Witnessing The
Rafah Atrocity
By Laura Gordon,
writing from Rafah, occupied Gaza
Electronic
Intifada
15 October 2003
Then
the streets started screaming and we were running almost without thinking,
down the edges of the street around the people who had lost their fear,
around donkey carts loaded full, ran until we fround a corner to turn
into and then we ran past families and children, through narrow streets
far enough from the main street not to know the worst, far enough that
we were the ones spreading the news that the army had come back.
Old men's eyes opened
wide and mothers pulled their children inside, casting weary gazes in
the direction from where we had come. We found Sea Street and a taxi
and headed towards Block J. A machine gun fired from a tank as it entered
Yibneh. It was maghreb time. The sun burning a hole in the sky as it
fell behind the wall at the edge of town.
When we'd come to
Yibneh the camp was already in exodus mode. Donkey carts piled high
with furniture, men removing the doors of their homes from the hinges,
children holding the keys to their homes on neon green keychains, the
modern picture of a refugee descended from refugees, meeting exile every
other generation.
The army had come
during the night leaving a city stripped bare, the broken bones of houses
like twisted bodies reaching up to heaven. Trees and streets, power
lines and water pipes, broken, twisted around each other, uprooted.
A graveyard of life things. The real dead had been carried out on stretchers,
mostly after lying on the street for hours between tanks and the fearful
closed doors of curfew, while the ambulances negotiated with the army
to gain access. It was a perfect autumn day, soft clouds dotting a sky
blue as swimming pools.
The army had come
during the night in the sound of thunder rumbling down the border frightening
the whole town. It left, not through the streets as it had come, but
by creating a path through the homes still standing in Yibneh, demolishing
anything in its way and driving over the remains.
It left 10 people
dead and upwards of 80 injured; over 100 homes demolished and 2,000
people homeless, according to the UN's estimate. And even then, the
army left incompletely and provisionally, remaining stationed along
the border, and Moshe Allon calling to deploy more reserves. The word
on the street is that the army has left just long enough for the frightened
families to leave the camp, an empty shell for the army to finish demolishing.
That night I stayed
with Noura and the family down by Salah el-Deen gate. In the morning
we peeked over the balcony. A tank was still sitting by the Block O
tower. It didn't stop shooting either. All day in spurts.
...
Most of the dead
were teenage boys with more curiosity than fear who went outside just
to see what was in their street keeping them inside their homes. They
were wheeled out on stretchers to sit in the hospital refrigerators
for days, waiting for their family to identify them, some unidentifiable.
Held in limbo waiting for the army could leave so their families could
bury them.
When they did hold
funerals it was not in the camp where the army was threatening to reinvade,
but far away, in the center of the city, in Hay Il-Ijnena. But not far
enough. An Apache dropped a missile on an empty field next to a funeral
on the second day of invasion, the funeral for someone who lives in
Hay Il-Ijnena, the most expensive part of town, known for its distance
from the border. They died when an Apache fired explosive bullets through
the roof of his home.
...
When the army entered
we were on the roof passing around stories and dreams. The Apaches came
in like a foreboding signal of the end of the world, dropping fist-sized
bombs -- boom boom boom, explosions every several minutes from the planes
and the tanks. We spent the night in the office waking with fear and
coffee, every bullet sounding like it was coming through our windows.
We are in the center of the city. All the shooting comes from the borders,
and even if it doesn't reach our walls it shoots in our direction, it
sounds awful, like wretching rain.
People filled up
the hospital and in the morning it was already low on supplies. Nobody
could get to the European Gaza Hospital, the only descent facility in
the area, where tanks had been parked for days not letting anyone out
or in. The dead waited in the refrigerators for identification. The
beds were full and overflowing.
My friend Adwan
was the first to identify his friend since 12 years. 19-year-old Mabrouk,
whose name means "congratulations", was shot three times in
the head and five in the back while walking home.
In the mosque, men
gathered for prayer and sharing information. Mohammed came back with
news. The sheikh at the library, the one we all know, had been killed
while walking down the street, a bullet in the heart. One of the ambulance
drivers that drove Rachel Corrie to the hospital had also been killed
on his way to rescue the injured. His was one of two ambulances the
army shot at that night.
Down the street
from my friend Feryal in Block J, an eight-year-old boy -- her neighbor's
son -- was killed at the door of his home when a tank backed into his
home and then shot him as he ran out, and then denied the ambulance
entrance for two hours while he bled to death. Feryal was pregnant and
expecting her fifth child any day. Four tanks were parked at each corner
of her block.
...
I went with the
municipality workers to negotiate with the army to let them fix the
water and electricity on a street that hadn't had for days. The real
heros here are the municipality workers and the ambulance drivers who
have lost their fear in order to keep the city together. I spoke from
a distance of ten yards with a soldier in an APC, to see if the workers
could fix the water system. He gave me a thumbs up sign. He appeared
to be trying to understand. Parallel universes colliding. I couldn't
believe I was talking with a real person inside this massive machine,
I was so hungry for human contact, to put a face with the military machinery.
We shouted to each other from opposite sides of a road block the army
had put up, the divide was a gulf none of us could cross. I stood for
too long, gawking at him, wishing I could talk to him for hours until
he left his tank, feeling naive and silly in the afternoon sun.
The army had uprooted
the entire street. Water was filling the sand everywhere in the places
water pipes had been broken. People had run out of food, had no water
or electricity for two days at that point. Two women who wanted to bring
clothes for their children inside the militarized area were denied entry.
The municipality, who wanted to bring food relief to the people in the
sealed-off area and to fix the water and electrical systems there, was
denied entry.
...
The night before
I had slept with Naela's family. The invasion was one day old. Jenin
was the word on everyone's lips, Bb'eyn Allah ("God sees").
...
My friend Anees'
house was partially demolished. Abu Ahmed, the carob juice vendor, his
house was demolished.
...
The army used some
kind of nerve gas for the first time in Rafah, leaving people in convulsions
for days.
...
And last night,
I ran from Yibneh's streets as the army came back in and found my way
directly to Feryal's house in Block J, better to be with her under curfew
than to worry from outside. The army didn't come as it had before but
drove in enough to scare the people into exodus and then shot all night
long. I began to mix all loud noises with gunfire, the way I used to
when I first arrived here.
We slept incompletely.
Outside, everything around had been demolished. The morning was still.
Families were sitting on the doorsteps of their neighbors' homes gazing
at the damage. The area had gone from a crowded lively neighborhood
to a strange antique gallery, children rummaging through the best climbing
spots of twisted cars and broken homes. A few more weeks and the army
will finish its work and "clean" the area -- dig away the
dead bones of the city - until nothing remains but a flat, sandy expanse,
a military parking lot. Even the ghosts will leave the area, searching
for better horizons.
Even as I sit by
Feryal now in the crowded clinic benches full of pregnant women and
screaming children, tanks shoot into the camps. It hasn't stopped all
morning or all night, and there are four new injuries. The whole town
is frightened, afraid to let out its breath. The sadness is dry and
wordless. People are staying in tents on the street, some families have
room to take in the new homeless.
The army is lying
as usual, saying only 10 homes were destroyed and that the people killed
were gunmen. Journalists are trying to get here but with difficulty
and under the guidelines that they follow military instruction. The
ultrasound machine sounds like gunfire to my frightened ears. Feryal
looks forward, eyes cynical, sarcastic, watching from a distance.
Laura Gordon is a 20-year-old American Jew who came to Israel
in December 2002 with the Birthright Israel program and proceeded, three
months later, to begin work with the International Solidarity Movement
in Rafah.