Blog 24

Harsh realities

Yesterday afternoon Rula waited for me in her car outside the office. I jump in and she drives us the short distance back to her place so that I can interview her and her husband, Wissam, about administrative detention for the report I am working on.

We sit in their living room and over herbal tea Wissam tells me how he was taken into detention in 1994 and held without charge or trial for four years and for a further 13 months in 2002.

In 1994 members of the PFLP and other critics of the Oslo Accords were rounded up and placed in administrative detention so as to silence opposition and make the "peace process" look presentable.

During our conversation their two small girls and a little friend wander in and out to see what we are all up to.

Rula tells me of the trauma suffered by the girls at seeing their father dragged off in his pyjamas by the Israeli army and not knowing whether they would ever see him again. The eldest girl, who is now about 8 years old, gets extremely scared whenever they approach an army checkpoint, an unavoidable situation unless she never leaves Ramallah. The youngest girl, who is about 5, no longer sleeps properly at night. They both cling to their father.

My final question to Wissam is whether he fears being taken into administrative detention again by the Israelis:

"This is always a possibility. Whenever there is trouble the Israelis always round up anybody who has been in administrative detention before".

Rula adds that they are no longer as politically active as they once were and I sense that perhaps their upheavals are behind them as they focus more on family life.We say our goodbyes and Rula gives me a lift the short distance back to my apartment. I spend the rest of the evening incorporating my notes from the interview into the report.
I wake up at around 1.00 am to the sound of explosions, gunfire and stun grenades - it is close and goes on sporadically for what seems like a long time. This is not particularly unusual for the West Bank and I thought little of it other than noting the time and the use of stun grenades suggested that the IDF were in town. I roll over and go back to sleep.

I'm now in the office working on my report. It is 10.00 a.m. The phone rings, it's Rula:

"Gerard, remember how you asked us whether we feared the Israelis coming back? Well they came back last night in the early hours. They used stun grenades and shot up the children's bedroom whilst we all waited outside in the cold. They smashed up our house and four other houses. I thought you would want to know for your report. Come by and have a look.”

At lunchtime I go and see Wissam and Rula again, less than 24 hours since I last visited them in their home. The first thing you notice as you approach the house is the number of spent bullet casings lying around the place. The house is Wissam's old family house - a large two story building which looks more like an apartment building. Wissam, Rula and the children live on the top floor and they rent out space on the ground floor.

Once over the bullet casings you see that almost all the windows have either been smashed or have bullet holes in them. The ground floor window frames have all been blown in and the metal shutters are blackened and twisted where four rockets were fired into the basement.

I'm back again in the living room - the same room where I sat yesterday interviewing Wissam and Rula is now a mess. The room is full of men smoking and comforting Wissam who looks clearly shocked. His hand is wrapped in a bloody bandage. I speak with Rula who shows me around the house and tells me what happened.

At approximately 1.00 am this morning a number of sound bombs were thrown into Wassim and Rula’s house waking them and their children up in a state of terror. A voice in Arabic called from a loudspeaker telling them to come out of the house with their hands in the air. Outside Rula saw approximately 25 to 30 military vehicles and a large number of soldiers.

Once outside the family was asked about the whereabouts of the downstairs tenant who had only moved in the day before – they didn’t know where he was. Wissam was then ordered to strip naked and put on a white jump suit. He was then ordered to smash the windows of the down stairs apartment, enter and check to see if anybody was inside. It is a contravention of international law to use civilians as human shields in this fashion. Whilst breaking into the flat Wissam cut his hand badly.

Once Wissam had checked to see that the flat was empty the Israelis sent in a robot with a mounted camera. After the robot came back out again, the army fired four small missiles into the basement, then entered and fired their guns, even though nobody was present. The army then proceeded upstairs and smashed up Wissam’s and Rula’s place. They entered the girls bedroom and fired their machine guns into the beds and the wardrobe, smashing the mirrors. Rula picked up a small pair of pink trousers from the floor and showed me the four bullet holes in the legs. The soldiers then proceeded into the playroom where the girls’ toys are kept and proceeded to destroy the room and shoot up the soft toys. Most of the windows upstairs were smashed and were shot from the inside out – this was gratuitous destruction. When it was all over the girls picked up the empty bullet casings from their bedroom floor - they stopped counting after 50.

The soldiers then went into the bathroom and shot the water pipes so that the entire house flooded and all the carpets and belongings thrown on the floor were damaged. Wissam and Rula’s bedroom was completely destroyed, furniture overturned and all their belongings strewn across the floor. There was less damage in the living room, the furniture had all been moved around and a number of bullet holes could be seen in the wall. For some reason best known to the soldiers a lute which one of the girls is learning to play, was smashed. Next to the living room is an office with a number of bookshelves. Three out of the four bookshelves had been overturned and the floor was covered with the books.The real damage was to be found in the ground floor apartment. The furniture was piled up in the centre of the rooms in pieces. There were scorch marks and shrapnel damage to all the walls where the rockets had exploded. The walls were riddled with bullet holes.

From the time they were woken up by the sound bombs at 1.00 am the family was made to stand outside in the cold weather until 6.00 am. The two little girls were guarded the entire time by 10 heavily armed soldiers –

“as if they were a threat to the State of Israel”

says Rula. Throughout the tour Rula is a picture of strength. Her house has been destroyed, her husband is injured and clearly suffering from shock and her small children, who are now staying with a cousin, will have been further traumatized by the Occupation. From what I saw and what Rula showed me it appeared that the force used was excessive and gratuitous.

The soldiers eventually found the tenant from down stairs hiding in the garden and they took him away. Rula points out that they continued to destroy the house after the man was arrested.

From what I could gather the man the Israelis arrested was a Hamas member they had been after for five years. What he was wanted for nobody knew. Wissam and Rula had first met him one week earlier when he inquired about the flat and then he moved in the day before the raid. The raid had nothing to do with Wissam or Rula, it just so happened that a wanted man had moved into the flat below the day before.

As I left Rula’s eyes began to fill with tears – she and Wissam have spent a combined 17 years detained by the Israelis; her house has been destroyed and her two little girls have been seriously traumatized. She pats me on the back and says it will be fine.