Al-Awda New York, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

NEIGHBORHOOD DESTRUCTION IN PALESTINE

By Samia A. Halaby

A photo essay documenting an inspection tour June 29-30 and July 1, 2001. The team was composed of one member of the New York branch of Al-Awda (Palestine Right to Return Coalition) and one from Idust Foundation in Colorado, one from Laka Foundation in Amsterdam. They worked in cooperation with the Union of Health Work Committees in the West Bank and Ghazze (Gaza). The author, and organizer of the team, is a Palestinian activist born in AlQuds (Jerusalem) prior to the establishment of Israel on Palestinian soil.


There are seven parts:
Part One - Al-Bireh and Beit Sahour (Towns in The West Bank)
Part Two -- More on Beit Sahour
Part Three -- Beit Jala (A town near Bethlehem in the West Bank)
Part Four -- The Malalha Tribe
Part Five -- Rafah, A city in Ghazze on the Egyptian Border
Part Six -- Khan Younis, A Town in Ghazze
Part Seven -- Northern Ghazze

Part Three -- Beit Jala (A town near Bethlehem in the West Bank)

By Samia A. Halaby

We drove from Beit Sahour to Beit Jala thereby driving around Beit Lahem (Bethlehem). These are three predominantly Christian towns of Palestine. They are quiet pleasant with communities of peaceful residents who tend to be highly educated and skilled. As in all Palestine, Family life is close and comforting in current times of attack from Israelis. On the way, our guide stopped us at the restaurant of his in-laws. We were guests in the tradition of Arab hospitality yet we saw no customers in these times of daily Israeli bombing and attack. Fortunately it was then a brief period of precious quiet between bouts of bombing and shooting. As we ate we had the scene of the photo above at our feet. I could see the settlements growing on top of the stolen hills. One of them built on Mount Abu Ghuneim on land stolen from the Palestinian Arabs as most of Israel is. They call it Har-Joma and it grows ever more militarized ever more threatening on the horizon of Palestinian life. You can just see it to the extreme right on the horizon and on the left is yet another settlement.

After lunch we went to inspect destruction in Beit Jala. Here are two photos of another Palestinian home destroyed by the Israelis. Since September 28th, 2000, Israeli forces have destroyed 5 thousand and three Palestinian homes. Many of these homes were apartment buildings which housed as many as 20 families. Since the beginning of the Intifada just over a year ago, Israelis killed 791 Palestinians. Among the dead are 200 children, 4 physicians, 6 paramedics, 3 journalists, and 32 women. Twenty-five persons were killed by Israeli settlers. Israel deliberately assassinated ninety-three community leaders and activists. Of the 31,139 persons injured, 7,500 are children and 1,400 are women. Ninety-eight ambulances have come under fire and were damaged or destroyed. One Palestinian ambulance was taken over by the Israeli army which used it in its invasion of Azzoun and Salfit where numerous villagers were arrested. This is in addition to disruption or outright destruction of infrastructure including medical services, food supplies, schools, community buildings, mosques, churches and more.

I could imagine the family that lived here seeing the empty room knowing that much of the furniture was quickly removed yet a beautiful light fixture still hangs from the ceiling which once illuminated family dinners.

On the upper floor of the same house we could only look in through the doorways and see the rubble of intermixed furniture and building parts. The cement floors were dipping and seemed in imminent danger of collapse. Always in these scenes of destruction there seemed to be no color. Everything is covered with dust yet there, a bit to the left of center, a potted plant stands upright with its flowery head wilted and bent, one of its two stems blown off, and its pot shattered. Yet its wilted flower is still red and its stem still green. Where is the homemaker who once lovingly potted this plant?

This home which is known as the castle, even in its damaged state, speaks of beauty and joy in living. It is the home of someone who invested his life savings to build his/her dream home on the crest of one of our wonderful Palestinians mountains. Unfortunately Israelis desire all our mountains and have been not only demolishing homes but shooting at them every night from their settlements. Repeated nightly attack on this lovely house has rendered it as you see in these photos.

Inside the castle are several open floors with typically Arab arched windows bringing in the strong light from the outside. Even now, the architectural play of dark and light is dramatic. Through the once elegant sitting room windows we see the opposite hill and on top of it is the settlement of Gilo situated on stolen Palestinian land. I manipulated the photograph digitally to reduce the dark-light contrast and allow you to see the modular buildings of Gilo Settlement through the windows. Israeli settlements always look like militarized imperialist architecture. They are made up of identical modular units betraying the artificiality of their design and make-up. They are located strategically for military purposes and not for purposes of life.

From the inside you see the spacious rooms of the castle now in disarray. Our inspection team looks out the window and evaluates the distance and probable type of weaponry that is able to travel from the settlement of Gilo across the valley on the opposite mountain top.

Our team traveled to the other side of Beit Jala to a working class neighborhood to examine homes there. We found a house which was once the home of five related families. Its destruction rendered 25 more Palestinians homeless. As we inspected the scene, I was moved by the disrupted grouping of sofas like the disrupted family circles which once occupied them. In the silence, I could imagine the sound of children bouncing, of women exchanging family stories, of food being shared. As memories of normal Palestinian life help me to comprehend the damage, a feeling of great anger grows as I think on U.S. and Zionist propaganda demonizing Palestinians and accusing them of the terror they themselves inflict.

Not only is their home destroyed, their families scattered and homeless, their life savings lost, but also their car outside is burnt to a crisp. Palestinians will always demand the return of their land and reparation for this destruction. Much of the world knows tragedy like ours and we will call for revolution and for victory in unison with the rest of the world against this kind of U.S. and Israeli oppression and destruction.

LONG LIVE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE!