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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:40
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Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:09:59 hey all, 2 main things; 1) arafat's medicine is running low. medically very serious. we have a new line into the building, though, which is good because the israelis have jammers on some of the mobiles there.they have very, very little water and very little food left in there, and the idf are still not letting humanitarian aid through. 2) the family of a volunteer here were stopped in an ambulance last night. a wounded man in the ambulance was arrested and the family interrogated, including violence to one of the men, for 2 hours; the actual patient was 3 years old. the most disturbing thing, though, was that the commanding officer of the troops doing this told the family that they would not be allowed anywhere until "everyone in the nativity church is dead." there are about 200 people in there, including some freedom fighters but mainly families who fled there and to the mosque when homes in the area were shelled, and then the mosque was also shelled beyond being useful as a refuge. the idf are claiming publically that it is all gunmen there, and we are terrified that this is idf preparation to massacre everyone in there. they have denied medical care to the many wounded in there for 2 days now, and we have reports that a number of people have bled to death in that time. an ambulance was crushed by a tank yesterday morning trying to reach them, but some bodies and a few wounded have been removed, but some of the wounded have been arrested on the way out. there have been gunbattles and heavy tank movement all night here, but we have no reports yet of what this signifies; ayda camp have reported that the night was ok, but we are worried about deheishe camp, since we saw large earthmover type vehicles and many tanks heading up there midnightish. we also had a false alarm that someone was trying to batter our downstairs door down...but just a false alarm. we're quite surprised that they haven't taken us out yet, since we seem to be being so successful in getting info out - we've been doing interviews with press everywhere from the us, uk, germany, chile, mexico, spain, japan, australia etc etc etc...we had an unconfirmed report last night that the director of bethlehem tv, in our building, was arrested last night, and we've not been able to contact him since. we are probably going to try and leave for a little later to try to get some ambulances up to manger square; internationals tried yesterday but got shot at when the idf decided to stop the curfew lift on their time not ours. and azza camp, which was shelled during the night, including the building some of the internationals were in, have reported seeing an ambulance heading for the old city about 2 hours ago. a couple of minutes later there was heavy gunfire and the ambulance has not been seen returning. and news just in...there's about 40 journos waiting to come up to manger sqaure with us...i wanna be exploited... if there is any fundraising anyone can do running the press ops here is costing a bomb; there are details of how to donate on http://jerusalem.indymedia.org. take care all. love, sarah from the centre of besieged bethlehem
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:40
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Thu, 04 Apr 2002 08:55:17 hey, we're trying to sort ambulances to get up to manger square to deal with the humanitarian disaster there at the moment, but the organisations won't co-ordinate with us and the medical organisations won't let ambulances out while that is the case, as one was crushed yesterday by a tank and several crews have been arrested. we will probably form a group of internationals to carry water, food and if possible medical supplies up there instead. there are a number of press prepared to come with us. we are very concerned about the medical conditions of people who have been trapped up there bleeding for 2 days and have no food and water. we are also concerned about the idf's refusal to let anyone witness whatever it is they are perpetrating up there, which we know has already included widespread killing and the shelling of homes. in peace, inshallah, sarah as the tanks roll by...
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:43
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Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:34:28 hello all, greetings from the cold quiet of the bethlehem morning. well, quiet if it wasn't for the tanks trundling past. i hate the noise of them; so heavy and destructive and intrusive. the damage they've done up in the old city is horrendous, destroying much of the renovation that was done for the millenium, smashing road surfaces, water pipes and sewage conduits and generally wreaking infrastructural havoc as well as the damage to life and limb. yesterday was pretty draining - the feeling of our own impotence as we spoke to people inside the church of the nativity. we now have confirmation that there are about 260 people in there, largely families from the surrounding streets who feld when their homes were shelled, or fled again from the mosque when it was destroyed. at least 30 are wounded, some seriously, and they have been denied proper medical care for 3 days now. the israelis have let some ambulances up there, but not with deliveries of medical supplies, and they have arrested some people from the backs of ambulances once they were moved. the idf started shooting at the church yesterday morning, and then shelled it around lunchtime on the milk grotto street wall, to the right of the church. luckily those great fat medieval walls are still holding strong, but all the windows are gone and they were still shooting at the building last night. this despite ongoing denials on idf radio that the church was under attack at all, although these were apparently made to look pretty foolish by an announcement from ariel sharon that the (none-existent) attack would stop...
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:43
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we also got quite a lot of calls from rightist israelis hoping that the idf's aim would improve and we'd die... we also got some rather sinister messages yesterday, if laughable. the americans in ayda camp were warned by their consulate that the israeli border guards had threatened to dump them in the nativity church to get shelled. the americans here, meanwhile, were given a similar warning but that it would be palestinians who would drag them in as hostages. us brits, meanwhile, got a message last night that because of 'rising sentiment' against foreigners here amongst palestinians (which is in itself a rubbish claim) we were 'strongly advised' to leave. we are taking this with a massive pinch of salt, having met nothing but kindness, respect and appreciation of our presence from every palestinian we've met. but it is disturbing in that we are reading these as veiled threats from the israeli army and government, or at least attempts from them to get themselves off the hook should they 'accidentally' harm us. on a personal level, if anything bad does happen to me here, i want all my loved ones to utterly assume israeli responsibility. they are the only forces from whom we have met aggression and harm, despite the workings of their propaganda machine.a full formal statement from the internationals will be released by the internationals here later today. we have also had news from ayda refugee camp here that food is running low, and we are trying to set up the conditions for an aid convoy, possibly similar (if more successful, hopefully) than the one which attempted to reach ramallah on wednesday but was trashed by the idf. please pass this plea on to christian aid, war on want etc, and we'll be on to them, as well as to gush shalom, rabbis for humsn rights etc from this end. terrible news from nablus, where there are 4-500 tanks. the refugee camps and university have been occupied, with systematic demolition of houses, leaving families homeless in the bitter cold, wet weather we have here at the moment (so much for my tan ambitions...). a house was also destroyed by a helicopter gunship, leaving 2 women in the rubble, status unknown. the idf also busted into an old people's home - obviously a haven for terrorists... we got news from deheishe refugee camp yesterday that another woman had lost her baby after being denied access to specialist medical care after labour complications. and the UN managed to set up a brief clinic and treated 3 boys under 15 for gunshot wounds. in ramallah, the family of a 21 year old palestinian woman with a US passport have described how she was shot dead as she sat with her 9-month old baby on her lap in a car, fleeing to safety after she heard gunshots. she was one of the 30-odd who had to be buried in a mass grave in the carpark of ramallah hospital. the idf have put out a thoroughly sick press release claiming that the digging of this mass grave was simply propaganda by the palestinians, who had ample time to bury their dead properly in the one or two-hour curfew lifts granted them. drained, angry and sad, but staying here... love, sarah the contact numbers for the independent media centre are: 00 972 22777558 00 972 55840767 00 972 67435459 00 972 67270398 we are available 24 hours for interview and comment. [Pass these numbers on to any and all media contacts]
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:44
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Fri, 05 Apr 2002 05:31:28 hello again, just an update of stuff from during the night. 9 men were killed in the nativity church during the night, a report confirmed by those inside the building. they were shot through the doors which have been blown off the back of the church. worry increases for the rest of those inside - so much for a halt to the attack. apache helicopters (yes, american ones) have killed many while firing on balata refugee camp. the governor of nablus (i met him in december) has had his home taken over by troops who have destroyed the inside. red crescent ambulances have been allowed to deliver some food and water but no medical aid to arafat's compound. the president is on the verge of running out of vital personal medication. a number of internationals, including a french man suffering heart attack symptoms, left the presidential compound last night with alleged safe passage from the idf. neither they nor their red cross drivers had been heard from since, as of the early hours of this morning, around 10 hours after they left on the journey to qalandia checkpoint which, even under present conditions, should only take about an hour. in atara, a village near bir zeit university, an old man trying to reach hospital was stopped in the street by israeli forces and died in the street. the fact that this place is so damn beautiful just makes this all the harder; looking out of the window in the early morning light (now it's stopped chucking it down) over the white stone houses of bethlehem and the olive groves, the sounds of tanks are all the more grating... to my friends and especially family; please be careful, especially mum; [a colleague]'s parents in new york have been driven from their home by death threats from right wing zionists. and the brits on the plane home last night were 'abused' by israelis with them and had to be escorted from the airport by police. i don't want my insane actions to rebound on you guys! i love you too much. holding on, sarah
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:45
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Sun, 07 Apr 2002 09:26:33 hey all, greetings again from the increasingly hellish place that is the west bank. reports out of jenin are truly appalling; houses being bulldozed on top of their occupants and teargas being dropped by helicopter onto the refugee camp whilst people flee their homes. A doctor in the main hospitalis using the word massacre, which palestinians don't do lightly. and of course there are not internationals in jenin or nablus, so everything that comes out of there gets questioned by the press because it's not verified by the idf - such sick logic. here a bunch of us tried to get an ambulance up to the church of the nativity where people are down to salt and water and have still not had proper medical attention. we had a warning shot fired at us,and then our hebrew speaker approached, but we were told we would under no circumstances be allowed through. there have been lots of arrests here in house-to-house searched this morning, and the army are doing shoot-to-kill curfew today, to prevent the sunday morning christian march the church leaders called from beit sahour and beit jala. there are also tanks massing outside gaza, they had planes overhead last night, and some areas have lost elecrticity, often a precursor to an attack. and in the muqada they are dangerously low on food and water, and conditions are becoming increasingly insanitory. we are trying to get food and medicine out to people in the bethlehem area, but it is difficult because of the curfew. the humanitarian aid community need to address this now. in the imc, we are going a bit mad but indy the puppy keeps our spirits up; he has just learned to bark and is using his new-found skill assiduously. take care, all. love, sarah
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:45
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Sun, 07 Apr 2002 10:30:38 hey again, the other thing i forgot to say - and it needs saying - is that in jenin yesterday the idf announced an end to the curfew so that people could come and get water,and a loadof women and old men came out to do so. they were detained and strapped to the front of tanks as shields, after which the tanks recommenced bombarding the very homes of the people tied to them. outside ramallah, palestinian man, the brother-in-law of one of our contacts here,was one of several hundred men held in a dried-up sewage pit overnight, in driving rain. when someone complained of the treatment to which they were being subjected, he was told by the idf commander that the difference between them and him was that he,the israeli, was a human being. from here, it's very much looking like the opposite is true. s xxx
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:46
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Sun, 07 Apr 2002 11:04:37 just a little additional one to say that our isp is in nablus and has been bombed, so we only have sporadic dialup connection, so don't worry if you don't hear too much from me for abit.i shouldn't be on this at the mo... if anyone needs statements from here,which can have names and phone numbers here on them,for public meetings,local press etc etc etc, please feel free to ring us. also, allegra pacheco, an israeli jewsih human rights lawyer, is eminently availbale for interview over here. please pass it on. and if anyone has fundraising sources, we really really need funds for geek expenses at the imc becasue we're running up huge internetbills on the accounts of sympathisers becasue of the bombed leaseline. call us here! s xxx imc numbers: 00972 2277 7558 00972 67270398 00972 55840767 00972 67435459
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:49
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Mon, 08 Apr 2002 11:51:25 dear all, got woken up after my first decent nights sleep here by the sound of machine gun fire and a tank shell. still haven't verified where it came from, but things have quietened down now. curfew has apparently been lifted until 5pm today, although as with the other day we don't know if that's israeli 5pm or palestinian, which effectively means losing an hour at the end in case it's israeli 5pm and they start shooting at what you think is 4o'clock...georgie rang the district command this morning to get curfew details and was told that they wouldn't tell her them coz she might be a terrorist plotting attacks... there were press reports that the idf had gone into the nativity church this morning; the truth of this seems to be that one shell was lobbed in and a fire started, with one of the people trapped inside being shot dead whilst trying to put the fire out. still no ambulances etc allowed up there, and some of the people wounded have been there a week now. i spoke to a local activist a few days ago who cried as he told me about how he was getting phone calls from wounded friends inside and from a little girl whose father is his friend and whom is in there. and now all their phone batteries have run down so there is not even that cold comfort. at least 100 people were arrested in the bethlehem area yesterday, inlcuding a large number in beit sahour. one family had all 8 of their sons taken. in beit sahour a number of houses were also destroyed, inlcuding that of the family of one of the men from the town killed in a targeted assassination last autumn. the arrested are being shipped down to a prison near hebron, or held in the building which is arafat's residence when he's here. a group of internationals in the street breaking curfew yesterday encountered a group of lads who'd just been released and accompanied them to comparative safety, as the idf often release people during curfew so that they can arrest them again for breaking curfew...as we spoke to them, we also saw a troop carrier loaded with young palestinian men driving past...a truly chilling sight, given the possible fate that could be awaiting them. i spoke to a woman in beit sahour this morning who also told me of how a tank sat outside her house for the whole of yesterday, stopping every ambulance heading for the clinic down the road (the one where i was treated in december) and holding them for an hour each time, id'g the occupants and staff, and then doing the same on way back up. one of the soldiers there also threatened her little girl with a gun for looking out of the window one too many times... a few of us after food yesterday were also stopped and held in the road for about 20 minutes outside al-husayn hospital. we'd been given a large quantity of food by the brothers at the university which the idf had left behind! it seemed fitting that the ambulances at the hospital should get it to distribute it to take round to camps, but apparently this made us suspicious and we were held and id'd. the monks had their residence at the uni invaded by idf with grappling hooks last week, and they left some other paraphenalia as well as food - quikcuffs (apparently manufactured by R Wolf), a helmet, a metal box with egg-holes for carrying grenades, and some batteries, brand name SAFT. the monks also have a large rocket that went through their library during the last incursion a couple of months ago. such an obvious target, a bunch of brothers who teach english and hotel management and history to teenagers... still appalling reports coming out of jenin and nablus, with terrible loss of life and fundamentally disgusting things being done to people. a group of internationals are heading over there at the moment, and conveys are being attempted in the next few days, especially for medical supplies. take care, my loves, sarah
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Apr 09, 2002, 17:49
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Mon, 08 Apr 2002 22:50:35 hey all, ok, lets try this again. i got kicked offline by one of the machistas trying to backtrack on the extraordinary fuckup they just perpetrated on our other laptop, but my first effort was shit anyway. besides, i've just seen footage from jenin, of a woman and her kid both sitting in hospital with their faces all mashed up, and of idf loudhailers calling out all the men to who knows what fate - often this is the men between about 14 and 45, to cover potential 'terrorists,' but by the look of it they must have called up to 60, since some of them looked so old and frail. we had our first real curfew lift today; amazing to see how people appeared so quickly in the streets, scurrying around in the sunshine to reach food, their first access in days. although the idf did their thing from last week again and called the lift off about an hour and a half before they'd previously announced, and notified us by starting to shoot randomly. the final clincher was an apc and a jeep stopping an ambulance in the street outside our kitchen window and raking the ground around it with m16 fire, and then at our building also...we've had rather a lot of that ever since the fuckwits at independent media center israel phoned the idf and told them our exact location, and the idf broadcast that on their radio station. there've also been flares and machine gun fire this evening, and ground activity around azza camp, which is worrying. in the church of the nativity this morning the idf tried to get in by chucking a shell in, which started a fire, and one of the trapped people was killed by a sniper when he tried to put it out. however, the idf soldiers whon tried to enter apparently sustained 4 casualties and lost 3 m16s to the trapped palestinians - those that were armed had laid down their weapons on the way in so apparently this has raised spirits somewhat, despite the fact that they are now without food and there are worries that the idf will go in tonight. this info came from our friendly bethlehem tv cameraman, khaled, who comes to hang out with us in the evenings sometimes. he's a big, bluff bear of a man who usually brings beer with him and who is incredibly brave - or foolish - yesterday when we were being held in the street by soldiers he had his camera right up the arse of an apc, whilst the international press cowered round the ambulance. right now he and da boyz are discussing marx and anarchism in arabic. there have been lots of arrests here also, including one family who have had all 8 of their sons taken. for me, the curfew lift was pretty good, especially having the confidence to walk somewhere by myself. i know it's so little compared with what every palestinian here is dealing with, but it's been a bit tough being in this office for over a week now, working, eating and sleeping in 5 rooms with at least 4 other people at any one time, and i'v ehad maybe 7 hours outside of here in all that time, so i'm going a little stir crazy. 'kate' [who was hospitalised with abdominal bullet wounds last week] herself was, i think, released today, and was in pretty good spirits when i saw her yesterday. she had an x-ray which confirms that she actually has 6 pieces of bullet lodged inside her, and they ain't comin' out. it also confirms, i think, that it was a direct hit and not just bounced shrapnel. fucking bastards. anyway, i guess i've been on here a while. take care, my dears, and see you soon, insh'allah. love, sarah
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