CPTnet
NABLUS: Letter from Sue Rhodes
October 18, 2002

[Note: Sue Rhodes is serving with the CPT Rapid Response Team in the West
Bank and Gaza. Her letter to friends and family has been edited for length
and clarity. ]

Nablus is worse than I expected...there is just so much devastation that the
normally resilient Palestinians have done very little to try to rebuild
their lives. They are (many of them ) living on handouts from Caritas. We
saw rice from Australia, donated by Spain (!) and "family boxes" of sugar,
oil and canned meat being unloaded and stored for safety at the Greek
Melchite Church where we were very comfortably accommodated by he Father and
his family.

The sight of a home completely flattened with the children playing in the
rubble, pulling at odd bits of material is sickening. Two kittens were
fighting over a fragment of animal bone and neither had the strength to get
a purchase on the morsel. The owner of one home was screaming at us in his
agitation... His 3 storey home was just a heap of stone and dust and he had
a family of six.

"What you think we are going to do? No home no house no lothes no food no
money and no work." He was banging his fist on the wall of his workshop
where all his metal cutting, grinding and drilling equipment was broken by a
bomb which exploded inside.

"You tell me...what you think we can do here?"...."You tell me what you see
and what you do." And I just feel so totally helpless in these situations,
but when he screamed "You take your pictures and you go home and you forget
all this and you leave me here with nothing", it did "rattle my cage" a bit
and I asked our Priest guide to explain to him that we are living here and
we are sharing the horror and we are trying to tell the world through our
friends . . .

The east of Nablus is under almost permanent curfew...4 hours every few days
for shopping. The west where we stayed and where the Uni is has loud
shouting from jeeps which speed round the streets at 6 pm warning that
anything which moves after that will be shot at. This ends at 6 am, but we
certainly heard shooting both nights we were there.

Last night I woke at 12.30am to terrific bursts of light and very loud
banging and it took Mary and I some time to realise that we were in the
middle of a big electrical storm...winter has come! It rained for the first
time since April and then we had heavy hail! The army were quietened!

Please don't worry about replying, I know you are very busy. It's just good
to get this off my chest.

With love, Sue.