CPTnet
April 22, 2002
NABLUS: CPT Delegation Distributes Aid and Documents
Stories

by Aaron Froehlich

On Saturday, April 20, CPT emergency delegates and
members of the
International Solidarity Movement greeted a World
Council of Churches
convoy of about fifteen cars and two flatbed trucks,
carrying food and water to the curfew-confined
residents of Nablus who are
in dire need after seventeen days of Israeli
re-occupation.

Internationals spent the afternoon helping the Union
of Palestinian
Medical Relief Committees to unload rice, flour, sugar
and oil to
1,500 families. Many Palestinians said they felt
safer with
the international presence, and some even attributed
the pull-back of the tanks to the
press coverage engendered by international peace
activists, such
as the group of twenty-six who were harassed and
beaten up by the
Israeli Army on Tuesday. "You are a thorn in the side
of the Army
right now," said one Palestinian medic, whose
ambulance a soldier in a tank threatened to blow up
after the medic gave a ride to two female
internationals who had just made the journey into
Nablus by hiking through the mountains.

The presence of internationals also allowed many to
express frustration over the
lack of international interest in the situation. "We
were shooting at
them with guns, and they kill us with F16s and Apache
helicopters
from the United States," many Palestinians told
members of the delegation. "And still they
call us terrorists. WE are the ones being terrorized!"

Delegation members documented stories of soldiers
using
women and children as human shields, hospital clinics
being bombed,
newborns dying in the arms of their parents who had
been coached on home
birth over the phone, and civilians being shot in the
back as they
walked away from checkpoints.

Medics have been forced to strip naked while trying to
reach needy
patients. Tanks still move and fire through the
streets of Nablus at night to
keep people awake. Israeli soldiers broke into homes,
slept in
families' beds and, in at least two instances, stole
money. More than
a thousand cars and school buses throughout the city
were targeted
and demolished by tanks for no apparent reason.

Earlier in the week another group of international
witness saw a group of four
Palestinian men forced onto their knees against
a wall with their hands behind their backs, while
soldiers
repeatedly pulled the trigger of guns with empty
chambers behind the men in a mock execution.

"You risk your life; I thank you for that.
It means much to me," one man told delegation members
as he picked up a box of food for
his family.

Delegation members: Allyn Dhynes, Tigard, OR; Aaron
Froehlich,
Albuquerque, NM; Lorin Peters, San Leandro, CA; Steve
Ramer,
Washington, DC; Mary Hughes Thompson, Los Angeles, CA.
 The team can
be reached at mobile number 011-97-2-52-323-757.