Update from Nablus, August 5
from CCMEP Delegate Sam Messier

Throughout the day today and yesterday, internationals escorted aid workers throughout the city of Nablus to deliver food and medicine. Soldiers were preventing aid workers with food from entering the city.  I spoke with the soldiers who were preventing three men with bags of food from passing and asked what was the problem.  Were they afraid the men might have weapons?  "No" he said," It's orders. We want them to feel it."  He pointed at his stomach. "You want them to be hungry? "I asked. "Yes", he said.  We waited and watched for a while longer and the men were allowed to pass with the food.

Yesterday I spoke with a man about the search of his home by the soldiers during the present invasion. He said that the soldiers injured his father when they came in and called them terrorists. Then the soldiers asked him to make a large hole in the wall of his home onto the roof, which he did. They then forced him to break a large hole in the neighbor's wall.  He told them that he didn't want to make the hole in this place because there were children sleeping in the next room, but the soldiers said they didn't care.  I asked him what we wanted to tell people in the United States about and he said "I want them to know that I don't agree with the bombings (against Israeli civilians), but Sharon can't stop the violence with the army, only by giving us our independence.  We want to live in peace with our neighbors, side by side. We just want freedom and a good future for all the children."