Balata Refugee Camp & Nablus City Opened...but for how long

Nablus
7 Jun 03
John Heaney

On June 4th 2003, the Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli PM
Ariel Sharon and the US president George Bush met at Beit al Baha Palace in
the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba. The summit was intended to begin
the process along the \"road-map\" to a settlement of the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict, with the goal of having an independant Palestinian
state by 2005. George Bush, who convened the summit, said: \"Each of us is
here because we understand that all people have the right to live in
peace. Great and hopeful change is coming to the Middle East\".

The same day in Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus it seemed that nobody
informed the Israeli Occupation Forces about this \"great and hopeful
change\". They were busily imprisoning the camp with 6 roadblocks blocking
the 2 main streets and other streets of the camp, severely hindering
vehicular movement in and around the camp, including emergency medical
services (see report, \"Balata Refugee Camp Imprisoned By Army and
Roadblock\", 3rd June 03). The formerly 3 minute journey from Balata Refugee
Camp to Askar Refugee Camp then took 15 minutes through numerous nearby
fields. Later that day the local community & the International
Solidarity Movement attempted to remove some of these roadblocks, a show of
non-violent direct action against the illegal Israeli occupation. The IOF
responded to this by firing live bullets at the workers and confiscating
their shovels. That night they increased all the roadblocks in size.

Balata was not the only area of Nablus to be suffering from severe
restrictions on movement during these peace process days. On May 28th the
local community and ISM had removed the roadblocks (see report,
\"Reclaiming the City of Nablus\", 28th May 03) on Jammal Abdel Masser Street
(known as Amman Street), after just one week of it being open, the IOF
replaced a roadblock. The roadblocks were in place for 12 months,
following the IOF invasion of the Old City in April 2002, except for nearly
2 weeks in January when the the local community and ISM removed them.

Today, June 8th, the local community along with the ISM came together
again and showed their committment to non-violent direct action against
the Israeli occupation. The group opened the Balata Refugee Camp first
by removing 3 roadblocks at the main entrance to the camp on Market
Street (the Main Street). Following this, they opened the roadblocks on
School Street, and at another entrance to the camp. After two days of
complete closure, this community is finally able to drive vegetable and
other food lorries into the camp with ease, and emergency vehicles can
now serve the 18,000+ inhabitants inside the 2 square kilometres of the
camp.

Having successfully opened the majority of Balata, the group moved to
Jammal Abdel Masser Street to open the roadblock that was replaced
recently. For an hour the group worked on the roadblock, with internationals
surrounding the locally driven bulldozer to provide protection from the
IOF sniper towers on the overlooking mountain. Like the roadblocks in
Balata, as soon as the roadblocks were open they were being used by all
members of the community; medical services, taxi drivers, workmen &
families.

The removal of these roadblocks, by Palestinians and Internationals, is
a direct protest against the unjust restriction of movement in Nablus,
and the West Bank & Gaza as a whole. This unjust Israeli occupation of
Palestine, takes the form of illegal colonies (settlements), military
checkpoints, fences, trenches, gates, roadblocks, and (at it’s most
extreme) the ongoing construction of the Apartheid Wall that flagrantly
ignores the pre-1967 borders.

For more information, contact:
John + 972 (0)59 318 324
Hussein +972 (0)59 355 404 or + 972 (0)67 309232


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Jenin under seige,soldiers open fire on cars and buses, drivers
detained and beaten,mobile soldier ’checkpoints’ create havoc

Jenin
9 Jun 03
Ewa Jasiewicz

Today Jenin is ’open’, however, the past five days or so - the
time-period of the RoadMap Peace facade meetings - have seen soldiers shoot
three people, destroy at least two vehicles and detain hundreds in Jenin.

Approximately five days ago, soldiers at the Jenad Street checkpoint
ordered a man to go back into Jenin and buy them an Argheela (shisha
water pipe),in exchange for his ID card which they had stolen from him. A
new ID card costs 200 Shekels (a weeks wages for some) and takes approx.
three days to materialise. When the man returned with the Argheela,
stunned soldiers demanded to know why he neglected to bring them tobacco
as well. He was forced to return to Jenin to bring them back a packet of
tobacco. Al Ithlall - the humiliation.

Five days ago, approximately 50 people in total, gathered from the
Seabaht and Jabbryyat areas, were prevented from entering Jenin and
detained for 5 hours (some of the drivers, for 8) by soldiers who’d set up
checkpoints in between the trees behind the Jabbryyat mountain road, and
in front of the winding evergreen forest flanked road in Suetat.
Soldiers beat some of the drivers with their M16s, confiscated all the car
keys, shot one car to pieces, and stole three car stereos and two mobile
phones. Keys were finally returned and the drivers forced to return to
where they came from at 5pm that day. Some people ahd been detained in
the sun since 8am.

Two days ago, soldiers at the Aba checkpoint - a dirt-pass crossing a
vast army bulldozer gouged trench running alongside a settler road
serving Eduminum settlement - opened fire on a bus full of passengers
heading for Jenin from Aba. Three were injured, two requiring hospital
treatment, one in the leg, the other in his arm. Both were men in their
thirties.The driver of the bus was forced at gunpoint to climb up on to the
roof of his bus and get down again at the whim of the soldiers. He was
made to sit on the roof and comply with the orders of the soldiers for
a total of five hours; up and down, sit, stand up; in the blazing
midday sun.

Approximately 30 cars, including a UPMRC ambulance,were stopped on the
road to Qabatia,off Jenad street, two days ago. At least 10 drivers
were beaten by a group of three soldiers roaring up and down the road at
haphazard intervals in a jeep. Approx. 100 people were forced to sit on
the ground from the morning, and wait for their car keys and permission
to leave. I arrived on the scene at 2.30pm. The UPMRC ambulance crew
were having tea on chairs in the street beside a dust encrusted
roadhouse. Servis taxi drivers were sitting listlessly in their vehicles; Radio
Al Balad the only sound on the heady pine-scent airwaves; a group of
men were sharing fanta on a shady grass bank at the end of the tail of
abandoned cars. Every so often a battered up car would gingerly swerve up
the road,the driver,shoulder-glancing, asking where the soldiers were,
only to be told, Theyre not here right now, quick, yalla move. The
group of men - taxi drivers, their passangers had left them to walk the 25
minute walk into Jenin towncentre hours ago - had been forcd to wait
for their keys and IDs since 8am. A jeep approached the group about 20
minutes after my arrival. The soldiers exited the jeep and proceeded to
scream and shout, insanely, at the men and myself. Me calmly asking
them when these men could expect their keys and ID cards back enraged them
further. They then beckoned one man from the grassy bank,spoke to him
in lowered, growled demands, gripped him, told him he was coming with
them and that he was under arrest. I tried to prevent the man’s arrest
through taking his arm, getting between them, asking the soldiers why?
why him?why had he been chosen? what was the reason? The commander of the
group became infuriated (even more so than he already was) and told me
that one more word out of me would see me arrested too. I asked him
where the man was being taken? Which prison? At this point he grabbed me
but I manged to shake free. He then pursued me, grabbed my wrists and
tied them behind my back with the standard white plastic cord and told me
that he’d warned me and now Id be deported out of the country.The taxi
drivers tried to intervene but were abused and threatened by the
soldiers and intimidated into moving back to their position on the grassy
bank. I, alone (they swapped the randomly selected man for myself) was
then driven up Jenad Street, past the Shoohadda triangle, all the way
passing key-stolen frozen cars plus a group of twelve men being detained by
an IOF Hummer, and into the middle of a field,a box weighed down with
ID cards and a mound of carkeys clopping up and down at my feet as the
jeep bounced along the dirtclod tracks. And Khalass, they gave me a
talking to, the commander right in my face,untied me and I walked back to
Jenin. I was prevented from even approaching the group of twelve men
situated between the Jenad street checkpoint and Shoohadda, by the fat,
Canadian soldier who had beaten Michael (Shiehk Saksooka) about the face
last week and more importantly, has no doubt murdered many in the past
and will do so again.

An Al Awda Hospital ambulance had its keys stolen from it as it drove
into Jenin Town Centre on the same day. One of the patients inside was
kicked by a soldier and the other had his checkbook vandalised by
another demanding he sign him a check for 150 shekels. They were left
stranded for 4 hours. All day, soldiers in Jeeps were literally stopping
drivers haphazardly, casually brutalising the vehicles’ occupants, stealing
their keys and IDs and leaving them marooned in the middle of roads.
The roads out of Jenin were just strewn with arrested cars.

Yesterday 15 cars, two lorries and their occupants were left stranded
in the Suetat area for over 4 hours. Again, drivers were beaten. The
group of soldiers responsible was the same group that beat the men in the
Qabatia road and arrested me the day before.

At around 4pm, on the Yamoon village road, soldiers opened fire on a
car travelling through a field. Nabil Ahmad jusef Jaradat (45) was shot
in the head with a dumdum bullet, thought to have been shot from a tank.
His co-passanger,Tariq Ziad Jaaradaat suffered glass wounds from the
shattered car window. Nabil is now in the ICU at Raffidia hospital in
Nablus. Bullet fragments are still in his head. The ambulance which took
him there yesterday was detained at the Janad street checkpoint for an
hour.

3 nights ago, a group of 20 soldiers entered Jenin Camp,from the
Jabbryyat, on foot, supported by a jeep and tank after they slid into the
Jiorta Dahab area, and arrested 20-year-old Computer Science student Ahmad
Ehrewesh. The soldiers knew everything about his family: their
history;that his father had passed away; that his brother had been arrested
before; and their respective jobs. Ahmad was not wanted and had no
political connections. He is currently being held in Salem.

Another male Jenin Town resident was arrested on the same night, also a
student by the name of Ahmad. He too is thought to be in Salem.

Jenin Camp Resident Mohammad Saadi,a driver with the Patients Friends
Society was also arrested, at Beit Eba Checkpoint,4 days ago, after he
was detained for over 4 hours with his patient. The soldiers said his
patient was wanted. Mohammad is now being held in Huwara.