dead, and a Kalashnikov assault rifle was on top of a guitar case. The rifle had obviously been placed on the case, but whether it had belonged to the man could not be determined. Neta was allowed to at least close the eyes of the dead man, but nothing more.

We all took in another delicious meal served by the Titi women, and then Marissa and I left for the Internet Café. We had no sooner sat down and logged on when Eric came up from the main street and told us there was a bulldozer and a tank at the camp entrance. The bulldozer sounded ominous, since that is what they would likely use to demolish the Titi house. Since it is wall-to-wall with the houses on either side, a big charge of explosives to bring down this house would in all probability seriously damage the houses on both sides, not that Israel would give a damn; but since Jenin, the UN and perhaps the Europeans might object—but not do anything either.

Marissa and I watched awhile. The D9 was parked, but the tank kept advancing on the camp with gun lowered and putting out a screen of vile smelling and irritating smoke of some kind, then retreating, only to repeat. Every once in a while the tank would fire a few shots to scare the crowd. I noticed some of the kids started picking up rocks and throwing them in the direction of the tank, but they were so far away they could not possibly hit the tank. For the trigger-happy tank gunner that was enough, and he opened fire wounding nine, ages 11 to 13, two seriously enough to be sent to the hospital in Nablus by ambulance. I talked to the Doctor at the clinic to verify this later.

Marissa and I walked back to the house and took up stations so to speak, thinking the bulldozer might enter the camp. Neta soon joined us since it would be impossible to go back to Nablus now. Later Eric and Suzy made it back to the hospital in Nablus, but Neta stayed with us, fortunately, since there was more to come that night.

CBC Radio in Edmonton called to record an interview to be played later in the afternoon. (Note: I have never heard that clip, but some that did say it was pretty good.)

I went to bed about 10:30 PM, but awakened an hour later to the clanking of tank treads from the far end of the camp. There was no electricity -- the whole camp was pitch dark, except for the floodlights of the amored column coming down the street. (We found out later that the dozer had knocked out the main power feed to the camp as it entered -- simply to add to the terror of the night.) Halima found a candle and then a kerosene lantern, since power outages are not that unusual. Cell phones still work of course, so Neta was already on hers.

The D9 Cat, a tank, and an APC made their way up past our house, laying down a screen of that awful smoke. As they came along they would throw one of those Big Bang grenades and fire a few shots. This is call "rooting out terrorism." When they got to our house we really thought that this is it, we will have a showdown. We strategized about what we would do: suggest to the family members that they leave by the back door, if possible. Two of us would go down, waiving our passports and telling the soldiers they had no right to do this, it was a breach of International Law, and also against basic human rights to demolish the home of innocent persons. Neta had already notified the press, and at ISM headquarters they were also standing by to get the word out if the bulldozer stopped. But it didn’t. The parade went through to the other end of the camp and seemed to stay there. Omar went down and assured us that they were gone.

But they came back, and so we prepared again. It was good to have Neta with is since she is so good with her cell phone. Again they went away having terrorized the camp, me included. As they passed by the house, the tank threw a Big Noise grenade, which shook me up. I was out on the little balcony over the street peeking out at the retreating armored column. It so startled me that I stumbled back into the living room, and the family laughed at me! They are so used to this constant harassment that they can tune it out, and even laugh at it.

Back to bed, but not a hell of a lot of sleep.

As I write this account, it is already Thursday, June 27, 2002. I am up at 2:00 AM because the nightly parade of armor just came by. The D9 in the lead, then a tank, followed by an APC. They clanked their way from south to north along our street (the main street of the camp), then back. They fired a few warning shots here and there, and are now sitting at the south end of the street revving their big diesel engines. If they come back we just might have the intervention. At 3:30 AM they are still there, but they have definitely stopped dozing with the cat. I could see that but could not get any details. One doesn’t want to be seen peeking too far out, and of course going down for a walk would be suicide, courtesy of the Israeli anti-terrorism campaign. (Comment: this was a prophecy that came true for a young man with too much curiosity.)