From Occupied Palestine

A prison that keeps getting smaller
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 12 October 2003

Last Wednesday, Hoda Shadub, a woman of about 50, wanted to go home after having eye surgery at an East Jerusalem hospital. She waited for hours at the Hawara checkpoint, which blocks access to her city, Nablus, but the soldiers refused to let her through. According to the new orders, they said, only ambulances could pass. The Physicians for Human Rights association had to intervene to get an ambulance for Shadub, who finally got home - exhausted and embittered.

No apology
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 26 September 2003

Naif Abu Latifi is on pills. His bottom lip trembles, his face is unshaven, his expression is veiled, a slight shudder passes through his body. His wife asks that we don't upset him. Every so often, he interjects in the conversation and asks, as if disconnectedly, why the soldiers shoot little children and why they don't stop them and why they would shoot a boy at such short range and how can it be that a small, unarmed boy possibly threaten the life of an armed soldier so much that he shoots him to death from a short range, and why are the soldiers there anyway? Tough, disturbing questions here in this tiny living room. And, really, why? What would you say to a bereaved Palestinian father whose child was killed by Israel Defense Forces soldiers? Is there anything that can justify shooting at a boy running for his life?

'She can go give birth with Arafat'
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 19 September 2003

This is a bad tale that ends well. This story began exactly like Rula Ashtiya's - the Kafr Salem woman in labor whose story was told here last Friday: another woman stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint on her way to the hospital. Rula Ashtiya testified that she gave birth on the ground at the checkpoint next to her village, while hiding like an animal from the soldiers behind a cement block. Suzanne Alann spent more than three hours navigating checkpoints last week, as border police refused her passage, time after time, until she gave birth in a checkpoint zone, in the back seat of the taxi she was riding in, in full view of whoever happened by.

No end in sight
GIDEON LEVY and JON ELMER
FromOccupiedPalestine.org, 17 September 2003

Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: I have just returned from, Muqata, Arafat's compound in Ramallah. When I spoke with people on the street who had come to express their solidarity with the besieged leader, they were unanimous in their belief that assassinating Arafat would be a disaster. One man said, "There will be an earthquake - not just in Israel, but all across the Arab world." Is the threat of assassinating Yasser Arafat just Israeli bluster or is it a real possibility?

A bankrupt policy
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 14 September 2003

Who is the head of the Hamas military wing in Hebron? Last week, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that soldiers from the undercover unit Duvdevan had liquidated Ahmed Bader, describing him as "the head of the Hamas military wing in Hebron." Seven weeks earlier, on June 22, we were informed that a force of the Border Police and the Shin Bet security service had eliminated "the head of the military wing of Hamas in Hebron." On that occasion the part was played by Abdullah Qawasmeh. Three months before that, on March 18, it was reported that the IDF had terminated Ali Alan, who was also "the head of the military wing of Hamas in Hebron." Seven months prior to that, on August 28, 2002, it was announced that the IDF had arrested "the head of the military wing of Hamas in Hebron," Abdel Halek Natshe. Less than a year before that, in November 2001, the IDF reported that a helicopter-launched missile killed Jail Jadallah - "the head of the military wing of Hamas in Hebron."

Twilight Zone: Birth and death at the checkpoint
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 12 September 2003

Rula was in the last stages of labor. Daoud says the soldiers at the checkpoint wouldn't let them through, so his wife hid behind a concrete block and gave birth on the ground. A few minutes later, the baby girl died.

They wanted to call her Mira. All their children have names that begin with M, from Mohammed to Meida, their youngest daughter. They borrowed baby clothes from Rula's sister - their financial situation after three years of unemployment made buying new clothes out of the question - and they packed a bag to be ready for the birth. Now they are beside themselves with grief. Rula doesn't say a word and Daoud can't keep the words from pouring out.

The empty square
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 7 September 2003

Are there not at least 100,000 Israelis who are shocked by what Israel is doing to the Palestinians these days? Isn't there at least a tiny minority of a few tens of thousands who are losing sleep over the targeted assassinations? Or over the separation wall that is tearing Palestinians from their land? Or over the mass imprisonment that an entire nation has been living in for almost three years? Or over the abuse and humiliation an entire nation is being subjected to? Aren't there at least 10,000 Israelis who are not willing to remain silent? Does nothing that happens to our neighbors under the occupation have anything to do with us?

Peace with America
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 3 August 2003

A line of cars hundreds of meters long now stretches every day on the road that connects the villages of the Tul Karm area, in the West Bank. The Palestinian drivers sometimes have to wait for hours in the punishing sun. They now have to cross an iron gate in the new separation fence, located next to Nazlat al-Garbiya, and go through a check by Border Police, car after car, in order to move from a village in the north to a village in the south within areas under occupation. Since the advent of the cease-fire, the lives of the residents in this area have taken a turn for the worse. Their district seat, Tul Karm, remains under tight siege, as before. Last Wednesday night, tanks burst into the city and the residents awoke to the sounds of gunfire and explosions. They have definitely heard about the promises Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made to U.S. President George Bush about easing the restrictions on the Palestinians, but for them, life just keeps getting harder.

Nothing happened
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 16 August 2002

Nothing happened. Soldiers opened fire, no one was hurt. Not a thing happened. The soldiers evacuated the bullet-riddled taxi and its passengers from the zone of fire and no officer appeared: not to investigate, not to take testimony, not to explain, not to apologize, and above all not to show the soldiers that, after all, something did happen.

Why most Israeli's don't care if a Palestinian dies at a roadblock
GIDEON LEVY
oneworld tv

VIDEO: Gideon Levy on roadblocks

"Many Israeli's think that a Palestinian child deserves to give birth to a dead child at a roadblock; they think that a dialysis patient desreves to die at a roadblock - or at least it is his own fault because his neighbour is a terrorist, or his own son.