Notes from the Invasion

Notes from the Invasion
June 29, 2002

Hi everyone,

I am wiped-out tired because I haven't slept for two nights.

Correction: I did get 2-3 hours sleep between when the first bomb was dropped in the center of town and the second one (3:30am). The PA headquarters was blown to pieces by Israeli F-16s. The force blew the windows inward (Dutch style, not double-hung) but the glass didn't break. It shook the house and was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. And we were about a mile away. We sent two pairs up to check out the damage to the houses in the immediate neighborhood of the blast. Stay tuned for pictures on our website. The dust is settling over the entire city. The night before they were firing Apache rockets and heavy artillery. Anyway, after the second blast last night, I was almost drifting off again, then felt something skitter across my arm. It was a 1 1/2 inch cockroach. So I shook out the mat, dragged it out of the corner, and committed an act of violence with a broom. Then a while later I was almost asleep again when I realised the windows being blown open (latch is broken) allowed the Mosquitos of Doom to enter our room. So I fended them off the rest of the night. Argh.

One bold rooster is still crowing across the street. I think I wrote the other day about the dead animals piling up due to the heat inside the stall. There is no way to move them or anywhere to take them, so the kids sneak in every day and remove the carcasses. The stench in our street is incredible. We morbidly wondered if installing a 'chicken cam' would cause at least the animal rights activists to apply pressure on the curfew situation. People could watch in horror over the internet as they suffocated and died, and the soldiers prevented anyone from getting near to aid them.

The Israeli military is now in charge of the water supply. Way to go guys. Now there is no water supply. Never give control of essential life resources for a civilian population to a group of people with guns. This is one of my Obvious Rules of Humane Warfare (if there is such a thing.) The other is, ‘Never allow contact between soldiers and refugees.’ That is why there are clashes here. The soldiers station themselves right outside the camps and make life miserable as soon as people set foot outside the camp. Then after the clash starts, the camp gets tear gassed. This is called collective punishment. The same situation occurs with soldiers and schools, as you have seen by reading our reports. My third Obvious Rule is, ‘Never give an eighteen year old kid a gun and a sense of superiority over another group of people.’ We've been dealing with that crap all week.

Anyway.

Yesterday I took food supplies up Tel Rumeida to a family living next to the settlement. On the way, I got goosed by an otherwise gentle looking teenage boy. Hey! You're way too young for me! Today we'll go a different path on the hill to check in on other families who can't sneak to a renegade grocery store because they're too close to the settlements.

It is now the fifth day of curfew over the entire city. But the soldiers are strangely absent from the streets. This is because they control all the hilltops; only one street in town is not visible to them. So why patrol? However, this does not keep tanks, bulldozers, and APCs from rolling up and down the street next to our place at all hours of the day and night. The noise is deafening. It's great to be on the phone and tell people to wait for the tank to pass. Especially international calls.

In lighter news, we've been invited to another Saturday night party with our colleague international observer force in town, TIPH. This is lovely and so needed. As long as Doctors Without Borders can come pick us up, we'll be fine. No taxis during invasions. So, it's a nice partnership blooming among the three groups. TIPH supplies the swank facilities, DWB the transport (TIPH isn't allowed out at night right now) and we I guess are the nutty entertainment!

That's my news for now. Keep sending the jokes.
Le Anne