Bethlehem Lies in Ruin
by Brian Wood
October 29, 2001.
* Brian, from Denver, has been in the West Bank since May of 2001. Click here for more of his writings.
I walked through the streets of Bethlehem on the way to Jerusalem. Bulldozers, dumptrucks, electricity and phone crews worked energetically, cleaning up the mess left by the Israeli military after a 10-day invasion of the entire Bethlehem district. A flurry of people drove around in cars, seeing for themselves for the first time the incredible damage maliciously sowed upon Bethlehem. People were out on the streets, shops were re-opened, and students went to their schools and universities, all for the first time in 10 days. Round the clock shooting for most of the 10 days held the at least 100,000 people of the Bethlehem district hostage in their homes.
I have been staying with a Palestinian family in Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, for the last three months. Their father was assassinated in the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. My first day in their house was the 13th anniversary of his death. Family and friends gathered at the house as part of an annual ceremony of remembrance and love. Flowers decorated the house; everyone shared sweets and Arabic coffee. Israeli soldiers murdered him the 24th of July 1988.
Participating in a civilian demonstration, groceries in hand, he was shot once in the leg. He fell to his knees, dropped his groceries, and raised his arms in the air, communicating his surrender. Two more bullets answered his gesture of compliance, this time in his lower back. The soldiers took his body in an Israeli military ambulance to military headquarters, instead of a hospital. At some point he died and the soldiers buried him, without telling the family, without allowing them to say goodbye. As word of Giries Kunkar’s murder spread, family and friends began to gather at the house of his family.
Soldiers stormed the house, throwing tear gas grenades inside the house, scattering the mourners outside in a mad frenzy and respiratory panic. For the next three months after his death, Israeli soldiers stormed the house of his remaining family every time a visitor came. A visitor came almost daily, so the soldiers stormed the house almost daily, upturning virtually everything in the house.
Saturday, October 20, 2001, Giries’ daughter Nisreen and I were eating bread and yogurt at the kitchen table. The siege of Bethlehem was now more than two days old. Nisreen’s 8-year old cousin Ramiz ran into the kitchen from their grandmother’s house next door, uttering in a hurried manner and with all the excitement a young boy can muster. Nisreen threw her bread on the table and ran to her grandmother’s house next door. Not understanding the words that were exchanged but the body language, I followed right behind. Only a few seconds behind Nisreen, she was already screaming and crying; her hands clasped her face tightly in horror and disbelief. Written across the bottom of the television screen were the words: Juni Taljeyya, 19 years old, was killed in Bethlehem just moments ago. Juni is Nisreen’s first cousin and good friend.
Juni lived just a few feet away from the oldest church in Israel or Palestine, the Church of the Nativity. This is also the church his
family attends each Sunday for worship services. Its ancient walls witnessed the death of a boy too young to die, whose heart was alive with dreams. Standing in Manger Square, next to the 4th century church, an Israeli sniper fired a single shot that passed through his left arm, chest, and then out of his right arm. The baby he held in his arms was untouched and Juni gently laid the baby on the ground. He ran towards his home, just a few feet away, but collapsed and died between his home of sleep and his home of dreams: the Church of the Nativity.
His death cannot be properly understood as a mere passing away. An Israeli sniper took his life. The pain of his family has been
exasperated by some US newspapers who claimed he was shot by Palestinians and some European newspapers who refused to discuss the source of the bullet that killed him. There was no shooting by anyone at the time he was killed. A lonely bullet, made in the US and given to Israel as part of a $2.5 billion annual military aid package, passed from an Israel sniper’s rifle, piercing the momentarily quiet air, fatally wounding Juni.
With round the clock shooting from some 20 Israeli tanks that raged through the streets of Bethlehem and Palestinian attempts to resist them with comparatively pitiful automatic weapons, arriving in Bethlehem from Beit Jala proved to be a harrowing journey. Most of those who wanted to go to the funeral made it. Nisreen, her brother Majid, and I were about to walk out the door to travel to the funeral through hundreds of bullets flying in every direction when a large caliber bullet hit the house next to ours. We saw a large flash in the window and heard the sound of contact. We hurriedly ran to a safer portion of the house and
hid. Nisreen and Majid were crying and we began to realize we would have to wait some time before we tried to go out again.
After several hours of waiting, hiding, and hoping to go to the funeral, we realized we would not be able to make it. The situation was too dangerous to step out of the door.
As we hid in the house, imagining that we might not be able to attend the funeral for Juni, I couldn’t help but think of 13.5 years earlier when Nisreen and Maid’s father was murdered by Israeli soldiers and they were not allowed to pay their respects to him in tear-filled goodbyes and a proper funeral. Those that murdered him buried him and barred anyone who cared for him to attend. At least with Juni, the family held his funeral, though some of the family was prevented from attending due to the Israeli invasion of Bethlehem. To have a family member murdered is enough. To be barred from attending his funeral is a lifetime wound. To relive the scenario twice…
Juni was not the only innocent civilian casualty of Israel’s military invasion of the Bethlehem district, which includes two adjacent towns and 4 villages. Here are some of the others as I have recorded them:
Teenage Boys
2) Moussa George Abu Ayed, 19, Beit Jala. He was shot in his neck by an Israeli sniper as he stood inside his home.
3) Yousef Abeyat, 15, a village east of Bethlehem, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers after approaching one on foot and stabbing him. Yousef’s case demonstrates the helplessness that everyone in Bethlehem felt during this invasion. Without any training he walked straight into the battle zone of tanks, attack helicopters, and automatic weapons with a knife trying to defend his people.
Mothers
1) Ranya Kharoufy, 24, Beit Jala. This mother of two went out to buy milk for her two small children. She came back in a box, having been shot multiple times by Israeli soldiers. She is the aunt of my neighbor and friend Nicolas, 23.
2) Mrs. Rahab Nophal, in her 30’s, Husan (village near to Bethlehem). She was trying to reach the main hospital in Beit Jala as she was having problems with her pregnancy. She had to cross an Israeli checkpoint in order to reach Bethlehem where the soldiers refused to allow her to cross. She and her unborn child died in the vehicle, stuck at the checkpoint. She is survived by her husband and 6 children.
3) Miriam Suboh, 35, El Khader (village near to Bethlehem) was shot by Israeli soldiers. She is survived by her husband and 6 children.
4) Eisha Abu Owdy, mother of 8, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the ‘Aza Refugee camp in Bethlehem. She lives in Jerusalem but came to visit her family in the refugee camp and bring them necessary items. This refugee camp was surrounded by tanks and was fired on from three sides around the clock for the first three days of the invasion in Bethlehem.
Fathers
1) Mr. Dibbis, 40, Aida Refugee Camp. He stuck his head out of his second story window to look for his children for a moment. An Israeli sniper in the nearby Intercontinental Hotel, occupied by Israeli soldiers and used as a military base, shot him once in the head. No other shooting was happening when he was shot. He is survived by his wife and 9 children. The recent rains washed his blood from the window frame where his life was taken.
2) Eisa Jalil Al-Ali, 55, Bethlehem, was shot once in the chest while sitting in his car at a main intersection in Bethlehem. He was grocery shopping at the time and is survived by his wife and 5 children.
Handicapped
1) Mohammed Suleiman Baraka, 28, ‘Aza refugee camp, was shot in the neck by Israel soldiers. Mohammed is deaf and mute.
At Work
1) ‘Eisa Fowzy Abu Haleil, 27, Doha (southern end of Bethlehem), was at his job in the Husseini Hospital in Beit Jala when Israeli apache helicopters rocketed the hospital. ‘Eisa was killed and many others were injured. The Husseini Hospital was the main hospital for all victims and casualties in the area, so attacking this hospital was an attempt to disrupt the main source of emergency services.
Others
1) Firas Salahat, 28, Bethlehem, died of shrapnel wounds sustained when a mortar he was trying to fire exploded. He was to be married Friday the 19th but postponed the wedding when his friend Ateef Abeyat was assassinated by Israel the night before. On the 24th, he died, resisting the Israeli military invasion in Bethlehem.
2) Wa’el Abeyat, 29, national security officer, was killed resisting the Israeli invasion of Bethlehem.
3) Nahed Al-Juju, a national security officer, was killed after engaging in the defense of Bethlehem. All national security soldiers had orders not to shoot and for the first 5 days of the attacks in Bethlehem, none of them did. Nahed was one who could no longer see his people being murdered and joined the resistance.
4) A police officer was killed as well.
5) Fareed Abu Jalalah, 18, was killed in the Aida refugee camp by Israeli soldiers.
Assassinated
Thursday the 18th at 6 p.m. the following three were assassinated by Israel in Beit Sahour, adjacent to Bethlehem. They were tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed without formal charges, trials, hearings, or defense.
1) Ateef Abeyat, late 20’s, Bethlehem, died when his car exploded. Car bombs are common methods Israel uses to assassinate wanted Palestinians without taking official responsibility for them.
2) Jamal Abdullah, 20’s, Bethlehem, was in the car with Ateef.
3) ‘Eisa Abeyat, 20’s, Bethlehem, was also in the car. These are the human casualties and there were at least 100 injuries,
mostly civilian, in the Bethlehem area. The material damage is unbelievable. The ‘Aza refugee camp was especially targeted with round the clock shooting by three tanks into various portions of this camp for at least the first three days. The ‘homes’ in this camp are made of rough cinder blocks, without proper sewage and electricity systems. The people here are literally the poorest in the Bethlehem district. That did not make them off limits to the Israeli military.
Shops, homes, businesses, streets, electricity poles, traffic lights were damaged and destroyed everywhere the tanks moved. At least 25 light poles or traffic signals were run over by the tanks. It is estimated that more than 2000 feet of medians and curbs were heavily damaged as tanks rolled back and forth over them, sometimes in obvious attempts to cause extra destruction. Virtually every street in Beit Jala and 1000’s of feet of paved streets in Bethlehem sustained damage from the tanks driving on them. Dozens of cars were also run over by tanks and flattened. On several streets where tanks drove, the road was plenty
wide enough for the tank to pass but they chose to run over the cars anyway.
The tanks also drove into many shops along Manger Street, one of the main streets into Bethlehem from Jerusalem, crushing their doors and front glass and trashing everything inside. Some were fired into with large caliber bullets or shelled from close range by the tanks. Not one shop was spared on Manger Street in a 500-foot section full of small groceries, dry cleaners, souvenir shops, cafes and restaurants. There is structural damage to many of them, requiring they be demolished and rebuilt. Their owners have been virtually without work and income for the last 13 months, making this process simply impossible. Their source of income is now totally gone, even if there is business again.
The Bethlehem Hotel sustained damaged to a 20’x30’ glass portion of its entryway when an armored personnel carrier (APC) drove right into the front of the hotel. It was said that the Israeli soldiers meant to crash into the Paradise Hotel and this was a mistake. The owner of the hotel was inside when this happened and began shouting at the soldiers, asking them why they did this to his hotel. For his complaints, he was arrested.
Israel tanks shelled the 6-story Paradise hotel several months ago, destroying the third floor. The damages were slowly being repaired on a very limited income as the hotel has been closed for a year for lack of business. The Israeli military chose this hotel as a base of operations in Bethlehem. Israel’s Channel 2 news did a story on the 40 soldiers that had broken into the hotel and were sleeping in the rooms. They joked that they were “living in Paradise” and didn’t want to leave; the hotel rooms were much better than their army barracks. For its hospitality, the hotel was mostly burned and is now a total loss.
This is Israel’s self-declared war on terrorism: the destruction of an entire Palestinian city and the murder of mothers, fathers, and teenage boys in their homes and going about usual chores. All of this was in response, they said, to the murder of Tourism Minister Rehavim Ze’evi Wednesday the 17th of October. The obvious question is why they killed 14 civilians in the Bethlehem district a lone and caused millions of dollars worth of damage when no one involved in Ze’evi’s murder were from Bethlehem? Why did they fire tanks shells into a girl’s school in Ramallah, killing one 11-year old girl, injuring 7 and causing psychological damage to hundreds? It is also worth asking why 6 of 7 Palestinian cities were invaded or surrounded by Israeli military forces
when two of their suspects were already in custody (one was arrested the day after the murder). In essence, one Israeli personality is murdered and nearly all of Palestine is invaded. This results in the siege of 2 million people, the killing of nearly 50, the injury of hundreds, and the destruction of tens of millions of dollars in property. Hospitals, schools, mosques, homes, shops, universities—there is nothing sacred, nothing safe in these latest invasions by the Israeli military.
One must question Israel’s self-declared war on terrorism when the victims of their efforts are innocent mothers, fathers, teenage boys, and young girls in their school uniforms. Virtually every area of Palestine has been under siege for close to 2 weeks. Bethlehem received the blunt of the force thus far, its stores and stones lying in the streets, piled high and out of place.
Hundreds who used to work for peace now lay with their broken and bleeding hearts with these stones, crying a grimly tune in honor of their murdered loved ones. The animate and inanimate cry out together, mourning for each other and themselves.
One day Bethlehem may be rebuilt, and the people may recover from their heartache, but for now, Bethlehem lies in ruins.