“Ramallah, Ramallah, Ramallah…yani, Ramallah zay Amerika! Shu hada? Fish muqawame fi Ramallah!” Ramallah is like America. What is this? There is no resistance in Ramallah. Mohamed is smiling. This is the last time we will see each other. Our common complaints about Ramallah – which has more burger joints than shaheed posters – are being repeated by both of us, somewhat ritualistically and with smiles. We had ourselves a nice time in the last few days. Hanging out with friends and exploring the center of the Palestinian Authority and that of Palestine’s social-elites. Visits to Birzeit, to the center, and around town. On the way down we crossed burning olive groves, set on fire by Israeli colonists. The flames allowed to do their job by nearby Border Police units, apparently defending the burning mess. We’re once again at Qalandiya checkpoint. Again. A giant grey monstrosity of a wall is behind Mohamed. The hideous checkpoint that has mutated over the time since I first got here is now behind me, incorporating new ‘security’ features into its nightmarish version of a minimalist-functionalist facade. Newly installed revolving turn-styles are creaking. A new sound in the architecture of apartheid. The guard in the watchtower charred by the flames of a Molotov and painted black by boya is staring at us. We hug. Mohamed has tears in his eyes. This is my last contact with anyone from Nablus before I turn to hit the checkpoint in the direction of Jerusalem.   more »

In the popular folklore Nablus is known as jaba’al l-nar or The Fire Mountain for its long history of spirited resistance to foreign invasion and popular rebellion against local notables. Last night was a long night. I didn’t sleep. Instead I was recollecting thoughts about my last nine-months here, thinking about my future life outside Palestine. This is my last night in Nablus, my last night in Balata. This is the last time I will hear the muezzin’s morning call at 4am in the morning. When I leave tomorrow, I will leave changed from when I got here, but nothing will change here in Balata. The cruel realities of the occupation will continue. This is not to say that there is some type of immutable reality here of pain and suffering like in some 19^th century orientalist travelogue. In fact, things are changing here constantly - but the harsh rhythms of death, punctured by the sounds of mechanized tank treads grinding on refugee-camp pavement, don’t look like they will abate any time soon. I’ve been running around for the past week saying my goodbyes, frantically gathering email addresses, phone numbers and mailing coordinates to ensure that I will somehow stay connected to the people here. There’s a lot to say, but it will probably take time for all my impressions to come out. Sometimes the less said the better.

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10 military jeeps spent most of the day patrolling Nablus today, raiding the casbah, the duwar/Faisal street area, the Balata refugee camp, and imposing curfew on Rafidiya - which was the scene of recent execution-style killings and sniper attacks perpetrated by the IDF. Soldiers deployed in Rafidiya were particularly undisciplined in their behavior as they taunted motorists, played power-games with Palestinians unlucky to be caught breaking the curfew, blared sirens to disrupt the call to prayer and even threw a sound-grenade on the roof of the mosque near where their jeeps were parked for no other reason than to harass the few worshipers inside. In the evening pitched clashes between the local resistance and the military broke out near the Al-Jasmeen Hotel on the edge of the Old City. Further away, on the jaba’al shamal (northern mountain), 19 year old Beriza Durgham Menawi was shot in the heart and killed instantly while standing on her roof observing the Israeli military operations in the area. Tonight, the mosques are broadcasting eulogies to the ‘shaheeda l-batal Beriza Durgham Menawi’ over loudspeakers while the military operations continue.   more »

Early this morning the sounds of pitched battles could be heard by friends in town. One fellow ISM volunteer staying in the Old City described the situation in the following terms in an SMS: “Sum explosions, shooting &apache at this end. Dnt knw wot they r doin. Mayb we shud chek it out in the morning. (05:20:50).” Now the news is slowly filtering in that at least five people have been killed. The mosque here in Balata still hasn’t been able to gather the names of those killed, but it’s already read statements from the Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Al-Awda Brigades denouncing the killings. Medical teams are still being denied access to the area of the clashes, so the death toll could be higher. From reports on the ground there is a group of D9 bulldozers moving into the area at this moment – presumably to demolish the home - and tanks were also brought in and are still on the streets. Haaretz is reporting the IDF’s claim that its forces were fired upon while conducting a routine nightly raid. Details are sketchy. I’ll post more information as it becomes available. In the meantime I will be with the joint ISM/PMRS’ team being formed to assist in efforts aimed at negotiating medical access to the site. Please call the DCO and demand that the Israeli military withdraw its forces from the city: + 972 2 5486218.   more »

(Photo: AFP/Mahmud Hams)

Today a group of right-wing rabbis from the Yesha - the Hebrew acronym for Judea and Sumaria (a designation used by the settler movement in Israel to denote the West Bank) – released an open letter to Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz demanding that the government step up its operations in the Occupied Territories, even if such operation resulted in the increased loss of civilian lives. Arguing that ‘[t]here is no war in the world in which it is possible to delineate entirely between the population and the [enemy] army’ the rabbis posed the rhetorical question of whether “the IDF [should] fight the enemy, if civilians [on the other side] will be killed, or should the IDF refrain from fighting, and thus endanger our civilians?” The rabbis’ conclusion? “Our lives come first.” The letter continues by stating that “we will not view favorably those who prefer the lives of our enemies on our own lives.” At around the same moment that the not so subtly racist letter was penned, Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets fired missiles into the Sheikh Ahmed Yassin Stadium, a Hamas-run sporting complex in Gaza, killing fourteen Palestinians and injuring 12. In the nearby city of Khan Yunis, a young school-girl Raghda Al-Asar (13) was also shot in the head by IDF fire during military operations involving tanks deployed near a school in the city. Doctors proclaimed her clinically dead a few hours after arriving to the local hospital.   more »