Experiences in Palestine (Shabath in Hebron)
As I said before, Saturdays, the Jewish Shabath, are the most difficult days for Palestinians and Internationals in Hebron.
On Saturdays the Israeli settler kids are not in school and their parents do not drive cars for religious reasons. So they walk around Palestinian neighborhoods more often than usual.
This is what happened my first Saturday in Hebron:
The day started with our usual "school run".This means we guard the way and the checkpoints which lead to the school in our neighborhood, in order to discourage Israeli settlers and soldiers from harassing teachers and students.
In the morning a couple of teenage settler girls threw a rotten orange at me and got angry because my colleague filmed the occasion.
When the school was over at about noon-time, we had to go in between Palestinian children walking home and settler kids who cursed them. The Palestinian kids were ready to fight
back, when the settler kids threatened them right in front of the army post. The Palestinian kids would for sure have been arrested, while the settlers would have gone free as always before.
In the afternoon some settler kids blocked a staircase which led to the only pathway to the Palestinian houses above one of the settlements, since the Palestinians are not allowed to walk to their houses on the road by the settlements. Some colleagues finally got the soldiers stationed at the checkpoint beneath the staircase to remove the kids.
Then we decided to guard the staircase and the pathway above the settlement.
And sure enough a religious teacher decided to hold his lesson with his young students, who were approximately between 10 and 13 years old, sitting directly on the pathway.
When a Palestinian lady came, some of the kids would not let her pass, so I went into the circle of kids and teacher and helped her through, while my colleague was filming.
Then the kids got really mad and started screaming at us and coming towards us.
No pictures, no pictures, they screamed, so my colleague put away the camera to not provoke them any more.
Big mistake!
As soon as the camera was off they attacked us, kicking us in the legs and pressing us against the fence, my colleague was even kicked in the stomach. The kid's teacher stood by and said nothing. Many other kids from the settlements came running up the staircase, so we had no way to get out.
In the meantime our two colleagues, who were guarding the Palestinian part of the street, heard the commotion and tried to get to us, but adult Israeli settlers ran towards them with cartons to hinder them both from helping us and from filming. After a few minutes a soldier stationed in an empty Palestinian house above us which is used as a look-out came running down and rescued us by putting himself between the kids and us. But since there were so many of them they were still kicking around him. Then two Israeli police officers arrived and helped us to get down the stairs.
None of the kids nor the teacher who had calmly watched the incident were ever questioned or kept from leaving. (Palestinian police is not allowed in this area, which is totally controlled by Israel).
Luckily my colleague and I were not seriously hurt.
In the evening the Israeli settlers of Hebron had a big celebration with bonfires.
A few of us internationals were asked to stay in a few Palestinian houses in case the settlers wanted to celebrate even more by destroying Palestinian property or scaring the families, as they had in previous years.
The family we stayed with was really nice. The father is a shoemaker, who sews sandals working in his own home.The mother and eldest daughter were teaching us a bit Arabic.
When the bonfire started we could watch it from a distance out of the families garden. When the fire had become real big, the settlers started their celebration by burning a Palestinian flag. Then some speeches were held through a loud microphone and afterwards there was dancing and singing until 4 o'clock in the morning.
In the end they went home quietly and we could also go to sleep.
Two weeks after this first attack, once again the same colleague and I were attacked again. This time the kids who attacked us were older and the injuries we suffered were worse.
Like every Saturday the Israeli settler kids were harassing Palestinians.
We followed a larg group of Israeli teenage boys down the hill in a distance, when we watched them surrounding a couple of Palestinian kids walking up the hill. They started to beat up the kids. My colleague was once again the one with the camera, so I ran downhill calling out to the teenagers to stop. They turned around and the Palestinians were able to escape.
The Israeli kids then went on the other side to harass a man who was transporting his heavy gas-bottle up the hill. When they saw, me following them and my colleague filming, they stopped the harassment and ran towards their settlement.
We followed in a distance. Then saw we a couple of them them running up the stairs towards the Palestinian pathway. I followed to look who they were going to beat up now.
It was a trap.
The minute I had come close to their settlement, stones started flying. And was started to retreat I was grabbed and pushed around. I started to scream in the way I had learned at a women´s self-defense lesson. I have a really loud and scary voice. The younger teenagers backed off.
I turned around and then I saw how an older teenager, about 17 years old or so had gotten behind my colleague and hit him with a stone over his head.
Then, when he was fallen to the ground, he and another teenager kicked him relentlessly all around and tried to get the camera. When they couldn´t take the camera off him, they kept on hitting the camera and managed to break it.
When I tried to pull one of the guys of my colleague, the other one kicked me in the stomach.
The whole incidence happened next to the watch post of an Israeli soldier. It sounded as if he was telling the kids to stop and then he called for assistance, but he did not interfere. The attack stopped when a police car turned around the corner.
We were driven towards the police station which is in the big Israeli settlement of Kyriat Arba at the outskirts of Hebron. But when my colleague then asked for medical assistance, because he started to feel really sick and dizzy, they told us to go to a Palestinian hospital. So we went back into the police car, which drove us out of the station and dropped us in the middle of the street.
The taxi-driver I stopped didn´t speak English and drove us first to a hotel, since hospital means hotel in Arabic.
The hotel owner then translated for us, so the taxi finally reached the hospital.
My colleague was diagnosed with a concussion, I only had big colorful bruise in the form of a footprint on my stomach - ah and I guess, a touch of a nervous break-down as well, for the doctor lady kept telling me, while she watched me trembling: "Don´t be afraid, don´t be afraid. You are with friends now. We are Muslims here. We believe in helping people, all people. This is a Palestinian hospital, you don´t have to be afraid."
By the way, on the first day I had arrived in Hebron, another international, who had survived several attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers told me: "If you ever need to be patched or stitched up, after the settlers attack you, go to a Palestinian hospital. They do it for free."
And they did.
But something like "hospital" was written on the hotel the driver had brought us to.
And it was written in English letters. Maybe it meant something like hospitality or hospiz, I don´t know. And the owner of the place who then directed the taxi-driver to the real hospital told us, that hospital means hotel.
I don´t speak Arabic, but I was trying to learn a few phrases, when I was in Palestine.
Kif halek?
'llhamdullalah mapsud.