1-What They Say
2- Closure around Jenin by Tobias Carlson, Jenin.
3- Successful negotiations at closure outside Jenin by Lasse Schmidt
4-AMBULANCE FOR PALESTINE PROJECT
5-Weather Report from Nablus 23/2/03
6- A child's life
7-Jennifer reporting from Bethlehem
=======================================================================
1-What They Say, 23 Feb 03

“I wish,” Islah says with a smile. Her mother has just told me that I would have been attending the House of Mourning/Bayt Ajr for her “if not for the Army officer stopping the soldier mid-aim.” “May you live,” I say to Islah, and she smiles again. She is in the top of her high school class, loves poetry, and is uninvolved politically.

“Tahani, would you like to be a martyr?” asks Imm Nabil, bathed in morning light as she lies on her
mattress under the window, recovering from an operation. She tells me how the present world pales in
significance to the Hereafter, and being killed is no shame for a believer.

“Daddy, I want to have an operation,” says a little boy to his father. “Why? You aren’t sick.” “No, I want to do an operation against the Army.” (“Do” and “have” use the same verb in Arabic.) His father is surprised at this; he himself has never thought or spoken of such a thing to his five-year-old.

The man explains to himself as much as to me, that the youngsters have never seen the more positive
times with Israelis that their elders have. The children see the Israeli Army’s destruction every day
– destruction of human lives, destruction of material things, destruction of movement and destruction
of hope.

The constant destruction has planted in me a great desire to find a peaceful place where I can learn
to build. The neighbors have just finished building an addition onto the house, and the tiler is laying the new floor. I ask him to show me how he does it, and then, with no shame, I ask to try it myself. He guides me and praises my attempt, but takes up my tile. I try again with more coaching, but it needs another dollop of sand and cement. Even so, it is a little bit of a little dream fulfilled, and the constructiveness brings a breath of peace.

“All of this destruction, and developing technology in order to destroy; what good does it do?” asks
the shopkeeper who has every color of thread and every shape of button imaginable. His shop is like a
trip into history; he has resisted suggestions to modernize because he feels there is value in historical things, even the cabinets. He speaks of Egypt’s Pharaohs, whose contribution of construction has lasted the ages, puzzling modern engineers. “They took time to think, and then acted. Their method is superior to our quick reactions.”

“Why do foreigners have bigger imaginations than we do?” asks Yumna when I draw a long-legged
stick-man’s shadow. Her sister has asked for help in depicting shadows. Yumna’s question is a good
one. I tell her that maybe it is because we don’t do so much memorization at school. Since we don’t
know the answers to questions, we have to use our imaginations to make them up. It makes me wonder
how our American education system, which teaches us to ask questions, has produced a nation so
willing to believe without question what they are told in illogical news broadcasts.

“In America, people believe that everything they hear in the news is true,” laughs Muhammad. “Here,
even an eight-year-old knows to question what he hears in the news!”

“Half of them are good, aren’t they?” affirms eight-year-old Mustafa with a question. “Half of the
soldiers are good,” he tells me from the balcony overlooking the main entrance to Jenin Refugee Camp.
He is home from school again because the tanks threatened the children at the Primary School. Again.
He tells of instances of the soldiers’ humanity, talking with the children in the Camp, and of the military guards giving him a banana after repeated body searches when he went to visit his brother in the notoriously harsh Naqab/Negev Prison.

It is the first time I have heard the proportion of good soldiers identified as a full half. But along with the accounts of killings and desecration, people of all ages and classes have expressed the idea that some of the soldiers are good and are at the mercy of their superiors.

“If I had an airplane, I wouldn’t fly over Israel. I would attack the Arab countries first, for ignoring us in our plight,” says a creative and upbeat university student.

“I long for the day that Saudi Arabia is occupied by Israel,” says a journalist who has been wounded
twice while wearing a vest and helmet clearly-marked ‘PRESS.’ “Let them experience what we have
endured all these years while they ignore us.”

Bored at what he calls a “laundry list” of Israel’s attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Occupied Khalil/Hebron, the Middle East Editor of an American-based international newspaper derides the photographic evidence as “a convenient catalogue” for international journalists. He hopes the situation isn’t as bad as it sounds, and concludes that things aren’t so bad after a brief stroll in the street.

[http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0210/p25s01-cogn.html ]

I can imagine the intensity of the Khalil official he met. I have encountered it many times, along with the urgent desire -- sometimes a plea, sometimes a demand to “get our story to the world! Tell them what is happening!” With this particular newspaper’s reputation for fairness that often ran counter to the crowd, the Khalil mayor probably felt this was his chance to get someone to take him seriously, and was intent on presenting all of his evidence. The crimes of the Occupation are overwhelming when you hear of them. Imagine living them.

The Mayor’s presentation and Editor’s response brought to my mind the image of a man struggling
against an undertow and calling desperately to someone on shore, whereupon the potential rescuer
responds casually, “Trouble with water? Some people can swim” and walks away.

This bland carelessness is alarming because we are dealing with human lives and with major international issues on the cusp of a worldwide crisis. The crowning glory of the Editor’s Khalil/Hebron diary entry is that any solution here will have to keep the Israeli colonist (settler) safe, or within Israeli borders. No mention of keeping even one Palestinian safe. Or of Israel’s refusal to define borders and stay within them.

This sheds light on why my repeated pleas to these editors to ask critical questions and to provide
context have been ignored. Is ignore-ance the same as ignorance?

“Before we blame Israel, we have to clean up our own house, first, right?” says Majdi with a big
smile, and no rancor. “We have to get rid of the spies amongst ourselves.” That was weeks before a
score of local spies, including some schoolgirls, were rounded up. There was talk of executions, but
a life-preserving judgment prevailed. “What good would it do to execute him?” says one father regarding the spy who led the Israeli Air Force to exterminate his son. “These young people are just
being used. It is the ringleaders who matter.”

“They are Muslim on their identity card only,” says the mother of the collaborators who led the Army
to assassinate her son.

“The spies gave the Israelis the wrong information,” laughs Islah’s mother. They stormed the house
where they thought they would find their wanted man, and instead found two men drinking coffee. But
she is serious in her relief that the soldier did not shoot immediately when he saw Islah peering out
at the commotion from behind the window blinds.

When the neighbor building the house addition mentions “Israeli Arabs,” I question the term, as I do
each time I hear it: “They are Palestinians; why do you say ‘Israeli Arabs’?” He agrees that some
identifications need to be specified correctly, but instead picks up on the term ‘Israeli’: “When I say the name, ‘Israel,’ I can only have respect. I should not use derogatory language. Israel is the name of God’s people.” He is enthused when I refer to Banu Isra’il/The Children of Israel in the Qur’an. “Yes, that is Israel!”

I greet some young men hanging out in the evening across from the destroyed Hawashin eighborhood,
the bald hill of hard reddish dirt. To my question, “How are you?” they respond, as people do in every circumstance, “Praise God.” But they speak of having no jobs – the UN won’t hire them unless they have four children. I tell them to look for brides quickly! They have no place to go and cannot even visit relatives in neighboring villages. A few of my ideas for small sparks of self-expression are met with, “Who will listen?” They miss their shahid/martyr friends. “They are enjoying themselves. They are in heaven. We are still here on earth.” “May you live,” I say.

When I come home, the women are stuffing zamatat leaves, like grape leaves. “If there is a war, will
Tahani go back to America?” one neighbor asks. “No, she will stay here and die with us,” says my
hostess, looking up from her work and smiling. “Yes,” I say, smiling, and forgetting my usual, “May
you live.”

As we are settling onto our floor-level mattresses for the night, Raghda kisses me on the four diamond-points of my face, “That’s how you kiss a shahid/martyr on the bier!” She has experience with a number of family members. She then requests her favorite, a Welsh lullaby whose refrain, in one version, says, “All, all is well.”

Annie Higgins in Jenin, Occupied Palestine + 972-67-540-298
==============================================================================
2- Closure around Jenin
During the last three days the Israeli army has repeatedly blocked the roads to Jenin, restricting the
freedom of movement between the provincial capital and the surrounding villages.

Saturday at 3.30 pm the ISM activists present in Jenin received a call saying that “hundreds” of
Palestinians were denied to get to their home in Berqin, a village of 5.000 people 5 km outside the city. The only road connecting Jenin and Berqin is situated in the Berqin Valley surrounded by step mountainsides.
Three ISM activists arrived at the closure at 4 pm. At that time people were hiking up a narrow and muddy path on the mountainside to get around the military closure, which consisted of one APC with two soldiers posted on top.

15 cars were parked in line 50 meters from the closure and 40-50 Palestinians were waiting.
“No one is allowed through,” some Palestinians told the ISM activists.
The civilians hiking the path on the mountainside were visible to the soldiers, who allowed them to pass without interference.
“We are international human rights observers and we just want to talk to you,” an ISM activist said
approaching the APC.
One of the soldiers ordered them to go back.
“Don’t come closer. I will shoot you if you do,” he yelled pointing his M16 at the ISM activists.
They repeated the abovementioned message and approached the APC a few steps - now 15 meters
away. The soldier shot two rounds of live ammunition hitting the ground by the roadside.
“The road is completely closed. No one is allowed through. If they want, they can go over the mountains,
” he yelled pointing at the Palestinians climbing the path just 30 meters above him.
“Not even an ambulance,” the ISM activists replied.
“No. Not even an ambulance,” the soldier said.
A few minutes later a jeep came in high speed from the Jenin direction and stopped in the middle of the large group of Palestinians. Three soldiers jumped out of the jeep and started shooting in the air. The Palestinians ran or drove away towards Jenin.
Quickly the ISM activists were the only ones on the scene but soldiers. They started questioning the
soldiers about the reason for the closure.
“Now we will let them through but only by foot,” one of the newly arrived soldiers in the jeep said.
But at that time there were no Palestinians left.
The ISM activist observed the closure from a distance for half an hour - until sunset. In that period of
time five cars were denied entrance to Berqin, but seven Palestinians who tried to get through by foot
were allowed.

=========================================================================
3- Successful negotiations at closure outside Jenin

Sunday the ISM organization made a successful action at the closure on the road between Jenin and Berqin – a large village 5 km from the city. The three activists from the International Solidarity Movement present in Jenin – from Sweden, Denmark and USA - received a call at 8 am saying that
the Berqin road was completely closed by the Israeli army. The activists arrived at the closure – consisting of one Israeli armoured personnel carrier – 20 minutes later and approximately one hundred Palestinians were waiting on the Berqin side.
The road is not only used by citizens of Berqin but is as well the only accessible road for citizens of several other villages further west of Jenin, but no one was allowed through by the Israeli soldiers.
The ISM activists called the HaMoked human rights organisation and started negotiating with the soldier in charge.
After one hour the soldiers agreed to let through anyone going to the doctor or the hospital, but only by foot. Three hours later, due to pressure form both ISM and HaMoKed, the soldiers started letting women and elderly people pass the closure.
“I am doing this against my orders. According to my orders no one is allowed through. Actually you should be thanking me for not shooting at the people up there cause my orders tell me to,” a soldier stated pointing up the steep mountainside were Palestinians where climbing a narrow path 50 meters above him.
At times a few men were allowed to pass. They were teachers, employees by the Palestinian Authority or employees at the hospitals in Jenin. But this was the exception rather than the standard During the eight hours the ISM were present at the closure, four cars were allowed to pass: three of them without any negotiation and the last due to pressure from HaMoKed. For two hours the organisation negotiated the case of a family with five children – one of them a baby aged 17 months – trying to get through. The family live in Jenin but were trapped on the wrong side of the closure in their car after visiting a relative in Berqin.
Unfortunately all students returning to the villages during the afternoon were forced to return to Jenin or climb the rocky and muddy mountains.
At 5 pm two men, who wanted to go to their homes I Bereqin, were fed up with the situation. They decided to pass the closure ignoring the soldiers. To minimize the risk of soldiers shooting upon the two Palestinians, the ISM activists from Sweden and USA grabbed each one by the arm and accompanied them through the closure. The soldier in charge froze and the action was successful.
The Israeli soldiers discussed the situation for a while before turning on the engine of the APC. One soldier started shooting in the air. The Palestinians ran in all directions.
The ISM activists observed the closure for one additional hour, but could do nothing more than to watch and make sure the few Palestinians still present where safe.

=======================================================================
4-AMBULANCE FOR PALESTINE PROJECT

Veterans for Peace Chapter 22 is pleased to announce plans for a new project that involves sending an ambulance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank. See Photo below or attachment.

The Veterans for Peace members have purchased an 1994 Ford Turbo Diesel Ambulance from a local businessman with the intention to ship this vehicle overseas through the port of Ashdod, Israel. This ambulance will then be trucked through Israel, to the West Bank in the occupied territory in
Palestine. There it will be presented as a gift to the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees headquartered in Ramallah. More information about the work of the UPMRC can be found at their website, http://www.upmrc.org.

Before shipment overseas, the vehicle will be used as an educational and fund-raising tool to increase public awareness and understanding of the issues facing the Palestinian people. The Veterans will speak and show slides at events from Seattle to San Diego in a campaign to draw attention to the need for ambulances to replace those damaged by the Israeli military.
Many ambulances have been shot up, burned, or otherwise damaged or destroyed deliberately by the IDF. Some drivers and rescue crews have been killed or wounded in the line of duty.

Veterans for Peace calls upon all peace loving persons and organizations to help us in this campaign to send this first ambulance to Palestine. Donations are needed for expenses for travel, insurance, registration, sales tax, printing, postage and shipping. Persons wishing to help may mail your
donation to Veterans for Peace, Ambulance Project, P O Box 69, Garberville, CA 95542. Your contribution is tax deductible.

For more information about Veterans for Peace, Inc, visit http://www.veteransforpeace.org.
Veterans for Peace Chapter 22, P O Box 69, Garberville, CA 95542
www.humboldt.net/~veterans/chapter22/.
====================================================================
5-Weather Report from Nablus 23/2/03

Four days of continuous rain has fallen on the latest four day military operation in Nablus. Tanks rolled in to the city on Monday asserting the Israeli’s military strength over the city. Tuesday’s relative calm lulled the more optimistic visitors into a false sense of security, an illusion brutally shattered in the early hours of Wednesday morning when hundreds of troops stormed the Old City, occupying dozens of homes . Over the next three days eight Palestinians lost their lives to Israeli bullets, one man is critically injured in hospital and fifty were injured. City dwellers have been imprisoned in their homes and approximately 300 men have been detained in the nearby military base or a local school that has been commandeered by the army as a “detention centre”.

One of the most sickening features of this invasion has been the treatment of medical personnel as they struggled to tend to the sick and dying. In one incident, a paramedic rushed to the scene of a dying man, shot by an Israeli soldier, to find the soldier standing with his foot on the man’s body warning the paramedic not to approach unless he wanted to be shot himself. Yesterday 16 volunteer medical workers were ‘detained’ by soldiers when they attempted to bring food and medicine to an occupied house.

The army have, however, proceeded to abide by law of the High Court of Israel, which ruled unlawful the use of the ‘neighbour method’ of conducting house to house searches. This method involves forcing one neighbour to knock on the door of another, with the soldiers behind them so as to act as a human shield for the soldiers conducting searches. Instead, as we have witnessed, the army simply line up a group of handcuffed civilians in front of them as they move from house with a dynamite kit. In this way, there is no need to knock, the army still have their human shields and are perfectly within the laws of their own country. (See Photos)

Last night most of the troops left the city. It was still raining. Boarding their military vehicles, they turned their backs on the houses they destroyed, the ancient buildings bombed to rubble on the ground, and the population they robbed of eight brothers.

Today the sun is shining, reflecting the welcoming smiles on the faces of the local Palestinians as they begin to repair their homes and shops, for maybe the second or third time. The resilience of this community is astounding. We hope it will not rain for a while.
=======================================================================
6- A child's life
Published at http://www.palestinereport.org on February 19, 2003.

Also in this week’s issue: PR talks to US-based activist Ali Abunimah and visits the surprisingly lively “ghost town” of Yanoun. by Muthanna Al Qadi TWO DAYS before his birthday, Adel Abu 'Alfeh asked his mother to prepare some special sweets to celebrate his turning 16. Adel placed his head on his pillow on the night of January 29, already dreaming of the festivities the following day. His awakening was abrupt and frightening.

That same evening, he opened his eyes to discover a large group of Israeli soldiers in his Nablus home ordering everyone outside into the courtyard area. The soldiers then took Adel to the Hawareh military camp, just east of the city, to spend the rest of the night there. Adel's family was unable to return to sleep. They stayed up until the sun dawned on Adel's birthday. All were present except him. Oddly, this same story was repeated with Muhammad Ali Shahruri, 17, also from Nablus. Israeli troops arrested him one day before his birthday, in the evening of November 22, 2002. The next day, instead of celebrating Muhammad's life, the Shahruri family's joy was eclipsed by the intense pain and sadness of his arrest. The only way they were able to receive news of his well-being was through the mother of Khalid Abu Khalid from Jerusalem, who is detained in Muhammad's cell.

As West Bankers unable to travel in Israel, the Shahruris have no other way to stay in touch with their young son. Khalid Abu Khalid has been detained in Israeli prisons for seven months on the charge of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli military patrol.

He will turn 16 within prison walls during the next few weeks. 'Itimad, his mother, 33, has visited her son in jail five times. She describes the living conditions of the tens of children in Israeli prisons as extremely difficult. "The prison administration is entirely uncooperative and doesn't meet the children's needs. This has led them to hold
a hunger strike more than once," 'Itimad says. "If the children didn't challenge them [the authorities] and cooperate together, the conditions would be even worse.

They treat the children very harshly and deprive them of visits," she adds, speaking of the various punishments doled out by the prison administration. Amnesty International is only one of the many human rights organizations that have criticized the Israeli prison system for arbitrarily arresting thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of
children in mass arrests. "Most have been released without charge and often without having been questioned," Amnesty points out. The organization cites cases of torture, the use of secret evidence in trials and restrictions on family visits. Last Sunday, Muhammad's mother prepared some clothes and personal items for her son to be sent with 'Itimad to the HaSharon juvenile detention center of Talmund prison. But the curfew and tight siege placed on Nablus prevented the family from delivering these items to Ramallah, where they could be picked up.

Disappointed, Muhammad's mother called 'Itimad in Jerusalem to offer her apologies.
That didn't stop Khalid's mother, however. She decided to use her own personal savings and items she had on hand to put together shoes, clothing, winter blankets, and some olive oil and thyme. She bought what Muhammad had requested and on February 18 delivered the items during the prison's visiting hours. "Tell Muhammad Shahruri that his family is fine and that they send their greetings," she informed Khalid. She brought nothing
for her own son. Muhammad had heard that Khalid's mother was coming to visit and wrote a letter to his family describing how he and his fellow inmates spend their time in prison.

But when Khalid was passing the letter to his mother, a soldier spotted the transfer and confiscated it immediately. Adel, Muhammad and Khalid are among the more than 80 Palestinian children subjected to such isolation and demoralization. Their living conditions are extremely difficult, and the children are under immense emotional and physical pressure. At least one has found the situation so difficult that he attempted to commit suicide. These details are closely guarded because of the sensitivity of the case. The Palestinian Prisoner's Club issued a paper in August of 2001 on the "Israeli Authorities' War on Children," during the first year of the Al Aqsa Intifada.

The paper describes how the Israeli authorities place children into detention centers and illegal detention areas that fail to meet the minimal requirements of humane conditions. It also paints a picture of the Israeli authorities' methods of detention, the meting out of harsh punishment and in some cases, the torture of child detainees. The case of Rami Za'ul, 16, from Hasun village in the Nablus district, is particularly striking. Rami was arrested by Israeli soldiers on November 14, 2000 and charged with throwing stones.

Soldiers beat him severely during his transfer to the Etzion detention enter. There he was tortured by having cold and hot water poured over his head and then being placed in a barrel of frigid water. As a result, Rami went into convulsions and had to be immediately transferred to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Prisoner's Club does its best to represent the interests of prisoners and child detainees, says the club's public

relations officer Raid 'Amer, 36. "We hire lawyers to defend prisoners, when possible, and closely follow their cases," he says. "During the duration of their sentence, we try to deliver aid and whatever else they request. For the child detainees, $25 is allocated to each prisoner every month [for personal expenses]." But the club's activities are not limited to the detainees' prison terms.

The club also sponsors social activities and educational events in coordination with the Ministry of Detainees and Freed Detainees Affairs as art of a family rehabilitation program supported by UNICEF.
The program offers psychological counseling to all minors, who can call a hotline available 24 hours a day. Amer, who is also the director of the club's Nablus office, tells the story of Rabi'a Muhammad Humail from Beita village. Israeli occupation forces arrested her in 2001, when she was 14 years old.
She remained in a detention camp until she reached the age of 16 and was then brought before an Israeli military court. At age 16, children can be tried as adults by the military courts, even if they were underage when charged. Rabi'a's story is similar to that of Suad Ghazzal, who was also 14 when she was arrested. She spent two years in
Israeli prisons without trial, and once she turned 16 was sentenced to six and a half years in jail for allegedly attacking a female Israeli settler.

The youngest of the female prisoners is Sina' Issa Amru, from Dura in the Hebron district, who was arrested on February 28, 2001 at the age of 13. She was detained on the charge of participating in an attept to stab a settler. While Palestine Report attempted to interview children who have been detained and released, their families refused.
The trauma of imprisonment need not be compounded by journalists' questions, they said. "Child detainees leave prisons completely withdrawn into themselves, isolated, and lacking confidence in anyone around them," explains Samer Samaru, a counselor in the detainees' affairs ministry and supervisor of the prisoners' hotline. "They feel insecure and bottle things up inside. They speak very little," he says. With family support, Samaru is able to sit with those that contact him or those the ministry seeks out to offer assistance. "But it's not as easy as one might think, the healing process can take years," he says. Some of what the children experience is described in local human rights reports. "The occupation authorities continue to take severely oppressive measures against approximately 65 to 70 detainees in the Sharon juvenile department of Talmund prison," writes attorney Hanan Al Khatib in a report issued by LAW.

The paper escribes how the prison administration uses police dogs in their searches and has attacked detainees with electric poles and wooden clubs. The Israeli prison authorities have also torn up the children's Qur'ans, confiscated their prayer rugs and made them strip when conducting head counts.
"The children suffer extremely serious medical neglect, and treatment is limited to providing aspirin pills, irregardless of the patient's state," says Al Khatib. Child detainees also are often given extremely long sentences, she reports. For example, Ahmed Shweiki was sentenced to twenty years and another child from the Juweihan family was sentenced to twenty-five years. Both were 14 at the time of their arrest. With few able to speak on their behalf, the children have expressed their needs to legal advocates. Al Khatib lists the demands of children detained in Talmund prison: an end to long sentences and the policy of monetary fines; provision of cleaning materials, personal hygiene supplies and needed medicine; a solution for open sewage and the shortage of clothing and bedding; abolishment of overcrowding; the permitting of family visits; and the right to worship, education and keep track of news of the outside world.
-Published 19/2/03(c)Palestine Report
======================================================================
7-Jennifer reporting from Bethlehem

Dear Friends and Family,
I am now in Bethlehem where I plan to spend the majority of my remaining two months, something like a home base. In exchange for editing the book chapters and journal articles of the PRCS (Palestinian Red Crescent Society) Director of Mental Health, I have been given a little room above the ambulance dispatch center. I am now working more or less fulltime with the Holyland Trust, a Palestinian NGO dedicated to supporting the Palestinian nonviolent resistance to occupation. Compared to other areas of the West Bank and Gaza, the Bethlehem
district is considered to be "quiet."

I arrived under curfew, with a pattern of residents being allowed out of their homes from about 9am to 5pm most days and under 24-hour curfew the others. As of a couple days ago, curfew has been repealed, although no one seems to know why. People have experienced such unpredictable ending of the curfews often enough to know that there can be just as inexplicable reenforcement; there is no feeling of celebration under such annoucements of its being lifted, just a general resignation that both the restrictions as well as liberations are out of their hands.

The soldiers still make their presence known by driving through the streets in convoys of 2 to 5 jeeps. Unlike my time in Tulkarm, I have not seen APCs (Armed Personnel Carriers) or tanks in the city streets, except at checkpoints and on roads connecting Bethlehem with its surrounding villages and refugee camps. Perhaps they are all in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarm, where I receive regular reports from friends of daily deaths. I have a strange feeling of guilt that I sleep through the night without the sound of gunfire. However, on my way to the Nativity Church to see my friend sing in the choir during the 11am Catholic mass, a group of men were gathered in the square observing a pod of jeeps gathered on the road across the narrow valley. Within 15 minutes, the jeeps had moved and two reappeared just below us.
Immediately, most of the observers moved away but four adolescent boys started to throw stones so I stepped behind a parked truck to avoid being caught in the middle of the rockthrowers and the soldiers' responding gunfire. One shot sent tufts of shredded tree branches raining onto the road below and then they were gone. But as I entered the church sanctuary, my breathing started to become difficult and I smelled the all too familiar aroma of teargas. Soon that passed as well.

The mass was beautiful, in its familiar format but unfamiliar language. The Catholic Church here is mostly represented by the Franciscans. I spoke with the head priest after the service to ask what his sermon's message was. I wondered what a spiritual leader tells his people living under such difficult circumstances, when so many are looking for hope, guidance and meaning in order to make sense of a world that seems not only out of their control but against them as a people. He said that, in these times more than any other, it is important to remember what it
means to be Christian, not just in word but in meaning. That to claim to be a Christian means to be reminded of Christ's message of love and strength and courage in the face of persecution. To not forget his message of "Love thy enemy" and "Turn the other cheek." Palestinian Christian leaders have been very strong in their condemnation of violence, whether against Israelis or Palestinians. However, in talking with my friends after the service, they also want to know what the Bible tells them about fighting for their rights, beyond an acceptance of the humanity of their opponent. How do they honor this message and continue to assert the humanity of their own lives. They remind me that Christ was an advocate for the poor, rejected, condemned. And then just as quickly, they remind me that the result of his struggle was death. They are truly seeking the correct path to honor the truth of Christ's message.

As many of you may know, Christians are leaving Palestine (the overall percentage of the Palestinian population has dropped to an all time low of about 1.5%). This evacuation seems to be due to a combination of the deadly violence and the associated lack of tourism upon which most depend economically (my first night here, I stayed in a 400-room formally sold-out hotel which was completely vacant with the exception of 2 rooms: mine and my work collegue who couldn't make it home that night due to the curfew). Bethlehem used to be fairly affluent, benefiting from the throngs of tourists and pilgrims coming to see this beautiful, ancient, historic and religious city. Now most shops are shuttered even without curfew and people are trying to find markets overseas to sell their olive carvings, rosaries and Christian artifacts.

As I sat in the service today, I couldn't help but wonder what it must have been like during the 40-day military seige of Bethlehem last Spring. On April 2, Israeli tanks and troops entered Bethlehem as part of Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield," a military campaign Israel said was intended to dismantle the "terrorist infrastructure in the
Palestinian territories." The Nativity Church was ground zero in Bethlehem, as about 150 people sought refuge there as a result of the military incursion. This number included many of the priests and nuns that refused to leave "their people," so suffered along with the others as (most) survived on leaves from the trees in the courtyard. Through negotiations, 13 men accused by Israel of being part of the Palestinian armed resistance were deported to Europe and 26 to Gaza. No trials and no communications with their families were allowed.

The first chapter I was asked to edit by the Mental Health Director focused on the psychological effects of Bethlehem's residents following the seige. He wrote about two case studies. One told the story of a man
who hid his family with his brother's family. In the brother's home, soldiers shot his brother as well as his mother, whose hand he was holding at that very moment. Both died but the bodies could only be removed from the home (where the other family members continued to seek safety) and burried after days of negotiations through the Red Cross. The other case study was a mother whose elder son was killed by an Israeli tank attack in his car during the seige as a result of a Palestinian informer and whose younger son was deported to Gaza. It is possible that both brothers were part of the armed resistance in Bethlehem but they weren't put on trial so it is not clear what the
nature of their involvement actually was. The chapter's second section dealt with the analysis of children's drawings one month after the seige's end. Although the children were told they could draw anything they like, virtually all of the over 400 children drew scenes of soldiers, death, and property destruction. One drawing I saw included an American star-spangled snake devouring dollars and encircling an Israeli settlement with a Catapillar bulldozer demolishing a home and olive trees in the forground. Impressive level of detail. The only depictions of Israelis were as soldiers and gun-weilding settlers, no other representations were made reflecting the nature of the current interactions between Palestinians and Israelis. Very little color except red used for blood and the color of weapons. Palestinian faces showed upside down smiles and tears while the soldiers faces were often completely blank of any features. The chapter's final section described the findings of focus groups conducted with women whose husbands had been deported as part of the negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. The loss of their husbands was devastating, emotionally (feeling of complete abandonment, loss and fear for the continued threat to their husband's lives), economically (loss of husband's income for caring for wives and children), and socially (traditional Moslem women are typically accompanied by husbands when spending time outside the home or receiving nonrelative visitors). The Director (with an American PhD in psychology and a counseling license) characterizes the population as suffering from chronic Post Traumatic Shock and is studying the longterm impacts of generational exposure to ongoing violence.

So this is enough for now. Thanks for your ongoing interest and for taking the time to care about this situation. Your encouragement to those in the region struggling to find a path out of this tragedy truly makes a difference.