The clash
We took a servees from Ramallah to a small town named Karawa, and from there a taxi took us to Kafr Kaddum.
While on our way to the village, it was clear that the Israeli Army was anticipating a confrontation. Two soldiers stopped our taxi before we reached village, and searched the car. They looked at our passports, and made the driver open the trunk and hood of the car, even asking him what he had in his airbag. After scrutinizing our passports, they asked M. and I why were going to the village. One of them sneered "are you going to make a mess"?
I was very tempted to tell him that if he wants to find the person who made "a mess" in Kafr Kaddum, he should look in his own organization, since someone in it made the decision to steal the village's road, which leads to "a mess".
Instead, M and I feigned stupidity to the extreme, and told him we heard there is very good falafel in this village and we just have to check it out. He looked at us disbelievingly, but then waved us on.
Once we got to the village, Murad invited us to his home for a coffee and told us about the story of the village and its situation.
After leaving his home, we hung around with the villagers, as they were waiting for the demonstration to start. There were already soldiers, some acting as snipers, on the hill which in front of people would walk to get to the road. Some could be seen on top of the hill, others were waiting in the bushes. A military truck that shoots teargas was by the road that the villagers planned to walk towards, as was a small group of armed soldiers in dark uniforms, who are a force that is called in to quell prison riots.
The mood was excited. The organizers, young men, teenagers and young boys were talking to one another, laughing. Some of them had slingshots or were holding rocks.
As a teacher, my heart broke when I looked especially at the teenagers and young kids. Conflict is what they had known most of their lives, imagine growing up in a place where you hear gunshots and smell teargas every week. I saw no one encouraging the kids to go out and fight, and I wish the organizers discouraged them or told them outright they can't take part in this. However, they probably would not have been held back even if such an order was given. They see themselves- unfortunately very accurately- as being defenders of their homes.
The extra travel time, teargas, skunk and sound bombs often target them whether they are involved in the clash or not.
Most of the crowd was initially peaceful, and Murad tried to lead a march to the road. As soon as the villagers passed the soldiers in the hills, the soldiers began to throw sound grenades at them.
The people ran back, and it is at that point that some of the teenagers ran ahead and tried to throw rocks at the soldiers in the hills. The soldiers responded with rubber coated steel bullets, which miraculously did not hit anyone. Murad and some of the other marchers waited a bit, and hilariously (in my opinion) started playing music. After a few minutes, they tried to walk as a procession again. Two teenage boys ran up to the jeep, and started throwing rocks at it.
In response, the soldiers fired three volleys of teargas above the marchers (who were not throwing rocks). The cannisters fell everywhere among them.
There was more shooting and rocks and gas.
We heard a buzzing in the air, and looked up to see a small white remote-controlled plane flying above us. It was a drone, taking photos of the crowd. We saw it fly back to some soldiers on top of the hill, who looked at it and then released it again.
As it buzzed above us again, and some of the kids and young men began trying to hit it with their slingshots. Funnily enough, it flew away in a hurry. They must have good aim.
The people walked up to the large mounds of dirt that the army had piled up with a bulldozer to stop them from even getting close to their road, and then began rolling tires which they doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The idea is to make the black smoke drift towards the Kadumim settlement. It is more symbolic than anything else.
After this, the demonstration had ended. The soldiers went back to their base, the villagers walked back to their homes. This battle will repeat itself in only a bit more than twenty four hours, and then every Friday and Saturday after that.
No one was seriously injured or killed today. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
As a pacifist whose views on violence are based on the Christian faith, I do not condone rock throwing.
However, I also realize that the violence of the rocks (and marbles, that some shebab also throw) pales in comparison to the violence inflicted by the Israeli Army. The Army uses state violence and are armed to the teeth with weaponry. The villagers use the violence of self-defence, and have rocks and marbles.
InshAllah (God willing) these horrors will end sooner than later.
The occupation oppresses the Palestinian people, but it also demonizes the Israeli people. The soldiers who stopped M and I looked to be no older than twenty. In a different situation, perhaps they would be in school or in a workplace with the people whom they shoot at, and who throw rocks at them in a desperate effort to get justice for their nation.
This isn't right, and it needs to end.
No comments:
Post a Comment