Blog 30

Military Court – Ofer

The taxi ride from Ramallah to the Israeli military court at Ofer takes about twenty minutes along a pot holed lane passing rubbish tips and sewerage works. The “court” is next door to the prison which is constructed in the same fashion as the Wall – large concrete slabs punctuated with heavily fortified watchtowers. Ofer is on the Palestinian side of the Green Line (the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank) but it has now, for all practical purposes, been illegally incorporated into Israel by the Wall and lies between the Wall and the Green Line. Even on the permit forms that Palestinians must fill in to visit relatives in the prison, Offer is described as a “prison in Israel”.

About a kilometer from the prison we come to a gate in the Wall (which at this location consists of a number of electric fences). We get out of the car and approach the soldiers on foot. The soldier I talk to is from West Ham in London and lives just around the corner from Smita. After explaining that we are three lawyers from Amsterdam, London and Sydney visiting the “court” with a local lawyer we are allowed to get back into the taxi and proceed along the road which has now been reduced to a dirt track.

On arrival at the complex we meet up with S., a local lawyer. We pass a long line of mostly Palestinian women waiting to gain access and pass through the usual security checks with the additional item of having all mobile phones with cameras taken from us. The “court” consists of around eight prefabricated huts, one for administrative detention, one for extension of interrogation period applications and the others for prosecuting breaches of one or more of the 1500 military orders that govern Palestinian life in the West Bank.

We enter the hut for interrogation period applications. It is small, 15 meters by 5 meters, and crowded. There is a military “judge”, a military translator, various other military personnel, four policemen with M-16s, three prisoners in brown uniforms with their legs shackled, a couple of lawyers, some family members, the four of us and two Israeli women taking notes for a human rights NGO. On the table by the “judge” are piles and piles of files. Each case lasts only about five minutes. The applications in this hut are brought by the military prosecutor seeking authorization to interrogate a detainee for longer than the initial eight day period. The evidence supporting these applications is secret and the judge very rarely questions, let alone looks at the secret file. This is not a court it is an administrative production line.

Fifteen minutes into proceedings a 15 year old boy shuffles in to the clinking sound of his leg irons. He was arrested on 24 January 2007 for throwing stones at an army jeep near his village. He has confessed and receives a sentence of 80 days imprisonment. In practice little distinction is made between juvenile prisoners and adults, as is required under international law. One concession that is made for children is that those between the ages of 12 and 14 can only be given a maximum sentence of 6 months.

The one aspect of the morning that sticks in my mind the most were the hurried glances between detainees and family members as they tried to communicate with their hands or with facial expressions and how they all said goodbye with their eyes.

Blog 29

Extracts from notes of meeting with Rula and Wissam

Wissam and Rula live with their two daughters by the Palestinian Authority compound near the centre of Ramallah. This is the compound where President Arafat spent the last years of his life.

At a little bit past 8.00 am in August 1994, Wissam was reading his newspaper on the terrace in the front of the house when two cars pulled up outside and four or five officers from the Shabak (Israeli internal security) got out and approached him. Moments later two Israeli army jeeps with soldiers arrived outside the house. One officer placed the barrel of an M-16 machine gun to Wissam’s head and asked for his i.d.

“I’ll give you my i.d. when you take the gun from my head.”

The officer lowered the gun and Wissam presented his i.d. Before being taken away Wissam insisted on saying goodbye to his mother who lived in the house. At first the Shabak officers refused but Wissam insisted saying that they could shoot him if they liked but he was going to say goodbye to his mother. This was the start of Wissam’s first stint in administrative detention.

Between 1982 and 1991 Wissam was living and working underground, wanted by the Israelis as a member of the PFLP and editor of its newspaper. When he was finally captured in 1991 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment which was later reduced to three years. When the Shabak came for Wissam on that August morning in 1994, he had been out of prison for just one and half months.

In August 1994 the PLO were preparing to return to Ramallah as head of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli army was preparing to pull out of a number of West Bank towns pursuant to the Oslo Accords. The PFLP was vocally opposed to Oslo because, in their view, it did not serve the best interests of the Palestinian people. Dissent to Oslo was not going to be tolerated and in August 1994 Israeli forces started rounding up opponents, including prominent members of the PFLP.

Wissam was taken from his home to the Shabak offices in Ramallah. A Shabak officer said to Wissam:

“You are too dangerous to be out of prison – you are still PFLP, why are you against Oslo?”

Wissam replied that he was entitled to his own opinion and it was none of the Shabak’s business. The officer responded:

“You’re free to have your opinions, and I’m free to put you in prison.”

The military commander for the West Bank issued Wissam with a six month administrative detention order – no charges, no recognizable trial. The military review committee confirmed the order. The only official reason given to Wissam for the order were the standard one:

“A threat to the security of the region.”

One month later, Arafat returned from exile to lead the Palestinian Authority from Ramallah and the Israeli army withdrew from the towns to other parts of the West Bank.

It was obvious to everybody rounded up that summer that this was a political maneuver to silence Palestinian opposition to Oslo. When he received the first six month administrative detention order, Wissam knew, due to the political situation, that the order would be renewed at the end of the first six month period. Wissam prepared himself mentally to spend the next two years in prison, although of course, with administrative detention orders he could have no way of knowing for sure how long his incarceration would last. During the next four years Wissam’s administrative detention order was renewed 17 times, sometimes for six months, sometimes less.

Wissam recalls being told by his lawyer in 1995 that the Shabak told him that Wissam and all the political prisoners could be released on condition that the PFLP gives up the armed struggle.

Wissam and the other detainees rejected this overture as they believed that the PFLP had every right to resist the occupation, with force if necessary, and through their lawyers told the Shabak that if they wanted to negotiate they should do so with the PFLP leadership in Damascus as the detainees had no authority to bind the movement. The Shabak used techniques like this to try and weaken the resolve of the detainees and get them to make concessions.

After two years in detention public pressure mounted in Europe and Israel itself for the release of Wissam and the other detainees, including the core “Group of 11” PFLP members of which Wissam was a part. Amnesty International UK campaigned on Wissam's behalf. This mounting pressure gave Wissam and the other detainees hope that they might soon be released.

One of the cruelest aspects of administrative detention is the uncertainty as to when the incarceration will end. In some cases detainees were told a day before the expiry of the order that it had been renewed for another six months – in other cases they were told a few hours before they hoped to be released. This process caused enormous stress and anguish amongst the detainees and their families leading to inmates setting fire to their beds and going on hunger strike in protest. The families of detainees would often wait outside the prison or at the nearest checkpoint on the expiry of the order not knowing for sure whether their loved ones would be released or not – the pain and disappointment cut very deep. Wissam would communicate with Rula and his mother through his lawyers and told them not to hope for an early release, however administrative detention became much harder to bare once he became a father.

As the date for expiry of each administrative detention order approached, Rula would buy a new set of clothes for Wissam to celebrate his hoped for release. When she heard that the order had been renewed she would put the new clothes in the wardrobe and repeat the process again and again, order after order, year after year.

Just before Christmas 1997, Wissam’s mother came to visit him just before the expiry of his 17th administrative detention order. She was at that time living in the US. The stress of not knowing when her son would be released was clearly affecting her health. Wissam asked a prison officer whether his detention order was going to be renewed but the officer did not know. It was a Thursday and Wissam remembers telling the officer that if he was going to be released it had to be on the following day, Friday, before the Sabbath. Wissam also asked the officer to check with the Shabek and see if he was to be released. The officer agreed to do so and went away. The following three to four hours Wissam describes as “hell, total hell”, not knowing whether he would be released the next day or not. At 9.30 pm on that Thursday night the prison officer returned and informed Wissam that he was to be released the next day, 2 January 1998, after four years in detention. Wissam believes that he was released at the start of 1998 due to the mounting pressure in Europe and Israel, and the increasing difficulty the Israeli authorities faced in trying to justify detention without charge or trial for over four years.

On hearing the news that Wissam was to be released the whole section of the prison started singing and shouting. Wissam was the first of the administrative detainees held since 1994 to be released. This gave the other detainees hope that they too might be released soon. This was a very difficult time as the joy of being released was mixed with the sadness of leaving the other detainees behind. After four years together living in very close proximity with each other, they had all forged very close bonds.

Wissam’s mother asked him to call her the moment he was released – she was very nervous after so many hopes in the past had been dashed. Whenever Wissam’s detention orders were about to expire his mother would put on her best traditional clothes which were Wissam’s favourite. Wissam’s mother waited for him at the family home in Ramallah as she was too nervous to go to the checkpoint. When he arrived home his mother was almost paralyzed with emotion – she was very red in the face and could not speak for a long time.

Rula did not know that Wissam was going to be released and was studying and working in Bethlehem at the time. At 10.00 p.m. on the Friday she received a telephone call from Wissam. She got a colleague to cover for her and drove that night to be with Wissam before returning to work in Bethlehem four hours later. That weekend they both met up in Ramallah and Rula recalls that:

‘they tried every restaurant and café in Ramallah!”

After 17 consecutive renewals of the detention order Rula had not been expecting Wissam’s release. All of the other political prisoners detained with Wissam were released by May 1998. Wissam was never charged or tried with an offence relating to his administrative detention.

After his release, Wissam and Rula married and had two daughters, Anmar and Dara.

In March 2002 the Israeli army invaded Ramallah. Wissam and Rula took their children to Rula’s mother’s place across town as their house was close to Arafat’s compound which the Israeli’s had laid siege to. Two days into the invasion the Israelis started rounding people up – Wissam’s i.d. was checked but he was not taken into custody and so assumed that he is not wanted. Three days later Wissam was picked up along with approximately 15,000 others who were rounded up at this time. The soldiers picked Wissam up from his mother-in-law’s house whilst he was still in his pyjamas and took him blindfolded to a temporary detention centre in the middle of Ramallah.

One of the Shabak officers said to Wissam -

“this is just for a short time, five minutes, so that I can sleep tonight”.

At the detention centre another Shabak officer typed Wissam’s name into a computer and when his details came up said:

“Oh my god, they shouldn’t have picked you up in your pyjamas, they should have put a bullet in your head.”

Wissam was initially given a six month administrative detention order which was followed by four months and then three months. He was released on 1 May 2003 after nearly 13 months in detention. He was never charged or tried with any offence.

Wissam found his second stint in administrative detention much harder than the first as he now had two daughters, Anmar and Dara. When Wissam was taken away his eldest daughter was three and the youngest was just one. Although the family house was surrounded by tanks, Rula took the children home after Wissam was taken away to give them a sense of familiarity.

The eldest daughter, Anmar, visited Wissam twice whilst he was in detention. Rula was prohibited from visiting her husband. Wissam recalls that one of the visits was a highly traumatic experience for both father and daughter. The day that Anmar came to visit Wissam was meant to be in court. He told the prison officer that he did not want to go to court as his daughter was coming to visit him. On the day of the visit Wissam was informed that the judge had said that he must come to court but not to worry as it would only take 15 minutes and he would be back in plenty of time for the arrival of Anmar at 12.00 pm. Wissam went to court and waited there from 12.00 pm to 6.00 pm. Meanwhile Anmar was waiting in the visitors room, which was small and surrounded by wire mesh, for six hours. She saw other visitors come and go and started to believe that her father was asleep and did not want to see her. When Wissam did finally arrive his daughter was very tense and in tears. She had been up since 4.00 am in order to catch the Red Cross bus from Jerusalem to the detention centre. Father and daughter were permitted to spend 30 minutes with each other separated by wire mesh. Wissam asked the soldier if he could touch his daughter through the mesh and was told no. Wissam shouted at the soldier who eventually relented and allowed them to kiss each other through the wire. This, says Wissam, was the hardest moment he experienced throughout his years of detention, to see his daughter in this terrible state.

Just as Wissam was about to lodge a petition to the Supreme Court challenging his detention, the Shabak told his lawyer that if he didn’t lodge the petition they would release him on 1 May, 2003.

The effects of Wissam’s detention on his children are still felt today, three and a half years later. When Wissam first arrived home his youngest girl, Dara would call him by the name “Papa Prison” and refused to get in to the car with him alone – it took about a month for her to accept that he was her father. Dara still has difficulty sleeping all through the night which started from this time and remained in nappies far longer than would normally be expected.

The eldest daughter, Anmar, was always very close to Wissam. When he was released from administrative detention in May 2003 she would never leave his side for fear that he would disappear again. Anmar is still afraid of soldiers and particularly afraid of checkpoints where she will say something like – “will they take Daddy?”. Rula says that Anmar still remembers every detail of the day the Israeli army took her father away in his pyjamas.

Rula found Wissam’s detention difficult, particularly she says, because of the effect it had on the girls.

“You would try to compensate – give them more love, more time, more toys – but nothing can compensate for the absence of their father.”

The girls would sleep with Rula whilst their father was in detention as they did not like to sleep alone in their own bedrooms. At kindergarten Dara was asked by the teacher what her father did for a living – she responded:

“I don’t have a father, he’s in prison.”

Rula says that at that point Dara’s teacher began to cry:

“There is just no compensation – it is very hard to be both a mother and a father. You can’t be a father as well, it’s not the same.”

Rula recalls how hard it was to be without her husband and how she always had to put on a brave face for the children when inside the pressure on her was enormous. She describes this time as an “ongoing nightmare”. Throughout the West Bank the population was in constant fear of arrest and detention. Whenever fresh arrests were made the phone would ring constantly with friends checking to see if a loved one had been taken away and placed in administrative detention.

During these tense times Rula was terrified that she too might get arrested and then who would look after the children? She avoided going through checkpoints which meant that she could not leave Ramallah to go to work at near by Birzeit University. She was lucky that the university was able to give her some field work which she could conduct from within Ramallah. Even today, Rula and Wissam are cautious about traveling together with the children in case they are both arrested.

Wissam remembers that about a month into his second detention it was Anmar’s birthday. Wissam gathered together all the inmates in his section and they divided up their cigarettes and apples and shared them together to celebrate Anmar’s birthday. All the detainees sang happy birthday to Anmar from the prison. One of the prison guards questioned what they were doing and the response was:

“We are like life – not like you. We sing under these circumstances.”

When asked whether he fears being taken into administrative detention again by the Israelis, Wissam responds:

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

(Interviewed on 7 February, 2007 in Ramallah)

Blog 28

The American Colony Hotel

Noon on Sunday we jump into a Service and head down the road to Qalandia checkpoint on route to Jerusalem. Past a burning tire and a group of young Palestinian boys collecting rocks to throw at the heavily armed and fortified watch towers we hop out of the bus for the routine x-ray and checks. To pass the time we’re taking bets on how long it will be before Greitja picks a fight with a soldier – that probably depends on how long it takes Greitja to find a soldier.

Once scanned and checked we re-board the bus and head for the American Colony Hotel for a lecture/book launch – “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Professon Ilan Pappe, an Israeli academic. A big crowd, a grand old stone hotel, an interesting and thought provoking lecture – just why does the world turn a blind eye to the eviction of one million Palestinians and the destruction of about 600 villages in 1948 and the slow but steady annexation that is occurring today? Palestinians would love to know the answer to this question.

(You can listen to a similar lecture given by Pappe at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6503.shtml)

After the lecture we grab a late lunch and then walk around outside the old city walls, past the Mount of Olives and a huge cemetery where Oskar Schindler is buried. We then pop back into the old city through a gate to see what is happening around the Temple Mount. The place is full of soldiers to ensure that Palestinians are kept well clear whilst the excavation work is going on. Finally Greitja gets her opportunity to cross-examine a soldier – we ask him about the work and he mentions that he would like to see the al-Aqsa Mosque demolished – Smita and I leave Greitja to it – poor bugger’s going to need more than an M-16.

Back home in Ramalla for a quiet Sunday evening broken only by the sound of helicopter gunships and heavy gunfire at around 9.00 pm.

Blog 27

Wadi Qelt

The Friday walkers meet again in Minara Square at 7.00 am. We wander over to the coffee cart for a shot of the thick, sweet brew. The little coffee cart still bares the marks of the IDF’s visit to town on 4 January (see Blogs 9 and 10) in the form of three bullet holes – the damage is superficial and the coffee is still addictive.

This week there are 10 of us and we manage to just squish into one Service – we’re headed for the Wadi Qelt and Jericho.

Half an hour later the Service pulls off the main highway that leads to the Dead Sea and drops us off at three ruined Arab houses in the middle of some pretty arid country. We walk to the top of the nearest hill and see far down in the valley below, the Wadi Qelt. This is one of the main wadi’s in the West Bank which runs from Jerusalem to Jericho. Whether it has rained or not, this Wadi contains water and the strip of land either side is green, lush and dotted with Date Palms. The view at the top of the hill is so spectacular we decide to stop and have our second cup of coffee for the morning.

After a short break we wander down the hill and into a side wadi which will lead us, eventually, into Wadi Qelt. Along the way we pass goat herds and Arab boys; donkeys and Bedouin. The side wadi is stony and dry as it twists and turns down towards the valley floor. We pass through a tunnel of rock and then into a larger side wadi which is traversed by a ruined aquaduct, which some say is Roman. Under these ruins we come across a Bedouin family, father, mother, two small children and a couple of donkeys. They’re out on a family day trip. We say our “mahabas” and move on through the ruins and continue our descent.

Eventually we hear the sound of running water and come out amongst some Date Palms by the banks of a clear stream. To the left and up the hill is a waterfall and rock pool, to the right is an old stone Arab house surrounded by palms, linen drying in the warm air, little children and chickens. The whole scene looks like something out of a nineteenth century etching. We go left to the rock pool, brew up some tea, go for a wade and eat some brunch.

At the rock pool, the stream divides in two; one part runs down the valley floor whilst the other part is channeled into an irrigation channel about a meter deep and one and half meters wide. The irrigation channel runs parallel to the valley floor, but higher. After brunch we follow the irrigation channel which will take us all the way to Jericho near the Dead Sea. We expect the trip to take us about six hours.

Along the way the lush valley floor provides stark contrast to the rocky arid hills where nothing seems to grow. We see a couple of Herons, a number of Eagles and plenty of goats. Every now and then caves dot the steep sides of the gorge either side of the Wadi. This land induces a strange sensation – it is harsh and arid but hypnotically appealing.

After about four or five hours, large wooden crosses start to appear on the hill tops and embedded into the side of the gorge – we are approaching the monastery of St George, a Greek Orthodox affair. The first sight of the monastery is from the top of a hill looking down into an incredibly deep gorge. Clinging to the side of the gorge, about half way up is the monastery with its blue domed church. Various other buildings dot the gorge, along with a stone bridge spanning the two sides and a little terraced orchard on the far side. Further down the gorge are a number of caves that are clearly lived in, probably inhabited by contemplative monks hermiting. The odd donkey and rider crosses the stone bridge from time to time and large black clad monks with flowing beards are sprinkled photogenically around the place. The whole scene looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings.

Not too far from the monastery the Wadi widens out and enters Jericho, the oldest town in the world according to some. Somebody receives a phone call that there are bloody clashes between Palestinians and the IDF at the Qalandia checkpoint and possibly Ramallah, so we decide to stay in Jericho for dinner. The clashes are over excavation work that is being carried out in Jerusalem on the ramp that leads up from Tzahal Square to the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. The Israelis say the work is being done to stabilize a dangerous structure and will be replaced with a new ramp. The Palestinians say the work is undermining the Mosque and is another attempt by the Israelis to find ancient artifacts from the first and second Temple period in order to undermine muslim claims to the site which is home to both the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. We eat dinner outside as the temperature is very mild in Jericho, even at night and only 40 km from Ramallah.

After dinner we squeeze back into a Service for the trip back to Ramallah. We have to take a long and winding back road as Palestinians can’t use the main highway when traveling in the direction of Jerusalem – only settlers and Israelis are permitted to use this road in that direction.

The Wadi Qelt is a memorable and truly great walk. Probably the best thing about the day though was the total absence of soldiers, shooting, explosions, the Wall, checkpoints and sadness.

Blog 26

For whom the bell tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

(John Donne)

Blog 25

Three days on

Three days on Ziad and I pop in to see how Rula and Wissam are. When we arrive Wissam is being interviewed by a T.V. crew – he still looks extremely stressed. Rula looks really tired, but worse, she also looks overwhelmingly sad.

In the three days since the Israeli raid the upstairs part of the house looks back to normal – downstairs still looks like a war zone.

I ask Rula how their plans are going to study for their PhD’s in Sydney – “not anymore” she says, “the Shabak (Israeli security) will never allow us to leave the Occupied Territories now – it would be the eighth wonder of the world for it to happen.” Rula explains that the Shabak will never believe that they didn’t know that the man who moved into the flat below the day before the raid was a wanted member of Hamas.

I ask after their two little girls. “They’re still on a high,” says Rula, “in a week or so the problems will start, once they try and get back to normal. This is the second time the eldest one has suffered something big, and she’s not even eight.”

On the way out Rula fixes me with her tired and incredibly sad eyes – “Gerard, your report better be good.”

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.