Hey friends, I just received word from my good friend that the Washington congressman and another congressman visited Gaza yesterday, not officially under the Obama administration, but went nevertheless to see the situation for themselves.  Here’s a snipet from the article:

“It’s hard for anyone in our country to imagine how it must feel to have a sick child who needs urgent care or is receiving chemotherapy or dialysis, then be forced to take a needlessly lengthy route, walk rather than drive, and wait in lines as long as two hours simply to get to the hospital.  As a health care professional myself, I found this profoundly troubling, no, actually it’s beyond that, it is outrageous,” said Baird.

For the rest of the article, go to:

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/wa03_baird/morenews1/GazaTrip.shtml

This organization (above) is the Holy Land Trust, and they work on behalf of Palestinians to protect their land, as well as doing other non-violent direct actions.  We were invited to join them in a demonstration against the security wall, but unfortunately we had other plans already set for that time. Below is a photo I took of a great poster up in their meeting room.

The following day we took two tours.  Our tour guide was Israeli, and she worked at the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.  We picked her up in the Jewish quarters (western Jerusalem) and in the below photo you can see there were many parks and flowers like you’d see in American cities.  It was very clean and well kept.  Our guide is part of a group called, Zochot, who “remember” the Nakba.  The Nakba is Arabic for massacre, and it is what the Palestinians call the war in 1948 in which Jews were brought to Palestine/Israel by the British, following World War II, and “given the land” since no one else wanted to offer them room.  This might not be the nicest way of putting it, but that is literally what happened (although you’d get a completely different perspective from the Jewish settlers).  The war that ensued left many people without land, as they would leave targeted cities and then be denied return.  After being kept away from home long enough they were told their land was forfeit and to this day the civilians who fled have not been permitted to return to their homes.  We later went to the Deheisheh Refugee Camp where all the people are victims of this story.  They have been at this refugee camp since 1948.

Our guide (above) took us first to the village of Lifta, which happens to be located on the backside of the hill that the Holocaust museum has been built on.  This village was abandoned in 1948, being the first victim of the Nakba since they were located right outside of Jerusalem.

Above you can see Lifta on the lower left ridge, and part of the Holocaust museum in the background.  We then went to the Holocaust museum, which was very heavy in and of itself.  It began talking about the events that led up to the darkest point while you walked down into the tunnel, then you came up the other side as it built up the hope and popped you out the back looking at this amazing view of green trees and masses of Jewish settlements.  What is placed in your mind by the tour is that they were dragged through this terrible event (which it was) and came out of it to the land that God gave them.  What they don’t tell you is that Lifta is just off to the right of the view, and that Lifta and many other villages were attacked and their land was stolen so that these settlements could be built. 

One of the tactics used by the Jews during the 1948 war was to scare villages out of their homes and towns by talking up what they had done to one in particular.  I can’t remember the name of the village, but we learned that the Jews went in and literally killed all the men, women, and children, and then demolished the whole town in its entirety.  They would then go around using this as an example of what would be done to others if they didn’t give in.  Many would flee their villages, at which point the Jews would move in, take over the land, and not let the locals return.  This happened to both Palestinians and Jews, meaning that Israel is even denying their own citizens to return to their land.

From here we travelled to the Deheisheh Refugee Camp to stay the night in a home.  They were amazingly hospitable, and the children were a lot of fun.

The below photo is credited to Melanie, one of the delegates.  I was showing the children photos of my family on my iTouch, and they were quite enthrawled by the gadget.  The man on the right was the brother of the family we were staying with, and he headed up the Refugee camp.  He gave us a night tour of the camp a little later.

At one point we had a young lady come and present things the ladies in the camp had made, of which we bought quite a bit (below).  The embroidery was amazing, not like cheap trinkets in open market places I’ve been to before, but real quality goods that had been labored over for quite a while.

Above are the brothers, and below is their father, who we met on our late night tour.

Evan had been wanting to get a shave for a long time at a local barber place, so we ended up stopping in and watching him get a full on shave (there was quite a group of us packed in the small space).  We were also entertained by a Turkish soap opera about a man who is their James Bond.  We all thought it was pretty funny.

That concluded the two days.  It was a lot to take in, realizing the people at this refugee camp had been there since 1948, and not much was being done to help them get back to their land.  They’ve been forced to make due, which they’ve done fairly well at.  Walking through one would almost say they weren’t living that bad at all, but then you’re reminded of the fact that they are forced to live like this, it is not by choice.  To see, once again, such cool, welcoming people being forced to live like this was very frustrating and sad.  I only hope that sharing here and in other places will somehow have some eventual impact that can make a difference.

http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1811

Please watch this if you are curious about what is really happening over there, it explains more succintly than I could share in an hour of actual speaking (and it’s not even that long, probably 15 minutes at tops!).  They’ve done an amazing job, and it’s one of the first times I really feel our own nation’s media is telling the truth about this situation.  Hopefully we can start telling more stories like this.

Casualties

Update for 15 January ’09, morning (GMT+2)
Gaza: at least 1,033 killed, of them at least 335 children and 98 women. More than half those killed since the ground incursion began (580) are women and children. Over 4,850 injured, of them over 250 severely so.
Israel: 13 killed, of them 1 woman and 10 soldiers. Over 82 civilians injured, of them 4 severely injured, not including those treated for shock , and 77 soldiers injured, of them one in critical condition and 6 suffer moderate or severe injuries.

Maysa’ a-Samuni, 19

On Sunday [4 January], around 9:00 A.M., soldiers came to the house of my father-in-law, Rashed a-Samuni, which is located next to a concrete engineering company. We were fourteen people in the house, all of us from a-Samuni family: me, my husband, Tawfiq, 21, our infant, Jumana, nine months old, my father-in-law, Rashed, 41, my mother-in-law, Rabab, 38, and my husband’s brothers, Musa, 19, Walid, 17, Halmi, 14, Zeineb, 12, Muhammad, 11, Shaban, 9, Issa, 7, Islam, 12, Israa, 2.

The soldiers came to the house on foot and knocked on the door. We opened and then, threatening us with weapons, they forced us to leave the house. They had bullet-proof vests on and had automatic weapons. Their faces were painted black. We left the house. Walid ran from another door of the house, but the soldiers caught him.

Maysa’ a-Samuni and her baby daughter in a-Shifaa hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Muhammad Sabah, B’Tselem, 8 Jan. ’09.

The soldiers led us by foot to the house of my father-in-law’s brother, Talal Halmi a-Samuni, 50, about twenty meters away. In the house were already about twenty people, and together we were thirty-five. The soldiers left us, apparently to search my father-in-law’s house.

About an hour later, the soldiers came back and ordered us to go with them to the house of Wail a-Samuni, 40. His house is a kind of concrete warehouse, about 200 square meters big, about twenty meters from Talal’s house, where we were. We reached Wail’s house at 11:00 A.M. There were already thirty-five people there, so now we were about seventy in total. We stayed there until the next morning. We didn’t have food or drink.

Around six o’clock in the morning [Monday, 5 January], it was quiet in the area. One of the men in the family, ‘Adnan a-Samuni, 20, said that he wanted to go and bring his uncle and family so they could be with us. My father-in law and his nephew, Salah Talal a-Samuni, 30, and his cousin Muhammad Ibrahim a-Samuni, 27, were standing at the door of the house and planned on going together to bring them. The moment they left the house, a missile or shell hit them. Muhammad was killed on the spot and the others were injured from the shrapnel. My husband went over to them to help, and then a shell or missile was fired onto the roof of the warehouse. Based on the intensity of the strike, I think it was a missile from an F-16.

When the missile struck, I lay down with my daughter under me. Everything filled up with smoke and dust, and I heard screams and crying. After the smoke and dust cleared a bit, I looked around and saw 20-30 people who were dead, and about twenty who were wounded. Some were severely wounded and some lightly.

The persons killed around me were my husband, who was hit in the back, my father-in-law, who was hit in the head and whose brain was on the floor, my mother-in-law Rabab, my father-in-law’s brother Talal, and his wife Rhama Muhammad a-Samuni, 45, Talal’s son’s wife, Maha Muhammad a-Samuni, 19, and her son, Muhammad Hamli a-Samuni, 5 months, whose whole brain was outside his body. Razqa Muhammad a-Samuni, 50, Hanan Khamis a-Samuni, 30, and Hamdi Majid a-Samuni, 22.

My husband’s brother, Musa, and I were lightly injured. Musa was injured in the shoulder and my left hand was injured. My daughter was injured in the left hand. Her thumb, second finger, and third finger had been cut off. I took a kerchief and wrapped her hand to stop the bleeding. The wounded who lay on the floor cried for help and couldn’t move. The small children and my husband’s grandmother, Shifaa a-Samuni, 70, were crying.
About fifteen minutes after the second strike, Musa said that it would be better to escape and go to the house of his uncle, Assad a-Samuni, about twenty meters away. We ran and knocked on the gate, but nobody answered. Musa jumped over the gate and opening it and we went inside. We were me, my daughter, Musa, and his little sisters Islam, 5, and Isra, 2. There were 40-50 soldiers in the house, and more people were gathered in one of the rooms. There were about thirty people, 7-10 of them men. The men were blindfolded.

One of the soldiers came to me and gave me and my daughter first-aid. He bandaged our hands and checked our pulse. Then the soldiers tied Musa and blindfolded him.

The soldiers told us that they would release us and leave only Musa and his uncle ‘Emad in case Hamas came. I understood that they intended to use them as “human shields.” They ordered us to leave the house, and we walked along the street about 400-500 meters until we found an ambulance, which took me and my daughter to a-Shifaa Hospital. The others from my family continued to walk in the street. Later, some of them also arrived at the hospital.

As far as I know, the dead and wounded who were under the ruins are still there. I didn’t see that any of them had been brought to the hospital.

Testimony of Maysa’ Fawzi a-Samuni, 19, married with an infant daughter, homemaker, resident of Gaza City, The testimony was given to Iyad Haddad by telephone on 7 January 2009

The CPT team in Tuwani (above).  This photo includes our delegation leader (far left) and two gals from Operation Dove (far right) who have been stationed with the CPT folk in Tuwani.  And one of the local members received more lovin’ than it’s probably seen in its whole life (the cat below).

For anyone wondering what a settlement looks like, the above photo is of one of the largest settlements in the West Bank, just outside of Bethlehem.  It’s called Efrat.  It is a fairly large eye-sore…how does the saying go… a city on a (stolen) hill cannot be hidden?  And if the folks inside the settlement didn’t feel safe enough with the armed military, gaurded entrance gates, and walls surrounding all of the illegal settlement (once again, all settlements are illegal under UN international law), the below photo shows the fenced off path where the 25 foot security wall will be built to further insulate the settlers from any contact with Palestinians (who are often referred to as “non-Jews”, and also hits close to home when one reflects on folks saying others are “non-Christian”).

Above we met and had lunch with a Palestinian organization called Wi’am.  They do conflict resolution for groups of people, among many other things.  I would highly reccomend checking their site out if you are interested in what they are doing.  Following the meeting we walked through the streets, passing a random stray horse with no owner in sight.

A few of us decided to go for a walk to the Church of the Nativity.  Below you can see the hole in which Jesus was apparently born.  It was weird to see this sight (as well as many other of the “holy sights” so embelished, with a building established on top of each one).  I was sort of reminded of when Jesus flipped the tables and drove out the cattle (tourists?!).

That concluded Day 6, I’ll be back with more soon.

1. I was finally contacted by El Al airlines (I can’t say I recommend them completely, but they are apparently the best airline to ride if you want the Tel Aviv security experience to be easier than any other flight – they are more thorough at the airport you depart from, therefore making the chance of being kicked out of Israel less likely when you arrive on their doorstep) after I found out they had lost the two camera batteries taken from me at the bag check in Tel Aviv (because they were apparently a security threat).  I’ll tell the full story later, but for now I am grateful that they found the box with the batteries and are ready to get them out of their lost and found (41 days after they disappeared!!!).

2. I found another piece of gear (a cf card) that I had thought was lost back in Oregon.  It wouldn’t have been such a big deal had it not been so expensive for such a little contraption.

3. Being back at home in New Jersey.  It’s funny to say it, but I’m glad to be back in our own space where I can find a routine after 2 months or so of crazy schedule for a daily meal.  Adventure can taste really nice, but it’s best when followed up with some good processing and space.

4. A great flight in which Espen actually slept for a bit.

5. Family and friends.  Altough it’s good to be back in Jersey, I miss and appreciate the extended (2 weeks more) time we had to connect with folks.

That said, we’re doing well, and I’m looking forward to more blogging now that I’m back at my own computer!!! Nothing says home like your own user defined presets for programs like Adobe Lightroom 2 and Photoshop.

To the south we could see hills stretching all the way to Jordan (below).

Above the children can be seen first appearing in the distance (I am using a 200mm lens, which is multiplied to 360mm by the cropped sensor of the Canon 40D, thus showing that they were quite a ways off).  Below is the barn they walk to, then head to the end where they can see if the military escort has arrived.  If it hasn’t they wait, and if it doesn’t they have to walk all the way home.

Above the barn is one of the settlers’ homes from where we could see the family watching for the children.  They did this both mornings (above).  The below image is not my own, but another delegate’s photo.  It shows the military escorts bookending the children on the road to the settlement.

Our next stop that day was to another settlement in the area, called Susya.  We met with two Jewish settlers that told us straight out that they did not want a democracy, but a theocracy.  The also told us that if Israel lowers its weapons it will be destroyed, but if its enemies lowers their weapons there will be peace.  This was among many similar statements to these.  We talked with them in the safe confines of a very nice house, which had an amazing ceiling of wood (which is almost impossible to come by over there).

The above and below pictures are of the settlement, but the bottom image is another delegate’s and not my own.  The settlement looked like many places I’ve been in many US suburbs.

We then visited the village which had originally been there, and has now been demolished on the next hill over where they can look back at their stolen land (below).  Many of the settlements are named after the Palestinian villages they are trying to take over.

The above kid liked my sunglasses.  Below you can see the tents they are now forced to live in, although the military could come and demolish them whenever they wanted.  Why?  No building permit.  This is the same case for all Palestinians.  The Israeli government has made it so that any Palestinian needs a permit to either build or keep their house upon their land.  The application for the permit costs the equivalent of around $1500, takes months to be “processed” and then most Palestinians are denied the permit (unless they get a Jewish lawyer, as did Ata – see my earlier post).  For this reason places like At Tuwani have a standing demolition order on the whole village, and the military could come demolish the whole area if they choose.

Energy is gathered through the above solar panel.

We later returned to Tuwani for a tour of the area, which was fairly short as it is a small village.

We ended the day with another amazing home cooked meal, including the below pita which was still warm!

One of the groups we met with the next day in Hebron before leaving for At Tuwani was the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, which is the first and only organization in Hebron to address issues around women’s rights, domestic abuse, education to raise awareness around these issues, and creating safe houses for women who might be running from “honor deaths” (which is the culture’s form of making a family clean if a woman has been raped, been in adultery, or has had sex outside of marriage by killing the woman).  It has caught on among some people, but as the traditions are very ingrained in the culture, it has been met with opposition for the most part, and they receive no funding from within Hebron and are forced to seek funds from international groups.  The second photo is of a group of university students going through the organization’s training program, who will then go out to train others in schools and various places.

From Hebron we travelled to At Tuwani, a small outlying village SW from Hebron where CPT has their full-time operation.  At this location CPT is an international presence, documenting (through photo and video footage) the injuries caused to Palestinians by the Jewish settlers while they accompany shepards grazing their flocks, and monitor children walking to school who are often attacked and stoned by settlers (we’re talking little kids, not high schoolers).  Sometimes this helps, sometimes CPT folks are attacked as well.

Below we are taking off on a hour and a half walk to a demolished village, which ended up being just a walk since we found out (late in the game) that we had been walking the wrong direction.

The following images are what we saw from the road we were travelling on, which happened to be an Israeli road (which they call “clean roads” since they don’t allow Palestinians to travel on them).

Olive groves were everywhere, but many of the Palestinians can’t harvest them due to the military claiming the land as a “closed military zone” (without any reason why, and often around the time of harvest), or the settlers attack and or destory the groves.

Above you can see Palestinians actually plowing the fields.  Many times they have to do this quickly becuase settlers and military will come in and stop them if they realize what they are doing.  A field on the backside of the hill in Tuwani had just been plowed in around two or so hours so as to avoid this.  They brought in many tractors and made one continuous sweep through the valley really quickly, then high tailed it out of there.  It looked like a very impressive job for being done so quickly, although it is rather sad to realize they were forced to work in such a manner.

Above is a man riding into the nearby village on his donkey, and below is a young shepard with his flock.

The above image is of jet clouds produced by the below fighter planes that littered the sky like seagulls at the coast.  They would create a circle like so that would be a marker for tanks on the ground to travel to, at which point some military order was carried out, such as demolishing a home or village.  Often we would hear the sub-sonic boom of the planes when they passed the speed of sound.

A nearby village (above).  Upon returning to Tuwani after our long walk we turned around to see the night closing in (below).

That night we were fed at the house that many of the delegates slept at.  They rolled out butcher paper as a table cloth on the floor, and then brought in home made humus, pita bread, vegetables, olives, and it was amazing!  We heard a story of one of the full time CPT folks accidentally thinking they were supposed to be for her feet, but she was quickly corrected by the women she was with and has never used it as such since.

That night I slept outside over at the CPT apartment with a few of the full timers, and a couple of the delegates.  But before turning in I took this 30 second exposure, including Orion and a few other familiar constellations.

How this is bringing “security” is puzzling, especially when looking at a map one sees that the wall is built not in a direct line as one would expect, but a zig-zag course that encloses all the major water sources into Israeli land.  On top of that we learned that it is completely illegal for any Palestinian to have a water catch of any sort, enforced by the Israeli military.  The reason is that Palestinians are required to purchase water from Israel, which, coincidentally, is gathered on all the Palestinians’ land.  So, the wall is creating “security” by taking all the water from the stolen Palestinian land and then being sold back to the Palestinians…

…it was things like this that ring true with the journalist’s quote.  Although there was a definite negative edge to the majority of what he had to share, if I had to live in an occupied country since 1948 (60 years) I think I might empathize a little.

That said, below is what we awoke to at Atta’s home long before meeting our new journalist friend.

Above, Atta’s house is the larger one lit up in the foreground to the left, and the settlement can be seen sprawled out across the distant ridge.

Above, children walked through the thawing hills to school.

Atta’s family has a lot of produce and garden area, and the landscapers out there would be interested to know that there seemed to be a very nice watering system installed that was not only working but nourishing the flowers and food very sufficiently.

Above, we passed some local boys on the way to our van.

One of our stops was a kindergarten program run by Zleekha, who prepared our welcome meal at the Hebron CPT apartment.  She has an apartment in the same complex.  She is very passionate about creating a space where Palestinians parents feel safe bringing their children to play and learn, as the spaces are becoming fewer and fewer.  She is very determined and not easily moved.  She stood up to some Israeli military who would not let us walk 200 feet down a road to some stores where we wanted to purchase some local goods.  They did not let us go through in the end, but she did take us to a secret way of sorts through someone’s house which brought us around the other side of the road.  That was very exciting, especially realizing that an 8 year old boy was the one watching over the house we passed through.  I don’t think many Americans would consider letting a child of this age hold such responsibility, but here it was more than common place.

While we met with her we noted that the children were very quite, and later found out that they were waiting for us to finish talking with her (and being very good at that!), so she cut them loose after the meeting and the transformation from the above image to those below explain the bottled energy these kids were storing.

Above, they sang us a song they had learned, and we sang songs for them, too.  Below we took a photo with them.  The photo credit goes to Melanie Southworth, who wanted me to be in at least one photo – thanks Mel!

We then proceeded with Zleekha to the checkpoint where we were denied passage, so we went up to the Mosque instead.  Below is one of the outer areas where she was at for prayers when the shooting I talked about where 29 Palestinians were killed occurred.

Before entering the main area the women had to put on these robes so that they would be “suitable”.

The above two images are detail shots of the below photo.  I don’t remember what exactly this is from as I was running around taking pictures like mad because the gaurds told us we had 5 MINUTES! until prayer, so I was doing what I could.  As a result I missed exactly what this is, but I remember it being one of two things that have been around since either the temple was originally destroyed, or something of similar significance.  The detail in the piece is amazing!

We then visited a soup kitchen that has been active for around 400 years.  It was quite amazing to see these people so dedicated and carrying on such a long tradition of helping the poor and hungry.

The below man in particular loved having his picture taken, so the other workers told me in English, so I snapped off quite a few shots for both of our enjoyment.  Those are some HUGE soup bowls!

After making our way through the “secret” passage to the street of shops we weren’t allowed to visit earlier, we found mugs that our leader, Sally, had had prepared for us with our names painted on.  Above is one of the workers at the shop where they were made.

Ah, kids.  I can’t remember where I was for the above shot that day, but the following image was of a kid who jumped on our van when we were lost in Dura trying to find the journalist’s home.  He held onto the open area while the sliding-door was left open, and many seat belts were thrust on in haste due to the driver’s choice to not slow down despite the child hanging on and the open door with no arm rests to catch folks.  It was quite a ride!

And below is the journalist, Khaled, who graciously had us into his home and offered us tea and good insight from his perspective as a journalist.

That concluded the day, after which we returned to Hebron for the night.  At this point I was beginning to get a feeling that the situation might be a little bit more complex than I had expected, as well dealing with physical fatigue.  Well, more to come later…and I’ll be looking forward to seeing folks in Oregon when I get in this coming weekend!