Killing
At The Fence
By Gideon Levy
08 March, 2004
Ha'aretz
These
were not rubber bullets. You don't have to be a ballistics expert to
know that bullets that slice through a car, enter its flank, penetrate
the upholstery and exit via the door are not rubber bullets. This is
the red and white Ford Transit with which the driver, Nidal Rian, tried
to evacuate a demonstrator, Mohammed Rian, who lay dying on the floor
of the vehicle after being shot in the back during the demonstration
on February 26. The vehicle is riddled with bullet holes. At least three
in the chassis; the front and back windshields are shattered, as are
the lights; the tires have already been changed.
The driver, Nidal,
still stunned by the events, recalls that the soldiers (or Border Policemen)
fired at him while he was trying to evacuate his relative, Mohammed.
Because the troops did not allow an ambulance to approach the scene,
Nidal had to evacuate the wounded man himself. The soldiers also threw
a smoke grenade at the Transit, as witnessed by burn marks on the front
seat. Nidal says he lost consciousness because of the smoke. Mohammed
was apparently killed by a live bullet, exactly like the one that hit
Zakhriya Eid, from the neighboring village - but what difference would
it make even if it had been a rubber-coated metal bullet?
The demonstration
against the building of the fence on village land included stone throwing
at soldiers and policemen. It ended with two villagers shot dead. A
third, Abed Ibrahim Salem, about 60, died either of gas inhalation or
a heart attack. A young man, Mohammed Badwan, 22, was wounded and is
clinically dead. And several dozen more people were wounded moderately
or lightly, among them 75-year-old Mohammed Hamidan, who lost an eye.
Channel 10 News
showed snipers on rooftops, and an eye-witness, Yonatan Pollack, said
he saw them shooting at the demonstrators, but the commander of the
Jerusalem District Police, Mickey Levy, did not hesitate to go on television
the next day and say that maybe the whole thing was a "hamulot
[clans] feud." This is how the Israel Defense Forces, the Border
Police and the Israel Police disperse demonstrations, and this is how
their chiefs scatter falsehoods.
Maybe the dead committed
suicide? I suggested to an IDF officer who had beenpresent at the demonstration.
"Improbable," he replied.
The IDF Spokesperson's
Office, in reply to a question about the events and especially about
the live fire aimed at the evacuating vehicle, replied: "The event
is being investigated by the Israel Police and by the IDF."
The village of Biddu
and its two satellite hamlets, Beit Ijza and Beit Duqu, three relatively
tranquil sites during the present intifada, lie northwest of Jerusalem,
not far from the 1967 Green Line, and overlook Highway 443 (Jerusalem-Modi'in),
which their residents are forbidden to use. They are now trying to prevent
their confinement from all sides and the plunder of their land by the
separation fence project.
The High Court of
Justice this week ordered the building of the fence in the area to be
halted for a week. Thirty residents of the upscale community of Mevasseret
Zion - a truly impressive number - joined the petition to the court
that was presented by their Palestinian neighbors. "Why not build
the fence on our land?" one of the residents said on television.
The villagers issued a statement in Hebrew addressed to all their settler
neighbors in Givat Ze'ev and Har Adar: "Peace will come only if
you let us live in dignity as you live. Our blood is no different from
yours."
Carrying flags,
they stood on the land into which the blood of their friends had seeped
three days earlier. They chanted rhythmically, facing the valley that
is going to be taken from them, with its vineyards and olive groves.
"With fire and blood we will redeem the land." A Transit bearing
the logo of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team was parked by the side. Far
below, an IDF armored Jeep viewed the event quietly. The bulldozers
left last Thursday, after the fatal demonstration. "Slaves in the
21st century behind the apartheid wall," one of the signs read.
A few dozen men
calling to the world with parched throats. Suddenly an important announcement:
The High Court has decided that work on the fence should be stopped
for a week. They can go home. The protest is postponed. Descending from
the hill, they aren't sure whether to be happy - have they won or just
gained a week? - and return to their daily routine in the three villages.
The signs of shock from the previous demonstration, when they lost three
of their friends, are clearly visible on their faces. A young olive
grove, about 20 years old, in the meantime remains alive. If their protest
fails, it will be overridden by a fence.
The battlefield
is strewn with empty gas canisters, manufactured in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.
Where Eid and Rian fell, the villagers have set up a transparent pyramid
as a memorial - rather like the pyramid outside the Louvre, though smaller,
of course.
A Border Police
Jeep stands by the fence of the Givon Hahadasha (New Givon) settlement
- whose red-tile roofs abut the homes of Beit Ijza, the village of Zakhriya
Eid, who was killed in the demonstration - and observes what is going
on in the village. The Border Police see everything here.
In a large courtyard,
between the pen and the chicken coop, and in the shadow of the bulldozer's
shovel, they are mourning Zakhriya Eid. The plastic chairs that go from
event to event in the village, from joyous occasions to tragic ones,
are now here. Yehiya, the 4-year-old orphan, asks for a shekel to buy
ice cream. His uncle - the brother of his dead father - says he can
have anything he wants, but not ice cream: Yesterday he ate four cones
and caught a cold. A photograph of Yehiya and his little sister, Saja,
looking at their father's body, which was published in the East Jerusalem
daily Al-Quds, is passed from hand to hand. It was the first time they
had been written about in a paper. Yehiya said his father was asleep.
Zakhriya Eid, who
was 29 at the time of his death, worked as a radio and television repairman,
and previously worked in Israel and in the family vineyards. During
the demonstration, his older brother, Waji, the principal of the boys'
high school in Biddu, stood on the opposite hill with his students.
There were no classes that day, because of the demonstration. The previous
evening, the two brothers had met, as they were wont to do daily, at
their parents' home. New Givon took about 50 dunams (12.5 acres) of
land from the family. The separation fence will deprive the village
of about 2,500 dunams (625 acres), including the family's land. Some
of the land will be used for construction of the barrier, but most of
it will remain on the other side of the fence.
Zakhriya talked
a lot about the fence. In the past two months, since plans for the barrier
were revealed, it has been almost the sole subject of conversation here.
From the hilltop on which he was standing, Waji saw that some of the
demonstrators had been wounded, but he didn't imagine that his brother
was one of them. Half an hour later his wife called him on his mobile
phone to tell him that Zakhriya was wounded. By the time he reached
the clinic, his brother was already dead. A bullet had slammed into
his heart.
The bereaved brother:
"I want to say a word to the Israelis. We want to live in peace
with you. We don't want war, but we don't want you to kill our children
or steal our land. If someone were to steal your home, your money, your
land or whatever makes it possible for you to live, you would not remain
silent. We will not forgive what has happened to us - I say that with
regret: We will not forgive. Maybe the name of the soldier doesn't interest
me, but what does interest me is the person who tells him to kill.
"Ariel Sharon
is not killing one Jew - he is killing a great many Jews. Arabs have
parents and they have children and each of them has a heart, just like
the Jews. Our heart is not a rock; it is a human heart, which loves
its children and loves its land. It's important for the Jews to know
this. To know what Sharon is doing to them. He is not bringing peace
closer, he is bringing war closer. Maybe you will make a note of this.
Let the soldier sit with himself and think about what he did. Let him
ask himself whether Zakhriya threw stones and whether those stones kill
people. No. But his bullet does kill human beings. Let him sit at night
and take stock of himself and of what he did. Not only the soldier who
killed. All the soldiers. They should know that not everything they
hear is right. They see what the government wants them to see. They
don't see what is really going on. This fence will not bring security."
Waji Eid speaks
in a whisper, his eyes downcast. Just three days ago he lost his brother.
A youngster comes in: They've started building the fence at A-Tira.
We have to arouse the young people there.
Vineyards wind their
way across stepped terraces, the kind hewn by hand, on the way that
ascends from Beit Ijza to Beit Duqu, a neat hamlet five minutes away
by car. Mohammed Rian was 25 at the time of his death and father of
a daughter, Bisan, age 3. He had been studying education at Al-Quds
University, but in the past year had to abandon his studies because
of the dire economic situation. He wanted to be a teacher, but was forced
to become a laborer.
His brother, Yassin,
like the other bereaved brother, Waji, also speaks softly, his eyes
lowered, staring at the floor. The modest family compound consists of
a series of lovely stone houses. The two brothers parted last Thursday.
Mohammed didn't tell Yassin that he was going to participate in the
demonstration. The bullet struck him in the back. His brother said he
was delayed for half an hour at the entrance to the village by soldiers,
who opened fire at the Transit; Mohammed died on the way to the hospital
in Ramallah.
Yassin: "At
7 A.M. there was already a police helicopter above. Then came the undercover
units and the special forces, policemen on horseback with dogs that
were tied up, more than 100 soldiers. They planned it all, not us."
Assad Rian, a cousin,
works in the office of Abu Mazen, the former Palestinian prime minister.
"He was a simple man," he says of Mohammed Rian. "He
didn't talk about the fence. The fence came to us. When he heard there
was a demonstration, he went. Like everyone in the village. All he wanted
was to be on the land. I want to tell you something: Eleven villages
here didn't do a thing. Not one shot was fired at the settlers, no one
here was arrested, no demonstrations, a quiet region. And then they
came and destroyed the road to the village and made us go through Nebi
Samwil, where a soldier decides according to his mood whether to let
us pass or not. Still, the area continued to do nothing. Now they have
started up with us with the gate. The village has nothing left except
for the houses. All the land is on the other side of the fence. We told
the local settlers: We are your neighbors, who lived with you in peace;
come stand with us against the disaster that is coming closer every
day. If you have time to stand with us, then that is well and good,
and if not, that's a pity. You can tell that to the settlers. We are
in favor of peace. The residents of Har Adar and Nataf say they will
demonstrate with us against the occupation forces, and we thank them
very much."
Assad takes a piece
of paper out of his pocket: the letter to the settlers in the area,
written in Hebrew, with spelling mistakes: "During the whole period
of the intifada we sat quietly ... We maintained good neighborly relations
and a relationship for the benefit of both sides without causing any
entanglement or damage. Now we and you are at the beginning of a very
difficult period, which was forced on us by your government, because
of the new wave of expropriations and the intention to build the racist
separation fence. We see this as a barbaric, aggressive act that will
wreck the neighborly relations and destroy the relations that exist
between us. The Israeli government bears the responsibility for everything
that will happen after Black Thursday. We warn against the coming disaster
that is being planned by the Israeli government and the occupation forces
during the construction of the racist separation fence. We will not
abandon our homes and our land, and we will fight the occupation forces
at all times and with all means.
"We appeal
to you as neighbors and call on you not to stand idly by - because the
writing is on the wall. So, please move close and stand on the side
of common sense and logic, and intervene to prevent your government
and your occupation forces from committing more crimes. We call on you
again, because the nice cat will not remain quiet as long as the occupier
tortures it. Raise the voice of reason, the voice of logic, above the
sound of the bullets and the sound of the oppression ..."
Yassin, the bereaved
brother: "It's not just that we are eight siblings who lost a brother.
After all, the demonstration did not endanger the soldiers' lives, but
hatred dictated to the soldier to shoot and kill. Every drop of blood
that flowed out of my brother is a shame to the soldiers and the country,
because this was a demonstration by civilians."
Outside, next to
the bullet-pocked Transit, is another Palestinian Transit, which brought
a group of women in black, arriving to offer condolences. "Sharon
will bring peace and security," says a sticker on the front windshield,
beneath another sticker bearing a drawing of an eagle.