Barricade of wire, drums, and burning tyres

Press, 19 July 1988, Page 13

Barricade of wire, drums, and burning tyres

Calm at a funeral. Peace in the face of death. In the Nur Shams refugee camp on Israel’s West Bank, the atmosphere is crushing. Palestinians stand firm on one side. Israeli troops line up on the other. Twisted wire, tin drums and burning tyres make the barricade in between. Within seconds the fighting begins. In such a situation the brain shoots messages as fast as shots. Watch the roofs and sidestreets. Mind the aim of sling-shots and rifles. Remember the riot shields and Palestinian flags. A thousand people seem to be surging forward, possibly no more than 150. People? Some are little more than babies knowing six or seven years of life. Call this life? The mothers are jeering, screaming, that Israeli soldiers are the sons of whores. Good Jewish boys do not like that. One laughs loud and bitterly, head flung back, mocking the air.

He does not sound well. But who would be well, who could behave “normally” in the occupied territories of Israel? The day had begun at 4.30 a.m. not far from Haifa, one of the bustling modern cities reflecting the new age which has taken Israel from a biblical land of arid desert to a country of green fields, apartment blocks and nuclear weaponry. In buses crammed with weary soldiers I connected to Tel Aviv and finally, long after dawn, arrived in Nethanya to approach the taxi which would take me across the border. “Tulkarm? You are crazy. Really crazy,” said the driver. After a short but abrupt argument the meter began ticking. Traffic lights gave way to orange groves. A modern city fell from the horizon and turned to dust.

Half an hour out the road climbed a hill. The car passed robed peasants toiling in fields, women carrying pitchers on their heads, and burnt-out cars abandoned at the roadside. The olive-skinned driver grew pale. His arm began swinging violently in a mime play of rock-throwing. His body was breathing the sickly sweat of fear. My destination had been the Army check point at Tulkarm but the driver’s nerves gave way long before I got there.

“Sorry, sorry, too afraid,” he explained. I offered him plenty of money if he promised to stay while I checked the way. He nodded vigorously, swinging the car into action, before the door had slammed shut.

Within minutes I was surrounded by most of the men in the village. Questions were asked and answered. One man issued orders and a

small boy was dispatched to act as a guide. Noone smiled. My neck felt uncomfortably bare as we walked up the long narrow street. A few shops were operating in spite of the general strike against Israeli rule. Rocks littered the roads. We rounded the corner to the sight of an Army truck, the checkpost and a morning patrol. A young soldier was stalking a rooftop complaining of boredom. Pedestrians were quietly obeying orders to clear the streets of rubble. P.L.O. posters of the leader, Yasser Arafat, were being shredded from street walls, until a radio cackled with fresh orders. The soldiers said they did go into the area, but not to shoot. To observe but not to escalate the tension. But before long the situation at the Nur Shams refugee camp was closely resembling a war.