CPTnet
September 28, 2004
HEBRON REFLECTION: Aftermath of the Beer Sheva suicide bombings
The morning after the devastating suicide bombings in Beer Sheva, we went to
the Red Cross Centre to see the families of hunger-striking prisoners again.
While we were there, we receive an invitation into the homes of people who
are openly supportive of Hamas. We met a distinguished member of one of the
twelve old family clans of the city, the Qawasmes. She welcomed us, and
told us with pride of her clan's long record of resistance to occupation,
dating back to the British Mandate between the two world wars. Between 150
and 170 of the clan have been killed or jailed for resistance to the
Occupation in the last few years. "We cannot just let the Israelis walk over
us," she told us.
She said that one of the Beer Sheva bombers, Ahmed, a serious, single man of
twenty-five was a cousin. She drove us to his flat, demolished from inside
by the army during the night, leaving the rest of the building intact.
Ahmed's 100-year-old grandmother Amira sat desolate and confused on a bench
beneath the remains of a grapevine. The soldiers came first to her small,
separate flat down an alleyway. They woke her up by breaking her windows
with the butts of their M-16s.
We then went upstairs to Ahmed's mother's apartment. She was lying on a
couch, surrounded by about thirty women, who had come to grieve with her.
More women kept arriving. They spent a few moments with the mother and then
remained seated quietly, small children wide-eyed on their laps.
Later, we went to Ahmed's brother's flat, next door. Everything was in chaos
from the army throwing all the contents around. They had arrested three of
Ahmed's brothers. The children still looked terrified. We received glasses
of sweet tea, and then one outspoken woman said to me forcefully, "The Quran
says that between Moslems and Christians there can be peace, but not
between Moslems and Jews." I said that my hope was for peace with justice
for everybody in this land--including Jews. She replied implacably, "That
could only come under Moslem rule. Moslem rulers have always tolerated
people of other faiths in their midst."
I longed to cry out against the senselessness of suicide bombings, which
only give excuse for more and harsher reprisals, and perpetuate the cycle of
violence, but this was not the time and place.
Since that day, Hebron has been under closure - hardly any Palestinians can
get in or out of the city. Soldiers have rounded up large numbers of young
men going about their everyday business for questioning. People cannot get
to hospital, school, university or to work, if that means going in or out of
the city. Supplies cannot get in or out either. The Israeli government is
collectively punishing 140,000 people yet again.
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