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Notícies :: criminalització i repressió : guerra
Relato de brigadista detenido por fuerzas de ocupacion israeli
per brigadistas en Palestina	24 ago 2004
we were in the nablus old city when we got a call from balaata saying that the army were active there. already that morning we had seen border police shoot a six year old boy shot in the neck from their jeep with a potentialy lethal plastic coated steel bullet (i'm unaware of what his condition is now, but his injury was serious). he had been throwing stones(as is his right under international law), but even so, the response from the police was totally disproportionate as his stones could have done nothing to harm the jeep or its occupants. in what seemed like deliberate acts of provocation, army and border police jeeps had been roaming the streets of the new city all morning, totally impervious to the rocks and stones of the shabab (young men and boys), but nonetheless frequently responding with these plastic / steel bullets. ambulances and palestinian medical relief teams accompanied by ISMers, waited nearby to attend to casualties and to accompany women and children through the fighting. in the midst of this violence, ordinary nablusians attemped to go about their daily business, seemingly as used to the harrassment and the violence of the occupation force as we're used to bad weather in britain. in the narrow, twisting streets of the old city, groups of internationals were monitoring army activity. groups of seven or more paratroopers stalked from house to house, detaining the owners, vandalising their property and setting up sniper positions in the upper floors. we saw evidence of the mindless and cruel damage that these soldiers do to the houses they occupy; smashing furniture, defacing walls and even scratching the LPs in the record collection of one householder we met. one group of soldiers exploded a bomb in the living room of one house, devastating it completely. so much i have witnessed here; from the detainment of innocent civilians for days at checkpoints, to the shooting of children, is testament to the policy of harrassment, spite and incitement that the occupation forces seem to abide by. we got to balaata refugee camp near nablus and were told that the army had occupied two houses there. in one of the houses, a man had been shot through the knee but was not allowed to leave to get medical care. a group of seven ISMers and one palestian medical relief (PMR) worker knocked loudly on the door of the first house, repeatedly shouting that we were internationals and that we wanted to check on the welfare of the family. after a few minutes without recieving a reply we managed to open the door. three internationals (aaron US, Franz AUSTRIA, and myself; tom UK) and the PMR worker, S, went slowly up the stairs, continuing to shout our status and intention. on the fourth (top) floor, we rounded the corner of the stair case and were confronted by a paratrooper pointing his rifle at us. again we restated our intentions and were waved in. we were pulled into the flat and pushed, punched and kicked into the swelteringly hot room where the family (five adults and eight or nine terrified children) who owned the house were being detained. the women and children cried as our hands were tied behind our backs with bands of plastic. we were told to sit and our phones were stolen. the father told us that this illegal detention of his family in their own home happened frequently. soldiers often stay in the houses they occupy for days, imprisoning the owners without food water or access to medical care. although we were shouted at and threatened ('if you make noise i will kick your face so hard it will be like wall') it was incredible to see how differently the palestinian PMR worker, S, was treated. the biggest soldier crouched in front of him, pushing his face right up close to his, snarling at him in arabic, his face so full of hatred and threat and intimidation. the other eight soldiers in the next room aimed their rifles out of the windows, continuously firing shots down onto the street. another international (Uwer, GER) came to check on us and was threatened at gunpoint and pulled into the flat. 'do you think this is a game?' the furious, frightened soldiers screamed at him and punched him. a soldier put T-shirts over our heads, effectively blindfolding us. we sat for about an hour hearing gunshots and explosions, until the T-shirts were pulled off and we were forced to our feet. the family thanked us profusely and apologised for our treatment in their home. we had hardly even been able to inquire about their welfare, but our presence did seem to have shortened the time the soldiers were able to spend there. Franz, Uwer and I were pulled down the stairs (ISMers take note; it seemed they didnt arrest aaron because he didnt have his passport with him). the soldiers, threw sound bombs out of the door before running into the narrow alleyway. we were pushed up the alley towards the main street where an army jeep was waiting in a cloud of tear gas and smoke. we were pushed onto the floor of the jeep and kicked as the doors were closed and the jeep sped off. we were blindfolded again with our own T-shirts. when we stopped we were taken out (still blindfolded and with our hands tied behind our backs) and marched to an area where we could hear several voices, and pop music playing. at no point were we told that we had been arrested, where we were or what was happening to us. any questions we asked were met with threats and 'shut ups's. we sat for two hours, occasionally being threatened, laughed at and photgraphed. later, when our T-shirts were pulled off and replaced with proper blindfolds we saw that we were in a barracks recreation area. soldiers were lazing round in their boxer shorts, smoking spliffs and chatting etc. we were eventually told 'police will come.' after a couple more hours, we were given water, and eventually allowed to use the toilet and smoke. the soldiers became less threatening, and one or two started to try to talk to us. eight hours later, settler police came to take us to the Ariel police station and our hands were untied, and our blindfolds taken off. (according to israeli law, soldiers arent allowed to arrest internationals, and are not allowed to detain them for more than six hours, and i think blindfolding is illegal too under international law). while the police took statements from the soldiers and prepared to take us away, i looked around at the young guys who'd been holding us there. 'you know why i joined the paratroopers?' said one proudly, 'because one day i was walking in jerusalem and i saw a bus bomb:- bodies burning and flying through the air. and the next day i join the paratroops. so why do you come here and why do you take sides with palestinians against the jews?'. i tried to explain to him about the wall stealing palestinian land, cutting families off from families, about illegal detentions and murders. 'we wanted to build the wall on the green line' he said 'but arafat didnt agree. Arabs, you know, you give them a little and they want everything'. and quickly he got up and started making a call on his mobile. he didnt want to talk about it. i think i probably knew more about the sitation than him, and i know very little. and that, i am sure, is how he is able to justify to himself the violence he perpatrates against palestinians when he goes to work. (we hear countless stories here [nearly all of them varifiable and >from reputable sources] that dont make it to the news at home about Israeli assassination squads killing non violent political activists and protestors, and kids being murdered for throwing stones.) individuals can only do horrific things to individuals when they are able to see them not as what they are but as big, evil, nebulous entities such as the 'joosh' or the 'arabs'. we were well treated at the police station in the dreaded settlement, the police even being friendly. one policeman who spoke to me was a settler himself (the first i have spoken to). although i believe that what he is doing by living where he does is sick, he was human and kind to me. i realise that i'm as guilty as anyone for not being able to see through the entity. i think racism and prejudice are quite natural to us provided we can hate and fear from afar. i'm not trying to justify the settler's or the soldier's position in any way, but i do think that we need to try to understand each other and ourselves before we can begin to think about possible solutions. we all gave no comment interviews, and were put in a cell together. in the morning we were taken to ministry of the interior. we were detained for nineteen hours altogether before we were allowed to make to a phone call. in the end we were let out with the only condition being that we dont enter closed military zones. i've rambled on for too long about our minimal heroism so i'll stop now. i guess its an interesting story and it might help other ISMers to know what to expect from arrest. we made a whole bunch of mistakes (the biggest being giving our passports to the soldiers. another was allowing them to arrest us. i dont think they would have been able to take us down the stairs if we had resisted). i knew they were'nt going to do anything bad to us because of our international priviledge. its a totally different story to be palestinian and be arrested, though.
This work is in the public domain

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