more news from bethleham

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday November 28, 2002 22:38 by tracey and peter - gluaiseacht bobssista at yahoo dot co dot uk

more news from bethleham

we got a restraining order on the demolition of the house. its still quite likely that it will be demolished but we feel that we have achieved something. things have been very crazy here in bethleham. there has been curfew every day and a heavy army presence. the other night the army went into one of the refugee camps to arrest some "wanted men". they barged into the camp at 3am kicking in doors. each time they went to a house they marched the whole family out onto the main street. the wanted men were blindfolded and handcuffed all other men were handcuffed also and the women and children were forced to sit in the rain for 3 hours. unfortunatly we did not know this was happening and so could do nothing. but the next day we visited the families. most of the men had been released, they told us that this happens regularly. one family we visited told us how a 2 day old baby and its mother and 3 mentally handicapped adults from their house were also forced to sit on the street in the rain for 3 hours.
the next night the army came to our camp. at 3am they surrounded the camp. our house was the third house they called at. the shot out a light in front of the house and started kicking in the door. we shouted to them there was internationals in the house. after some questioning they arrested samir. samir is a 32 year old man with 3 small children. he has no connections with any militant groups, yet he has been arrested and beaten many times. the army blindfolded him while his little sisters watched from the windows. we comforted his mother and wife and then proceeded to follow the soliders around the camp.
as its ramadan here the men would begin fasting from sun up so we persuaded the soliders to let us give them water but we couldn't convince them to give the men some food. the soliders would point there guns at everything that moved including people looking out their windows. so we had to knock at poeoples doors asking them to turn off the lights and stay away from the windows. at times we had to place ourselves or our hands in front of the guns. i have to admit i was terrified at times. they would push us out of the way and try to stop us from following them.
we suceeded in following them for the night until they loaded up each palestinian man and drove them away. samir told us the next day that they usually push them and beat them while they go around the camp.
the next day we came across a house that was being occupied by the israeli army. the family of 20 were forced to live in2 or 3 rooms while the army were using the house as a base. they hung a huge israeli flag from the house. the family told us they had water but no food. we came back with bags of food and just started throwing it up. the soliders were so shocked there were staring at us and calling their boss. then we walked away as calmly as we had come.
today curfew was supposed to be lifted from 1 to 5 pm. from 12 onwards the army were driving up and down the streets in tanks and jeeps. this usually encourages the kids to throw rocks. a palestinian explained to me that this is in order to cause a problem so that curfew can be reimposed. people were also angry because 2 people were shot in the area the previous night including a pregnant woman who then lost the baby.
the army then retaliated against the kids by shooting live bullets, throwing tear gas and sound bombs. thankfully no one was killed. we walked through the haze of tear gas to stand where the kids were. from then until curfew was lifted there were no more incidents.