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Palestinian report
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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: Palestinian report 24 pt1
Apr 14, 2002, 18:33
Sun, 14 Apr 2002 10:18:20

hey all,

very hot and sunny here. curfew has been lifted in beit sahour but not bethlehem or beit jala. i don't know if this tactic of lifting it on different days in different places is because it's easier for the idf to police or because of some malicious desire to make it harder for people to see family or get home if they were trapped somewhere distant.

yesterday we had another shot at getting food into the old city, the areas where as of tomorrow people will have been under unbroken curfew for a full fortnight, and some have not eaten for 4 days now. we went round the back of the star hotel this time, down the backstreets onto salesian street into the old souk. the sight that met our eyes was devastation; the idf had been blowing up cars that morning and the road in front of us was full of smouldering vehicles. there was glass and twisted metal all over the streets and bullets coated the road underfoot. as we stood, gaping, there was an almighty bang from the other side of the house in front of us, and bits of car flew forty feet into the air, followed by a fat plume of thick, noxious-smelling black smoke. despite this, one family had responded to the noise of our arrival by venturing onto their balcony and were beckoning us to bring food. 2 people scrambled over a wrecked car and dumped the UN aid sacks at the foot of the building. then we saw people on the road to our right, which heads towards manger square, and we took a number of sacks and boxes of powdered milk over to them. people, mainly boys, began to pour from the houses and fight over the food, and we tried to split them up, but we'd deposited all we had - maybe 20 sackfulls - and had no more, and retreated. but the noise of yelliung children had attracted an idf soldier, who appeared from the direction of the initial explosion, and came out firing, uninterested in who or what he was firing at. things get hazy for me from here, as i got hit on the top of the head by a piece of shrapnel or flying masonry and was pretty freaked out by the quantity of blood coming from my scalp, and by the fact i couldn't see what the pain on the top of my head was. it's fine, just a clean flap of skin cut, but like all head wounds it looked gorier than it needed to, and i was kind of woozy for a couple of hours from the sharp rap on the skull from whatever it was. georgie also got me on tape swearing at some stupid journalist who was trying to make me stop and tell her what had happened.

everyone else got back ok, but after some discussion at the hotel we decided that going back in was probably too risky, especially since most of the press that had come the first time had got theit footage and may not have come back a second time. much respect to jeremy bowen of the bbc though for being the first journo to actually carry some stuff in on one of these runs, instead of cowering at the back like most of the foreign press. a bunch of us then went round to al-madbasa again to drop off some medication for a woman who was getting dangerously low on stuff. here, despite the devastated streets and broken pillars along the front of the buildings, people were in the street after an italian consulate convoy had been allowed in with food supplies. there we met a UN volunteer in tears, who shwoed us the food-strewn bottom of the van she had been driving and the place where she had been punched by people desperate for food and hungry enought to fight for it. these people are starving, and they don't know when they will get more.
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Re: Palestinian report 23 (Merrick)		 Replies:
Re: Palestinian report 24 pt2 (Merrick)
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