Today has been a long day. I had gone to bed at around midnight, but was awoken at 2 a.m. by the sound of heavy gunfire just to the south. Between booms you could here the motor of a tank humming. I laid awake wondering if the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) was invading the city. The gunfire lasted for about a half hour, then everything was silent again and I feel back into a light sleep until the call to prayer at 4:00 a.m.
In the morning, I asked Majdi what he thought the gunfire was all about.
“Probably they [IDF] were trying to capture somebody.”
I asked if maybe we shouldn’t listen to the news to see what it was about.
He switched on the radio.
“There probably won’t be anything about it,” he said. “It was small. This happens most every night. But maybe there is something.”
There wasn’t.
We left the house at 7:00 a.m. Majdi was taking Kacey and I to Askar and Balata, which are two of the half dozen refugee camps located on the outskirts of Nablus.
We drove through Askar. Majdi was looking for someone he knew that we could perhaps interview. Kacey filmed while I took pictures. Najar began as a tent camp for refugees of the 1948 War. During the ensuing decades, the tent camps were transformed into densely packed neighborhoods of cement buildings and narrow streets. These are the poorest areas in Nablus and the poverty is stark as is the ongoing destruction from IDF invasions.
“Probably what you heard last night was something happening here.”
We stopped and Majdi talked to a man he knew. Majdi explained to him our project, but he declined to be interviewed.
We moved on to Balata, where we stopped at the UN station. Majdi went inside and talked to the people there. They said there was no one to talk to until 12:00 if we wanted to come back then.
We left Balata and went back toward the house. On the way, we passed a prison that had been bombed by the IDF during an invasion in 2002. I asked Majdi to pull the car over so I could take a picture of the prison. He said he would take us up onto the hillside where the view was better. We stopped up on the hillside not far from Majdi house. While we taking pictures a man called out to Majdi from his balcony. He invited us to come have coffee with him, which we did. Kacey interviewed the man and his grandfather. We also interviewed a man and his wife who lived with their two children in the flat upstairs.
We got back to the house around 9:00 a.m., downloaded pictures and video then headed to the offices of Amideast, which is where Linda’s sister, Saleena, teaches English. Kacey interviewed teachers and students for about an hour and a half. After that, we took a cab to Najah University where we met with the Head of the English Department. He was kind and spoke with us, but did not want to be filmed. He said that the checkpoints were a big disruption to education. Students traveling from outside Nablus often couldn’t make it to class because of delays at checkpoints. IDF checkpoints are located throughout the West Bank. Essentially, every town is cut off from the other by a checkpoint. Palestinians cannot move freely between towns in the West Bank. While this has an impact on education, it also has an impact on the economy and on healthcare.
We then met with the Public Relations Director. He told us that two Palestinian students who had been in Israeli prisons were going to speak to a visiting delegation from Scotland. We asked if we could film their talk. He said he would check and that he’d let us know at the beginning if it was alright to film them. It was.
We left the university, returned to the house for dinner, which is traditionally around 3:00 here. After dinner, we downloaded more pictures and video footage, then took a much-needed nap.
This evening we went to Majdi’s shop to interview more people. We interviewed several people, one of whom was old enough to remember his entire family fleeing Jaffa in 1948. One of the other interviews was 25 and paralyzed from the waist down. He repaired cell phones in Majdi’s shop. He had been paralyzed two years ago when an IDF sniper bullet entered his shoulder and lodged in his spine. He was sitting in his living room having tea with his mother when he was shot.
He was an apprentice furniture maker when he was shot and paralyzed.
“I ask God,” he said, “why does this happen to me? Then I realize it is the will of God and I would need to do something different. So I go to school and learn how to repair cell phones.”
It is now after midnight. We are watching the local news, which is giving live coverage of an IDF invasion of Askar refugee camp where we visited in the morning. They are also showing footage from Gaza where a 6-year-old girl was killed when her home was blasted during shelling in Rafah. The IDF has denied responsibility:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3272708,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5161034.stm
