[Peace-discuss] re: update from ISM

[Peter Rohloff]

I'm forwarding this email from Flo Razowsky, an ISM worker currently in 
Palestine. She was just in Champaign a few weeks ago for the Truth Tour.

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Message: 1
    Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 13:15:54 -0000
    From: "flo_razowsky1" <walkfree at justice.com>
Subject: (unknown)

05/03/03           please feel free to forward

greetings. i write to you from tul karem, occcupied palestine. this
is a city in which i spent the majority of my time during my last
visit(august-september 2002). plans have changed, and it seems i
will be here for awhile, if not for the entirity of my stay. it is
good to be back and see old friends. i have only been here for three
days, but it seems quite a different place. during my last stay, tul
karem was under twenty-four hour curfew most everyday, with one day
a week or so, no curfew so that people could leave there homes to
buy food, attend school. during these curfews, there were constantly
tanks and jeeps patrolling the streets, with much shooting and tear
gas twenty four hours a day.

i have been told that since that time, people of this city have
begun disregaurding curfew on a mass scale, so that children can
attend school. in the three days that i have been here, there has
been no curfew during the day at all. it is quite nice to see this
city under a circumstance of relative normalcy. of course, this has
only been during the days. night is another story entirely.
my first night here, i spent in tul karem refugee camp. this is a
camp that is regurlary attacked by the soldiers. one of the families
in the camp has asked for the assistance of the ism because the
soldiers often occupy this house in order to set up a lookout and
sniper post. there are elderly people and young children in this
house. i went to stay there with another international in order to
be a pressence if the soldiers did arrive, and to attempt to
intervene on behalf of the family.

around 11:00 pm, the soldiers came into the camp and began to
announce curfew over their loudspeakers. the youngest child in the
house(a three year old girl) started to say that the soldiers had
arrived and that they were coming to shoot the men. over the course
of about thirty minutes she said this repeadatly. we could see the
soldiers' jeeps outside the house and could hear men of the camp
yelling at them. there were many shots fired and several sound
grenades were detonated. one man from the camp was injured by a
gunshot wound. the family in the house was quite distraught during
the rest of the evening, unsure if the soldiers would attempt to
enter their house. it was very nerve wracking to listen and see the
soldiers outside the home. we all stayed up late into the night,
jumping at every sound. i think no one got much sleep that night, as
is the case for this family and many others every night. finally,
daylight came, without the soldiers actually attempting to enter the
home.

last night was not so lucky for another man. i stayed with a family
in the city of tul karem itself, who also the soldiers visit on a
regular basis. this family had one son killed by the soldiers when
the car he was driving was bombed by an apache helicopter. another
son of the family is wanted by the military and has been in hiding
for the past two years. because the soldiers cannot find this son,
they came to the house often looking for him. in an attempt to force
this man to surrender, the soldiers arrest his brothers. one brother
(23 yrs old) is now in prison for six months. during my last time in
tul karem, i met this brother two days after he had been released
from another six month stay in prison. the last remaining brother in
the house is also often arrested. the soldiers have visited this
home 14 times over the last year and a half, and have arrested this
brother everytime they come. always, it is the same, the soldiers
arrive in the night, enter the home, cause destruction and question
the family about the wanted man's whereabouts. no one in the family
knows where this brother is in hiding, yet the soldiers do not
believe them. the mother of this family is very ill with cancer, but
the soldiers force her to stand outside for hours, no matter what
the weather. the family has asked the ism to stay there in order to
intervene on behalf of the mother that she may be able to stay in
her bed while the soldiers search the house. before last night, the
soldiers last came to the house ten days ago in search of the wanted
man. but then again they came last night.

at approximately 1:30 am, myself and the one brother left in the
house were sitting up talking when we heard jeeps approaching. we
could hear several of them passing once the house and then turn back
only to stop directly outside. the soldier driving the jeep sat
outside and spun the wheels of the jeep for a couple of moments and
then sounded the siren. the soldiers called to the family to come
out of the house into the street. because the mother was in the
hospital last night, it was only myself, the one remaining brother
and his father. we all exited the house and entered the street. the
soldiers ordered us all to sit in the road in front of them. in
plain view, there was one military jeep(that was dealing with us
directly) and one border police jeep(that was a few feet behind).
the three of us sat in the road until the soldiers ordered the
remaining brother to approach the jeep. he did so assuming he would
once again be taken to prison. the soldiers asked him where his
brother was(the wanted man), as they always do. as the brother
always responds, he told them he has no idea where his brother is
and that he has been telling them this for two years now. the
soldiers asked him where his other brother was at(the one who is
currently in prison), and he told them that he is now in prison and
will be there for six months. the soldiers asked this man who i was
(as i sat in the road speaking by phone to the other ism volunteers
in tul karem), and he responded that i was american. he was then
told by the soldiers that his brother has one week to turn himself
in or else they will return and destroy the house. then the soldiers
left. this man was amazed that the soldiers had not taken him, as
they have every other time they have come to the house. he feels
that the soldiers did not take him this time because of my
pressence. many of his neighbors called after the soldiers had left
and were also shocked they he had not been taken.  for the rest of
the evening, we could hear the soldiers patrolling the neighborhood,
sounding their siren and shooting much ammunition.

while i sat in the road in front of the jeep, many thoughts went
through my head. i thought about the fact then when i left tul karem
last september, i had become very desensitized to the soldiers,
tanks, shooting and all that goes with it. it becomes a part of
daily life that one gets used to. with the situation last night
returned the emotion of fear that i lost at the end of my last
visit. i thought about all of the internationals who have been
killed and wounded here recently. with those thoughts came the
rememberance that i have alot less privelage in this situation then
i assumed i had during my first stay. although this privelage seemed
to help this man from being arrested last night, i cannot rely on it
as i used to. it is no longer so concrete. also with the published
story in yesterdays ha'aretz(an israeli left leaning daily) that the
ism is being targeted and that the military has orders to arrest and
deport any ismers they can find, that privelage is once again even
less. but i am very glad to be here, and still think it is quite
useful. people here are also glad that we are here and take the
situation last night as proof that an international pressence makes
a world of difference.

since my first visit here, much work has been done within tul karem
to organize a broad coalition of groups that the ism works with.
there was a meeting today of many different organizations to create
an even more useful way for us to be here. there has been a
connection started with the palestinian women's union here in tul
karem that i am very excited about. soon there will be a march,
organized by the women's union, in coaltion with the newly formed
mothers and sisters of martrys union. this is the first of it's kind
in palestine and is planning to be spread to other cities across the
west bank and the gaza strip. unlike in the u.s. media which lables
a martry only as those who have been suicide bombers, here in
palestine, a martry is anyone that has been killed by a soldier-
civilian and fighter alike.

there is an up and coming international day of action in support of
the people of palestine. i encourage people in every community to
check out the following website, and plan something in your own city.

http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/palestine.php

i thank y'all so much for the support you have offered me so that i
am able to do this work.

my love to you all--flo razowsky