Night Watch in Bil'in

I am sitting here on a rooftop in Bil'in with Sami, Luis, and some ISM activists. It is near midnight and we are waiting for the soldiers to come. They do arrests in the middle of the night- it is standard practice- and these activists try to observe the arrests to prevent brutality and at least film it and act as witnesses when it does happen.

Besides the foreign activists, nearly every rooftop at the edges of the village has a Palestinian look-out watching for the soldiers. Gaggles of pre-teen boys follow us wherever we go, joking with us, practicing their English, and excitedly telling us about themselves and their friends. Their smaller brothers toddle behind, sucking their thumbs.

On nights they do arrests, the lights of their jeeps can be seen on the Israeli-only roads near the wall, on the outskirts of the village. The lights go out and then the soldiers wait, as do we. Between one and three in the morning usually, the soldiers quietly cross the fields and enter this tiny village of 1,700 residents by foot to make what arrests they can.

There are some 150 names on the list of Palestinians to be arrested, but generally the soldiers are only able to make one or two arrests per night. The List has come into the hands of some anarchist Israeli activists and so by now everyone on it knows they're on it. They have begun to take precautions against arrest accordingly by moving locations at night.

One may wonder why nearly 10% of the village's population (and about 29% of the adult male population) is wanted for arrest, and there is an answer. Bil'in holds protests against the wall and the occupation in general every Friday. These protests are peaceful and are attended by international observers and news media, but the villages' participants are persecuted anyway with impunity.

Perhaps #1 on The List is Ashraf Abu Rahma, who has been dubbed the Palestinian Che Guevara for his non-violent but fearless and relentless protests against the occupation. (My previous writings about his travails here) Standing on the roof with me, he asks if I know the story of how he was shot by an Israeli soldier after being blindfolded and handcuffed. Indeed, I remembered vividly the event from last summer since it was captured on camera by 14-year-old Salam Amira. Salam's father was later arrested in what was believed to be an act of retribution for the filming.

Ashraf's character is significantly different from what I expected, given his exploits. He is small, kind, childlike, talkative, and a little goofy. He freely admits he is crazy for doing what he does. He speaks little English and the words he does use are frequently slightly incorrect. For example, he says baby for maybe, five for fine, and, my personal favorite: menstruation instead of demonstration. Everyone in the village knows him and as we walk the streets together, looking for more signs of soldiers, everyone enthusiastically welcomes him to sit with them.

So far this evening, we have seen 8 pairs of headlights converge upon the hill and go out. This means somewhere between 70 and 100 soldiers will probably enter the village tonight. So we await their arrival.

*****

At one in the morning, we left our perch atop the roof of the house and walked to the edge of the village, where the soldiers usually emerge from the field. Our plan was to alert the other members of the mission, by phone, so everyone could follow the soldiers together to observe their behavior. We all sat side by side in the road, under a clouded half-moon, waiting for the soldiers to step out of the shadows.

We chatted in hushed tones, smoked cigarettes, and dozed. The two Israeli activists who had just arrived discussed their passions and taught us Hebrew words. The Palestinian residents of Bil'in taught us Arabic words we didn't know, and the foreign participants taught the others some English words. With a combination of the three languages used, we all made it a merry, if subdued, night.

At 3:50, the muezzin sang the call to prayer and we all agreed that most likely the soldiers would not come now that everyone was up and about. We waited another half hour and then sleepily made our way home.

It may be that the soldiers knew we were there, waiting for them. Certainly they are light years ahead of this grassroots movement in terms of available technology. And it is rumored that the tower perched atop the highest hill in the village holds a camera which captures the village's movements. Throughout the night, the soldiers set small, controlled fires at what seemed random locations around the outskirts of Bil'in. They do this even on nights they don't make arrests, I am told, perhaps to cause confusion among the activists.

Some believe the last week (during which no arrests were made) served to cause the activists to lose interest and leave so that the Israeli military can swoop in and make several arrests in one night, without international supervision to hinder them.

Interview with Combatants for Peace

CFP
by hrhlolita

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace. I think the video speaks for itself.

For more information, go here.

Palestinian Dignity: Contraband Under Occupation

Apropos of my last post, about the wall, I went to a protest against said wall. Here is what came of it.



“The Internationals,” we were called. A strange amalgamation of foreigners who arrived on one of the hottest days of the year, so far, to protest the existence of the wall at Bil’in, in the West Bank. We were German, American, French, English, Irish, and Canadian. Our presence did two things: we provided cover for the Palestinian protesters, and we drew the attention of the media. The presence of the media offered additional protection to the protesters, although the filming of the soldiers does not always stop violent attacks.

This protest occurs every Friday in Bil’in. At last week’s protest, local Ibrahim Bornat was shot in the thigh. Video of this event can be seen here. Ibrahim’s brother Rani was also shot by an Israeli sniper at another protest eight years ago, and remains paralyzed from the neck down.

Before the protest began, the Internationals were given a short speech about what to expect and how to stay safe. We were advised that the IDF first uses sound grenades, then tear gas, then rubber bullets, and finally, live fire. The most severe of these counter measures are reserved for those who throw stones, so we were advised not to stand between stone throwers and the IDF. We were also asked not to throw stones ourselves because the non-Palestinians in charge of our group strictly believed in non-violent protest. However, it was acknowledged that several young Palestinians stay after the Internationals have gone to throw stones at the soldiers.

Most of these counter measures are employed to keep people away from the fence and the 50 feet and five layers of barbed wire that separate the Israeli military from the unarmed protesters.

It all went as planned. We marched to the wall together, some marching up front to see “the action,” some staying in the back to be safer. When we reached the first layer of the fence, we stopped. Most people had stopped much farther back than this and only a small mixed cluster of Palestinians and Internationals came all the way to the edge. The media took their position on the top of the hill. The protesters chanted and banged rocks against the fence. An ear-piercing squeal was emitted from the IDF that lasted about ten minutes. Some people plugged their ears, some kept banging rocks on the fence.

After this, the first of the sound grenades was launched. They caused only a small boom, comparable to the missiles that fell on Ziqim, but without the explosion. By this time the protesters had opened two of the gates leading to the Israeli side but had not crossed over. They were still 50 feet from the closest Israeli and less than ten from where they’d started. But this was far enough for the IDF. They began, as we were warned, to launch tear gas canisters, which landed unpredictably throughout the landscape. Sometimes only one or two at a time. Sometimes they came down in thick volleys, their smoke trails in the air looking like dancers perfectly in tune to each other.

Everyone tried to avoid the gas clouds as best as they could, except the most die-hard protesters, who stayed behind in the thickest smoke, perhaps immune to its potency after so long.

We retreated slowly, only going far enough to be out of smoke range. But then they would fire more tear gas and we would be pushed still farther away.

After almost everyone had begun the trek back to the village, we stragglers noticed a few fires burning in the olive grove closer to the wall. Someone yelled, “Help me! Help me put them out!” But the IDF was firing tear gas heavily into the area on fire, which made it difficult to get close enough to put the fire out. Not that we had any realistic way of doing this.

We pushed slowly toward the fire anyway, and the soldiers on the other side of the fence yelled in Hebrew, “If you come any closer to the fence, we’ll shoot.” One man yelled back in English, “We’re not! We’re trying to put out the fire!” and followed with a string of obscenities in Arabic. But at that point we couldn’t turn back anyway. The IDF had begun to drop tear gas behind us. We were completely surrounded by white clouds of gas and the gray smoke from the fire was actually a welcome contrast to the stinging of the tear gas.

The fire had a woody smell, like a fireplace, because the olive trees were burning. Somewhere in the distance another fire was burning, this one with thick, black smoke. Nobody knew where or why.

I was one of the last to reach the crest of the hill, over which I could not see the wall anymore. I left behind me only the teenage boys who halfheartedly threw stones and yelled their anger to soldiers who did not respond.

Two days later, as I reflect on this event, I think what was the result? It’s possible that the media presence prevented violence this time, but what about next time? The residents of Bil’in and similar villages live with this every day. They struggle to maintain dignity in the face of near total domination.

Bil’in FFJ says:

The action of the Israeli Army against the whole of Palestinian Society betrays their rhetoric about security as the purpose of their occupation and instead shines light on what seems to be their true aim; the slow removal of the Palestinian people from their land by any means possible. This includes terrorizing the population through forced transfers, economic starvation, house demolitions, unwarranted arrests, and unchecked killing of the civilian population. This ethnic cleansing is cemented as a reality through the Israeli policies of land confiscation, settlement expansion, and the control of water resources which are the true aims of the Apartheid wall and system of occupation.

Bil’in homepage here.