Anata cont'd
I'm home. I arrived back in Chicago at 7pm last night. I have mixed feelings about being home. Right now, a lot of me wishes I would have listened to Michael's advice and tried to extend my ticket. I miss all of the volunteers from the camp, and I miss being in Palestine. That being said, I'm going to write a few more notes about my trip starting with Anata.
In Anata, the area surrounded by the wall includes the Shu'fat refugee camp and another village. In addition to the water situation, we discussed education and health care. Anata has two public schools, but they are overwhelmed by the number of students located in the area around the village. Thus, students have to be bused to schools in neighboring villages. This has become more complicated due to the construction of the wall, as the wall has blocked access to a major highway. In regard to healthcare, the village has no emergency medical services. Patients must be taken by ambulance to other villages/cities. This is problematic because ambulances often get stopped at the Shu'fat checkpoint or the Az Za'ayyem checkpoint. Ambulances can be made to wait up to half an hour at checkpoints, so patients frequently die on the way to the hospital. The leader of the Bedouin tribe I mentioned earlier, explained that the Israelis also rounded up their livestock with helicopters, but them in Israeli controlled stables, and then tried to sell them back. Bedouins are forced to move from land where they have built living areas because they are told that they do not have a permit. This is all in addition to the explosion of wells and deportation that I mentioned earlier (I believe the tribe is called Arab Jarrah, but will check before I say anything definite). I also want to add a few things about the house we were rebuilding. The house was demolished because it was located on land that falls under the jurisdiction of a nearby settlement. The family attempted to apply for a permit to build the house, but were denied. It's important to note that Palestinians are regularly denied building permits, the Israelis use a variety of excuses to justify this, but mainly they have to do with zoning and land use (despite the fact that in the case of the village of Anata - and probably many others, it is clear that zoning and city planing laws don't exist). So, despite this, the family needed a home, so they decided to build on the land anyway. There were approximately twenty three people living in the home that was destroyed, including several children, some looked to be as young as seven or eight.
While in Anata we ate lunch and heard all of these stories right outside the Beit Arabia Peace Center (some may also know this as the Shawamreh family home or the Rachel Corrie memorial). This building has been destroyed five times by the Israeli military. Below are some pictures of the place courtesy of Electronic Intifada (the day we visited Anata was the one day I didn't have a camera).
Otherwise, I guess I should mention that on the way to Anata the group of volunteers and I pased through the Container checkpoint. When we arrived we saw a long line of cars. We assumed this was not a permanent checkpoint as there would not be such a long line if it were. We quickly learned that this assumption was wrong. We saw people climbing out of cars to pass through the checkpoint by foot. The line looked to be at least an hour long. After waiting for a bit, the other international volunteers and I walked up to the checkpoint. They agreed to allow us, but only us to pass. We asked them several times to speed up the line, but they refused. While we were waiting at the checkpoint for further instructions from people on the bus, two ambulances came by. Fortunately they were allowed to the front of the line and were able to pass through the checkpoint with no problem. When we got back on the bus we drove up to the front of the line. There was a heated argument between the bus driver and some of the other folks waiting in line once we got about halfway up, I can only guess what it was about. When we arrived at the checkpoint a soldier boarded the bus and checked everyone's ID. He took the IDs of three of the Palestinians who were traveling with us (even while he was on the bus he didn't really care to much about the passports of the internationals, but closely inspected the IDs of the Palestinians) and told us to wait by the side of the road. As we were waiting, we saw a guy who was trying to pass through the checkpoint on foot be asked to empty his pockets and forced to lift up his shirt. One of the other internationals got a picture of this, and I'll post it if I can get a hold of it. Anyway, after about ten minutes of waiting, the driver got fed up and went to the tent at the checkpoint to get the IDs, and to everyone's surprise he came back with them. After that we were on our way and didn't run into any other problems getting to Anata. However, we did run into a "flying checkpoint" (basicly this means that a military jeep has stopped in the middle of the road and begun to check people's IDs for no apparent reason) on the way back. That only delayed us for about ten minutes though. We had no trouble traveling through the Container checkpoint on the way back.
In Anata, the area surrounded by the wall includes the Shu'fat refugee camp and another village. In addition to the water situation, we discussed education and health care. Anata has two public schools, but they are overwhelmed by the number of students located in the area around the village. Thus, students have to be bused to schools in neighboring villages. This has become more complicated due to the construction of the wall, as the wall has blocked access to a major highway. In regard to healthcare, the village has no emergency medical services. Patients must be taken by ambulance to other villages/cities. This is problematic because ambulances often get stopped at the Shu'fat checkpoint or the Az Za'ayyem checkpoint. Ambulances can be made to wait up to half an hour at checkpoints, so patients frequently die on the way to the hospital. The leader of the Bedouin tribe I mentioned earlier, explained that the Israelis also rounded up their livestock with helicopters, but them in Israeli controlled stables, and then tried to sell them back. Bedouins are forced to move from land where they have built living areas because they are told that they do not have a permit. This is all in addition to the explosion of wells and deportation that I mentioned earlier (I believe the tribe is called Arab Jarrah, but will check before I say anything definite). I also want to add a few things about the house we were rebuilding. The house was demolished because it was located on land that falls under the jurisdiction of a nearby settlement. The family attempted to apply for a permit to build the house, but were denied. It's important to note that Palestinians are regularly denied building permits, the Israelis use a variety of excuses to justify this, but mainly they have to do with zoning and land use (despite the fact that in the case of the village of Anata - and probably many others, it is clear that zoning and city planing laws don't exist). So, despite this, the family needed a home, so they decided to build on the land anyway. There were approximately twenty three people living in the home that was destroyed, including several children, some looked to be as young as seven or eight.
While in Anata we ate lunch and heard all of these stories right outside the Beit Arabia Peace Center (some may also know this as the Shawamreh family home or the Rachel Corrie memorial). This building has been destroyed five times by the Israeli military. Below are some pictures of the place courtesy of Electronic Intifada (the day we visited Anata was the one day I didn't have a camera).
Otherwise, I guess I should mention that on the way to Anata the group of volunteers and I pased through the Container checkpoint. When we arrived we saw a long line of cars. We assumed this was not a permanent checkpoint as there would not be such a long line if it were. We quickly learned that this assumption was wrong. We saw people climbing out of cars to pass through the checkpoint by foot. The line looked to be at least an hour long. After waiting for a bit, the other international volunteers and I walked up to the checkpoint. They agreed to allow us, but only us to pass. We asked them several times to speed up the line, but they refused. While we were waiting at the checkpoint for further instructions from people on the bus, two ambulances came by. Fortunately they were allowed to the front of the line and were able to pass through the checkpoint with no problem. When we got back on the bus we drove up to the front of the line. There was a heated argument between the bus driver and some of the other folks waiting in line once we got about halfway up, I can only guess what it was about. When we arrived at the checkpoint a soldier boarded the bus and checked everyone's ID. He took the IDs of three of the Palestinians who were traveling with us (even while he was on the bus he didn't really care to much about the passports of the internationals, but closely inspected the IDs of the Palestinians) and told us to wait by the side of the road. As we were waiting, we saw a guy who was trying to pass through the checkpoint on foot be asked to empty his pockets and forced to lift up his shirt. One of the other internationals got a picture of this, and I'll post it if I can get a hold of it. Anyway, after about ten minutes of waiting, the driver got fed up and went to the tent at the checkpoint to get the IDs, and to everyone's surprise he came back with them. After that we were on our way and didn't run into any other problems getting to Anata. However, we did run into a "flying checkpoint" (basicly this means that a military jeep has stopped in the middle of the road and begun to check people's IDs for no apparent reason) on the way back. That only delayed us for about ten minutes though. We had no trouble traveling through the Container checkpoint on the way back.
Otherwise, as I said we traveled through Abu Dis and Jerusalem (Al Quds) on the way back and we drove on the soccer field of Al Quds University and spray painted messages on the Wall.
I’ll probably post again later today, but for now I’m gonna take a break. I still have to tell you all about leaving Palestine and the airport (it was an adventure, let me tell ya).
posted by Ben at 8:24 AM
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