Un'amica che segue la Palestina da tanto tempo e si chiama Helen, ha accettato
la proposta di spedire alla ML forumroma i suoi resoconti - in inglese - dai
Territori Occupati.
*Qualunque* impressione vi faccia questo diario, ricordiamoci che
1) Helen è lì e non negli studi della CNN di qualche capitale europea
2) non ha chiesto lei di farlo leggere anche a noi, glielo ho chiesto io e a
noi sta facendo secondo me un grandissimo favore
3) Helen si trova lì per motivi di pace
Stalkern
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>
> Friday 13th December
>
> Theres a terrible, terrible relentlessness to
> occupation and curfew. The conversations, the
> inactivty, the helplessness. Last night one man was
> killed in Bethlehem, shot dead inside his home,
> another killed today in Tulkarem, 6 people injured,
> including children, two houses destroyed in Bethlehem.
> Its normal. We had the same conversation yesterday
> and the day before and will no doubt have it again
> tomorrow and the day after. Every day its the same
> 2 or 3 killed, several injured. Thats a good day.
> On bad days 6 -12 or 15 may be killed.
>
> A stanza from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner goes
> over and over in my mind each day:
>
> Day after day, day after day
> We stuck, nor breath nor motion
> As idle as a painted ship
> Upon a painted ocean.
>
> We are all painted into our homes; the albatross
> weighing heavily on each of us. There had been some
> hope that they would leave before Christmas, but today
> there was an announcement from the IDF commander here
> Were staying. A polite request from the Vatican
> may mean that pilgrims will be allowed in to Bethlehem
> on Christmas Eve, but the soldiers and the tanks will
> not be far away, ready to reappear when the
> celebration of Christs birth is over. For the second
> year in a row, Arafat has been denied permission to
> come to Bethlehem, a Palestinian city, to participate
> in the service in the Nativity Church.
> The kids in Aida have had just a few hours of school
> in the past 24 days. They stay at home, play, some try
> to study, but its not easy. Some of the boys play in
> the streets to get outside, breaking curfew and often
> having the jeeps come and throw tear gas and sound
> bombs at them, or even shoot live ammunition at them
> as has happened on three occasions in the Camp. The
> women cook, sometimes break curfew to buy food or to
> visit relatives. Afaf goes to a makeshift clinic each
> day in the Camp of course shes not allowed to do
> this. They have about 70 patients a day. When she went
> into the UN clinic where she worked in Bethlehem last
> week when there was lifting of the curfew for a couple
> of hours, they had 500 patients! The men sit around
> and talk and smoke, some try to work, but it is always
> risky. One of my friends is getting married next year
> and is trying to build his house. But he cant get the
> materials the shops are all shut. So he must sit and
> do nothing instead. Mahde is 20, both his parents are
> dead. He used to have a job in the kitchen of the
> Intercontinental Hotel, but that closed two years ago,
> and he hasnt had a real job since. Sometimes he gets
> work driving a truck. Yesterday he left his home at
> 5.30 a.m. to try to get to work, but he was caught and
> sent back. He tried again, he was caught again. But
> the soldiers were good, he told me, they didnt hit
> me. I have seen Mahdes bruises when he has been
> kicked by the soldiers. Its normal. Sometimes the
> soldiers are good. Ghassan is the cutest baby I have
> ever seen a laughing happy baby of 9 months. But he
> got bacterial meningitis a few days ago. The soldiers
> allowed him to be taken to Hospital, and they have
> allowed his mother to visit him. Sometimes they are
> not so good a pregnant woman in Bethlehem was
> refused access to a hospital when the occuaption began
> and she and her unborn child died.
> Many of my friends here were born after 1967 they
> have never known a life without occupation, soldiers,
> tanks, helicopters. And what is their crime? They live
> in a Refugee camp, because their parents were thrown
> out of their homes in 1948. They talk of their
> villages, but mostly now they just talk about how many
> were killed today, how many homes were demolished, how
> many were injured, how many were arrested. I see the
> listlessness, kids being denied education, men and
> women being denied the possibility of work, people
> being denied hope. So they sit around and talk and
> there is no escape nowhere to go, nothing to do,
> nothing else to talk about.
>
> I move from my home a few metres across the street to
> the Childrens Center, where I check e-mails and
> write. There are of course, no activities in the
> Center for the children now under curfew. Then I move
> back to my home. Sometimes I visit people in the Camp,
> but not often. I break curfew too walking along the
> streets hoping I dont run into soldiers or tanks.
> Tomorow they have siad the curfew will be lifted from
> 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Can we believe it? Of the three days
> that curfew has been lifted so far, they have changed
> the times on two, making people rush back into their
> homes a couple of hours in advance. I will go to
> Bethlehem as will thousands of others. It was almost
> impossible to move there last time. And then at 4 p.m.
> we will all be painted back into our corners of the
> Camp.
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