Palestine: The kids aren't alright. 

Soldiers invading the old city

So. Hebron on Monday the 10th of September was a little crazy. At around 5am, a couple of Palestinians apparently tried and failed to burn down Israeli Checkpoint 56 (there are 113 Israeli roadblocks, closures and checkpoints in the city of Hebron. And it's reaaaally not very big.)

I am self-plagiarising now from my previous visit to Hebron for a bit of background (feel free to read the whole thing, with more detail here):

Hebron does NOT feel like a safe place. The settlers here are some of the most fanatical in the West Bank, and have been known to regularly attack Palestinians and internationals. In the 1960s, the first extremist settler group arrived in Hebron, barricaded themselves in a hotel, posing as Swiss tourists and refused to leave, eventually prompting the Israeli government to legitimise their actions and reward them with land on the outskirts of the city, which was named Kiryat Arba (this was unfortunate for the Palestinians also living in the area, who have since faced attacks and regular harassment.) Then another illegal settlement was founded right in the centre of Hebron, prompting the government to cave to their demands and make it possible extremists to settle in the centre of Hebron as they wished. Apparently it’s possible that more houses in central Hebron are being purchased currently. All of this has led to some of the most blatant and extreme examples of discrimination and apartheid policies that I’ve experienced since being in the West Bank.

There are around 500 settlers now living in the central area of Hebron, compared to 30,000 (although swiftly lessening) Palestinians. This area is now totally run by Israel (unlike the suburbs, which are run by the Palestinian authority), in order to protect the Zionists who have chosen to live there illegally. There are around 2000 soldiers stationed in Hebron at all times – four for each settler. The number of checkpoints is staggering and really impedes movement into, out of and around the Old City.

Checkpoint 56 is one of the most problematic for Palestinians, who are often detained there for long periods and face constant harassment by the soldiers (which we internationals received a taster of...more on this later), so I must say I'm not surprised that they tried to attack it. In the morning, there was no visible damage to the checkpoint, but there was to one of the Palestinian men, who was shot with live ammunition in the leg and taken to hospital in Israel (the soldiers wouldn't let a Palestinian ambulance, which arrived earlier on the scene, treat him). He will probably now spend many years in prison.

Kullu is not kwayyis. 

So because of this, later in the day there was a great deal of tension in the air (this is as well as demonstrations going on against the Palestinian Authority, in another part of the city, VERY confusing), and there was an increased Israeli army presence in the city. We were wandering in the old market when we bumped into a group of six soldiers, pointing their guns into Palestinian homes and at Palestinian children. A little boy ran around the corner right into the soldiers, laughing and calling to his friends - I don't think I'll ever forget how his face changed from laughter to terror in that split second, as he turned and ran. This little girl in pink was also terrified, and there's only so much you can say 'kullu kwayyis' ('everything's alright') to a kid to calm them down. Because really, everything is not alright.

We followed the soldiers around, asking them what they were doing. The guy at the front of the picture spoke perfect English. With a British accent. Turned out he was from North London. I don't know how someone could choose to come here and do this - he said that they were there to protect the settlers - the fact that the area that we were in is off-limits to settlers didn't seem relevant to them. They eventually went through a door which we were not allowed to pass through and we lost them, but asserting an international presence is important to keep them in check.....

Because, the Israeli Army is possibly the most unprofessional army EVER. Imagine taking a bunch of teenagers, filling them with bile and hatred for another group of people and handing them guns and what is essentially a license to do whatever they want (convictions and punishment for crimes by the Israeli army is notoriously low). Must be a dream come true for video-game lovers. This is a taster of what I experienced from the 'Israeli Defence Forces' in these couple of days in Hebron:

• Being spat on by five or six soldiers from a rooftop
• Debris being kicked down from the same rooftop
• Being called alternately 'beauuuutiful' and 'ugggggly', as well as receiving generally high levels of sexual harassment
• Being told 'oh, you're so annoying' (not a big deal, but seriously guys, do things properly)
• Soldiers leaning into my face and literally screeching at me
• Being shut outside the checkpoint and told that it was closed for 20 minutes - except when we walked through anyway, they just ignored us
• Being filmed on mobile phones and told that the videos would be uploaded to www.fuckthearabs.com

Yeah, professional right?

Soldiers entering the new city

At this point we were heading back to the ISM flat, and got half way up the hill when we bumped into another group of six soldiers running down the hill - one when he saw us crowed 'now, we go to save the daaaaay'. They truly treat this as a sort of game, as if the Palestinians are not real people with real lives and real feelings. We followed them (back down the hill, aieee), only to find them entering the new city, which is under Palestinian control, meaning that the Israeli army should NOT be there (well naturally it shouldn't be anywhere in Palestine, but this is their OWN laws that they're breaking, not just everybody else's). Despite this, they ran in, started pointing guns at everyone and everything and dashing about while people were trying to get on with their day - we asked them what they were doing. They said they had heard an explosion, but no one else seemed to have noticed it, oddly enough. It was after this that the soldier made the rather threatening statement - 'you were in our line of fire, you really could get hurt here, you know' - his bloody 'line of fire' should not have been there. It's like saying 'oh, sorry I shot you, but really you shouldn't get in the way of my bullets'.

Some of the soldiers on the rooftop

A little later it really started kicking off at Checkpoint 56. We passed through to the Palestinian side and saw about 15 or so soldiers on the roof of a house (this is when the spitting happened. Lovely.) overlooking the checkpoint. The shabab were throwing stones and the army were shooting sound bombs (bloody loud, but don't do much damage unless you're very close) and tear gas at them. Little kids walking past were caught in the gas (school was out because there was a strike), and I had to almost carry one little girl out of the gas - she was choking and crying, unable to see or understand what was going on. Hard to explain to a kid not to touch their eyes because it'll make the tear gas 100 times worse, when you don't have a language in common and she's panicking that she can't see.

Then, whilst standing with a small group of internationals and a Palestinian camera-woman, two tear gas canisters were shot directly at us. The Palestinian woman was hit in the stomach, immediately doubling her over. A second canister narrowly missed her foot and she was helped to the side of the road and then rushed away in an ambulance. Imagine if she had been pregnant. Or if it hit an internal organ at the wrong angle.

It was after this that we decided to head home, as we were absolutely exhausted, tear-gassed out, and rather freaked out by this point. However, more problems were to follow. There was rubble and destruction throughout the market - Palestinians were putting out fires behind some of the roadblocks, which were apparently lit there by the army to ensure that the shabab wouldn't be able to escape. Then the checkpoint at the end of the market was closed, trapping us inside. Luckily we were invited to tea at about 5 different places, giving us the chance to have a nice sit down, and to chat to the owner of one shop, who it turns out studied in the UK, and uses phrases like 'it's always pissing it down in Manchester!' Excellent.

In the end, I can't stop thinking about all the children I saw throughout the day - from terrified Palestinian kids to teen-aged Israeli soldiers. Everything about this situation is wrong and none of the kids are alright.