A weekend away
On Thursday afternoon we leave the Occupied Territories through one of the checkpoints near Jerusalem and head for Haifa on the Mediterranean. An hour into the trip we are speeding along a motorway near Ben Gurion airport in sight of the Wall, but from the other side. It is a strange sensation to be driving in what is basically an affluent modern European state a stone’s throw from the Occupation.
In Haifa we stay with S’s grandmother. She grew up in Beruit, came to Palestine as a 16 year old, married at 19 and after 1948 never saw her family again in Lebanon. She reckons I look like her brother and proceeds to feed me to within an inch of my life.
Next morning we head up the coast to Acre, which feels like a mini old Jerusalem on the Mediterranean, with a wonderful old mosque, thick crusader walls, palm trees and warmth. We then continue on up the coast until we meet a gate that separates Israel from Lebanon. From there we head inland along the heavily fortified border into Galilee and to S’s village, Fassuta. During the war last summer, the village was surrounded by Israeli tanks which shelled Lebanon for a whole month. In return, Hezbollah fired rockets indiscriminately back over the border - the locals are use to war and each house is equipped with a bomb shelter. Fassuta is an Arab Christian village and just one of two Arab villages left near the border not destroyed in ’48. Approximately 20% of Israel’s population is made up of Arabs, those that did not flee their homes in ’48. Most of those that did flee, have never been allowed to return. The landscape is dotted with big clumps of cacti marking where the old Palestinian villages once stood. The cactus was grown for its fruit and when the people left it just kept growing. Many clumps of cacti dot the green and lush landscape.
Next morning it is back to Haifa and a walk along the beach. The weather is sunny and warm and thousands of people are walking dogs, jogging, pushing prams, drinking coffee etc etc., a mere 50 km from the Occupied Territories. The scene could quite easily be Bondi Beach. We pass a busy café and a memorial to the 21 people blown up in a suicide bombing in 2003. One of those killed was S’s cousin who had just got engaged to an Australian woman. The bomber was a 27 year old lawyer from Jenin – she had witnessed her brother being gunned down in front of her. The bomber was related to A, who works in the same office as S. A and S were, and still are, good friends.
On the way back to Ramallah we pick up R, the woman whose fiancé died in the bombing.
Although it was nice to get away to the Mediterranean for two days, it feels somewhat unreal and I’m glad to return to the tension and drama of Ramallah.
On Thursday afternoon we leave the Occupied Territories through one of the checkpoints near Jerusalem and head for Haifa on the Mediterranean. An hour into the trip we are speeding along a motorway near Ben Gurion airport in sight of the Wall, but from the other side. It is a strange sensation to be driving in what is basically an affluent modern European state a stone’s throw from the Occupation.
In Haifa we stay with S’s grandmother. She grew up in Beruit, came to Palestine as a 16 year old, married at 19 and after 1948 never saw her family again in Lebanon. She reckons I look like her brother and proceeds to feed me to within an inch of my life.
Next morning we head up the coast to Acre, which feels like a mini old Jerusalem on the Mediterranean, with a wonderful old mosque, thick crusader walls, palm trees and warmth. We then continue on up the coast until we meet a gate that separates Israel from Lebanon. From there we head inland along the heavily fortified border into Galilee and to S’s village, Fassuta. During the war last summer, the village was surrounded by Israeli tanks which shelled Lebanon for a whole month. In return, Hezbollah fired rockets indiscriminately back over the border - the locals are use to war and each house is equipped with a bomb shelter. Fassuta is an Arab Christian village and just one of two Arab villages left near the border not destroyed in ’48. Approximately 20% of Israel’s population is made up of Arabs, those that did not flee their homes in ’48. Most of those that did flee, have never been allowed to return. The landscape is dotted with big clumps of cacti marking where the old Palestinian villages once stood. The cactus was grown for its fruit and when the people left it just kept growing. Many clumps of cacti dot the green and lush landscape.
Next morning it is back to Haifa and a walk along the beach. The weather is sunny and warm and thousands of people are walking dogs, jogging, pushing prams, drinking coffee etc etc., a mere 50 km from the Occupied Territories. The scene could quite easily be Bondi Beach. We pass a busy café and a memorial to the 21 people blown up in a suicide bombing in 2003. One of those killed was S’s cousin who had just got engaged to an Australian woman. The bomber was a 27 year old lawyer from Jenin – she had witnessed her brother being gunned down in front of her. The bomber was related to A, who works in the same office as S. A and S were, and still are, good friends.
On the way back to Ramallah we pick up R, the woman whose fiancé died in the bombing.
Although it was nice to get away to the Mediterranean for two days, it feels somewhat unreal and I’m glad to return to the tension and drama of Ramallah.
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