"I'm Palestinian, this is my land, I don't care if I die.”
We all got in the back of the ambulance and you could just feel it: "this could be it."
By Beth Daoud from a field hospital in Nablus
April 9, 2002, 3:00pm (Palestine Time)
Appeared in www.PalestineChronicle.com
Yesterday Israelis took an elderly man hostage and used him as a shield when they attacked a mosque. The Mosque was being used as a temporary hospital. The soldiers put a gun to his neck and marched them in front while they stormed the building. In another incident, ambulances were stopped and people forced to get out. The soldiers then wrote "dog" on a man's head.
In the last hour, they took forty hostages between ages 14 and 40, taking them to a prison. The Israelis have said any foreigners in ambulances will be shot.
There is total devastation in Nablus. Homes, buildings, shops and cars are destroyed. Ambulance drivers say the dead and wounded are laying in the streets. One body is being eaten by a dog.
I just took an ambulance from the main hospital to a temporary hospital, which has been set up since it's so difficult to move people. We all got in the back of the ambulance and you could just feel it: "this could be it."
Every street you look down has tanks, they're like huge insects. Tanks drove by here moments ago. Every area has injured people,but you can't go out. I hate to tell my husband, he grew up here. Everything that means something to the Palestinians is being destroyed - Mosques, ancient sites, etc. It is so sad for these people that you can't be more sad. I saw a woman walking down the deserted streets when we came in, and I know what that means: I'm Palestinian, this is my land, I don't care if I die.
While we were in the main hospital a family arrived from Balata camp who's home had just been blown up - they are in various degrees of injury.
I think we are doing three things here - being human shields, trying to pick up the injured, and being witnesses.
Ambulance drivers, they are heroes, they have to shut off their fear. The ambulance driver we rode with has 10 family members and he doesn't know where they are: he was driving in tears... the dignity and courage here is beyond anything I could imagine.
Now internationals are getting into an ambulance to go pick up a little girl. When I get back home ... the Americans will be so bland. These people are fighting for their rights, their culture, their land. Israel is being so incredibly malicious, so profoundly malicious.
Beth Daoud is part of a delegation from the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, working with the International Solidarity Movement. Earlier in the day on April 9th, Daoud was one of just six internationals that arrived on foot to witness the devastation in Nablus caused by the Israeli invasion. More information on her trip at: www.ccmep.org/palestine.html
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