Friday, January 16, 2004

Palestine Bleeds

In the stillness of the cold December night, they stood in the middle of the road,  Raad and his wife Lamis. She was shivering, her contractions were now coming every two minutes. Raad’s sister and mother sat in the car, watching helplessly. Raad pleaded with the Israeli security officer at the check point to open the gate and let him go to the ambulance on the other side. But to no avail.

The ambulance driver, Al-Haaj  Rawahi, a resident of Beit Rima, honked impatiently. When they refused to open the gate behind which Raad stood with his seven month pregnant wife, Rawahi brought out the stretcher and pushed it under the iron gate, then he and the paramedic crawled under and managed to get Lamis on the stretcher. They quickly pushed it back and soon they were in the ambulance.

But before he could leave, a military jeep arrived, an officer came out and asked Rawahi for his papers. “I hurriedly told him,” Rawahi later narrated to a researcher working with ‘Physicians for Human Rights’, “about the condition of the woman and tried to move but the officer insisted that I produce papers. I took out my papers and handed them to the officer who took his time to examine these while the woman’s condition deteriorated by the minute. Finally, he returned the papers and let us go, but without Raad, who was held back. Almost an hour had passed since my arrival at the check point.”

The ambulance had barely gone ten meters, when it had to stop; Lamis was giving birth to her first baby; they were still inside the checkpoint area. While Rawahi was trying to help her in delivery, another soldier came over and asked him to leave the checkpoint area immediately because it was prohibited to stand there. “For God’s sake, go away, she is giving birth to a child!” Rawahi shouted. The two other soldiers peeked into the ambulance. Just then, the new-born uttered her first cry of anguish and joy. “Al-Hamdo Lillah,” said Al-Haaj Rawahi, left the paramedic in attendance, took the driver’s seat and quickly drove toward the hospital in Ramallah.

Normally, Raad would not have to go to the hospital in Ramallah. The nearest hospital to his village was in Nablus but the road to Nablus was pocked with checkpoints and he knew he would have never made it to the hospital. So, when his wife woke him up shortly after midnight, he borrowed a neighbour’s car and went to the neighbouring village, Zawiyah, to get a referral letter from her doctor for the Ramallah hospital. But he could not even make it to that hospital and now stood in the dark winter night, wondering what was happening to his beloved wife.

In the meanwhile, Rawahi had to stop again near the village of Luban al Sharqiyeh; the second delivery had started. Al-Haaj Rawahi again served as midwife. The second baby came into this world in the chilly ambulance and cried. Rawahi rushed to his seat and drove to the hospital.

When they arrived there, he carried the twins in his arms. The first baby was motionless; the second was crying but her crying began to fade as he entered the hospital. It was almost 5 A.M, four hours after the beginning of Lamis’ contractions. The doctor pronounced the first baby dead, the second was taken to the ward for premature babies, connected to a respirator and placed in an incubator. She died the next afternoon. Their death certificates issued by the hospital in Ramallah said that both girls died from respiratory distress syndrome. An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman later said that “at the request of the reporter, the IDF will conduct an investigation to clarify the circumstances of this case.”

The two babies now lie buried in the village cemetery, next to Raad’s two sisters, Latifa and Moufida, whose names they were going to bear, had they lived. Raad and his wife wake up every day, grieving for their lost children.

Raad and his wife are not alone in grieving. There are thousands of Palestinians who wake up every single day of their lives to the unbearable grief of death, destruction and homelessness. And while the Israeli forces carry out a systematic genocide of a whole nation through means which definitely constitute crimes against humanity, the world keeps watching these atrocities with abject indifference. No one seems to be able to do anything to stop this genocide. As Palestinians suffer, their own brethren in faith are told by their rulers that it is not their business to interfere, the Western governments and the UN remain engaged in their endless game of Peace Accords and Palestine keeps bleeding.

Imagine a French, German or British women giving birth under these circumstances! Imagine the consequences of an American being abducted and killed in cold blood by an army officer of another country and then thrown into the darkness of the night. That is exactly what happened to the 23-year-old Asad Salah Khaliliyeh two weeks ago when men from the Elite Unit of the Israeli army abducted him from his village Jaba, outside Jenin. A few hours later, witnesses reported seeing Khaliliyeh’s body being dumped from a car with yellow Israeli number plates in the south of the city. Two men in civilian clothing were seen firing shots before dumping the body on the ground. The car then left the area escorted by three Israeli military jeeps.

It is unthinkable that this could happen to any other nation on earth. It seems that these atrocities are only possible against Muslims who remain a helpless witness to the slaughter of their own brethren in faith.

This callousness has deadened the hearts of the general public to such an extent that now verified and authentic reports about the crimes of Israeli Defense Forces do not raise any eyebrows anywhere in the world. This deadness of humanity’s conscience is the product of a remarkable control of information in the West. In the Muslim world, it has been achieved through installing governments which are least concerned with the situation of Palestinians. These governments now openly announce that they cannot and will not do anything about this most barbaric crime against a whole nation that has turned their own land into a massive concentration camp where they live a life of horror under the most brutal occupation humanity has ever known. Young men are being assassinated every day. Mothers are giving birth to their children by the roadsides in front of the eyes of occupation soldiers and old men and women are watching the murder of their own children in their own homes. And all of this is being reported, documented and chronicled. This is the work of a few brave and committed souls. But in spite of this documentation, the plight of Palestinians is not moving anyone to action in the Muslim world or elsewhere. One wonders if the human race has lost its humanity altogether and whether Muslims have any grain of honour, dignity and self-respect left in them.