Teargas and sewage

21 November 2012 Bethlehem Toine van Teeffelen Yesterday morning Tamer asks for a few shekels because of a charity activity at school to support Gaza. At work we talk about the news. Rania and Fuad tell about a holy mass in Beit Jala on Sunday where a priest had put the words freedom, liberty and salvation on a banner in front of the altar. In Tekoa south-east of Bethlehem a boy was shot in the stomach at a demonstration in front of the school; he had to be operated immediately. A staff of ours, Haneen, is pregnant and gets a day off because of clashes around Rachels Tomb, where the Sumud Story House is located, and where the army uses teargas. Several members of the womens groups at the House had in the past, during the first Intifada, lost their unborn babies because of teargas. A hotel owner says on the news that half of the reservations for the coming weeks have been cancelled. After a while, Rania comes to say that she goes early home from work because some schools have closed early. There are demonstrations in town. Her daughter is scared and needs to be consoled. I walk back home later and hear that Jara too has come back home early. Around Rachels Tomb Israeli soldiers block the road, straddle-legged. Youth have hidden themselves in the gardens along Manger Road. Later comes Mary, who says that the soldiers throw both teargas and sewage water. A new tactic. It seems they opened sewage pipes, but how do they collect the sewage water? Keep the windows shut, she warns. Two rockets from Gaza landed in the environment of Jerusalem and another in the south of the West Bank. Later on we hear that at least ten youth have been wounded near Rachels Tomb because of rubber bullets and teargas. When Tamer comes from school in the afternoon, he too smells teargas, but doesnt know what it is. He squeezes his eyes. What happens to the world? Almost the whole of north Bethlehem must have at that moment, 14:30, been enveloped in a cloud of teargas, including Bethlehem University. During the evening Mary buys vegetables at Jibrin some 200 meter from our house. There too it smells. From a distance you dont hear the shooting of teargas, she says. Today Mary doesnt have work at the university. There is a day of mourning. The children go to school. In Hebron and possibly other West Bank cities is a general strike in support of Gaza.

The rockets
17 November 2012 Bethlehem Toine van Teeffelen Mary listens to the local news about Gaza on her kitchen radio. In-between is national, solemn music, such as the melancholic songs of Marcel Khalifa and the famous Jerusalem song of Fayrouz. Thursday was a day off because of the day of national independence, which is of course no independence. Late in the afternoon is a demonstration in nearby Aida camp against the Israeli bombing of Gaza, and 6 camp dwellers are injured by whatever is shot at them: live bullets, rubber bullets and sound bombs, as Maan news agency specifies. Friday, together with the Sunday the day off for the children, Jara is glued to Facebook and Twitter. She follows all the messages and photos about Gaza and shows me the demonstrations in New York, Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Mary listens at the university campus to the speeches of political factions; in one of them a Hamas leader says that they should give up thinking as factions, that they are all Palestinians. Mary is touched by the remark. The Dutch youth news (Jeugdjournaal) calls. Jara decides to answer in English to the Dutch questions; that feels more comfortable to her. The interviewer prefers that Jara does not go into the graphic details of what she sees on the photos in Facebook and Twitter, such as kids who are terribly deformed due to the bombings. Jara tells that next day she will not go to school: Isnt it nonsense to go to school and do as if you normally study while the people in Gaza suffer because of the bombings? In Bethlehem and Beit Jala people saw the traces of the missile which came down not far from the Gilo settlement. The Maan agency shows a clear aerial photo. Two friends of Jara living in Beit Jala say that they could smell the missile after it came down. First people didnt believe it. But it also turns out to be true that a missile came down not far from Noqedim, the settlement where Lieberman lives, the Israeli minister of foreign affairs. Is it a coincidence? It is clear that no Qassam rockets were used, but likely Al-Fajr missiles, with a much wider range and more precision. A family member tells that four dababaat, Israeli tanks, are stationed nearby Talitha Qumi, the school on the top of the Beit Jala hill. He says that the Israelis might wish to prevent that Palestinian militants would shoot from Beit Jala towards Gilo, as happened at the beginning of the second Intifada, in 2000-1. But, we ask ourselves, who has weapons here?

Today, Saturday, no school. The children are happy not to have their exams, play together, and afterwards Jara goes back to Facebook and Twitter. The last message is that 45 Egyptian kids are killed in Cairo due to a school bus accident.