The following are eyewitness accounts of the war in the middle east from inside Palestine, written by international activists. Most of these people are putting their lives at risk to send readers accurate coverage about the real impact on the people who live there.

Nablus, Palestine
March 16, 2003

Today a young woman was killed in Gaza. Young women, but more often young men, get killed in Gaza and the West Bank every day, and the world pays no attention. What was different today is that Rachel Corrie was an American, an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, the group that I'm here with in occupied Palestine. And her death is a particularly horrifying example of the cold-blooded dehumanization that characterizes this occupation.

Rachel was trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. According to the other activists who were with her, she was in dialogue with the operator of the bulldozer. She was working in the spirit of nonviolence that is a guiding principle of the ISM, which provides support for Palestinian civilians and for nonviolent efforts to bring about justice for Palestine. Rachel climbed up on the bulldozer to talk to the soldier in the cockpit. She climbed down. She sat in front of the bulldozer. The soldier in control of the huge machine drove it deliberately over her. He then backed up, and ran over her again. Rachel was twenty-three years old.

I am trying to fathom the mind that could pull the levers and gun the motor to crush the life out of her young body. That choice, that deliberate act of murder that ended her sweet life, seems incomprehensible. But here in occupied Palestine, that murder is a logical outgrowth of the system of total dehumanization that controls every aspect of life, that cannot see the human being in the Palestinian, that claims to be fighting terror by institutionalizing it. Please register your outrage -- at Rachel's murder, at the home demolitions that she was trying to stop, at the illegal occupation that can only be defended by brutalizing a whole people.

Call the Israeli Ministry of Defense
972-3-69-55476
(011-972-3-69-55476 from the US)
and
972-3-69-75220
(011-972-3-69-75-220 from the US)

Fax the Israeli Foreign Office
972-2-53-03506
(011-972-2-53-03506 from the US)
General Director: Phone
972-2-530-7704
(011-972-2-530-7704 from the US)

Call, or demonstrate, or shut down your local Israeli Embassy or your local Consulate office.

If you are from the US, call or write your Senators and Congressional Representative.

Nablus: 'Our apartment building was occupied'
Yacoub H. Alul, writing from Nablus, occupied Palestine
4 October 2002

I couldn't check my e-mails for a couple of days. Israeli soldiers have been occupying our apartment building. The occupiers came on Tuesday afternoon and evicted us from our apartments. They forced us in one apartment. The building consists of 29 apartments. In fifteen apartments residents live, while the other tenants are either out of town, working abroad or spending some time away of the harsh conditions imposed on Nablus.

Schoolgirls pass tank positioned under occupied apartment building, taken from the balcony of the neighbors (Photo: Yacoub Alul)

The Israeli soldiers evicted us from our own apartments and forced us all, some fifty persons, including women and children, in our neighbor's apartment. A few hours later, late in the evening, they allowed us to divide ourselves among three apartments.

My family and I spent the night with two other families, fifteen persons, in one apartment. The four of us, my wife and two daughters and I, slept in one room. The soldiers forced us to keep all apartments open and used more than ten apartments for their lodging and 'work'.

They ordered that every door must be kept unlocked and nobody was allowed to move in the building without their permission.

The occupier allowed my wife and I to get some things from our apartment. We were escorted by an Israeli soldier. At first, the sight looked horrible, more than ten Israeli soldiers were in my home. Three were using my dining room as a desk. My daughter's bedroom door was closed and were not allowed to go in.

My office at home was also locked. We had to argue with the Captain to allow me in to get some things. Inside my office room, there were a lot of bags placed on the floor. A couple of soldiers were inside. I don't know what they were doing there.

That evening I was called to the hospital for a D & C (a common gynecological procedure) and had to get permission from the commander of the Israeli soldiers to get an ambulance to come and take me. He escorted me downstairs to the ambulance and checked the driver's identification and searched the ambulance.

Israeli tank positioned under the apartment building (Photo: Yacoub Alul)

I told him that I would return in an hour and that I needed to know whether the soldiers would allow me back in the building. They did and one of them escorted me back when I returned.

The following morning, we asked the soldier at the apartment's door to call the Captain to allow us to leave for work. The Captain kept us waiting for more than two hours and finally we called the Red Cross.

A Swiss representative came and we asked whether the occupiers would allow us to leave the building and move to stay with relatives. They allowed us to go to our apartment and get things we needed. My wife and children gathered some clothes, the girls' school books and bags, I got my computer and we left and are now staying with my mother in law.

At this moment, our apartment building is the only building in Nablus physically occupied by Israeli soldiers. Nobody knows why and when they will leave. What I know for sure is that once they leave, we will need more than a week of work to clean the apartment before moving back. I only hope that they don't loot, steal and plunder the place.

Dr. Yacoub Alul is an anesthesiologist, who lives and works in Nablus.

Demonstrating in Occupied Ramallah
by: Mike McCurdy

Mike is one of the Michigan Peace Team working with the International Solidarity Movement in Israel/Palestine. He sends this report of today's (July 17, 2002) action in Ramallah.

Today at approximately 2:30 pm myself and approximately 25 International Peace Activists from the International Solidarity Movement joined a Palestinian led demonstration in the manara in down town Ramallah. The demonstration was an act of civil disobedience against the house arrest imposed upon the population of Ramallah and the majority of the Palestinian population. About 150 Palestinians held flags and signs and chanted and sang songs in defiance of the 24-hour curfew and the military occupation in general.

At 3:00 pm the curfew was, according to the Israeli military, again in effect. Our demonstration continued and encouraged many others in the area to continue about their business in violation of military law. At approximately 4:45 several armored personnel carriers and military jeeps began to speed toward the demonstration from at least three different directions. Gunshots began to be fired at buildings and into the air and sound grenades and tear gas were used to attempt to disperse the demonstrators.

International activists took up positions lying across the roads blocking the military from entering the town center, hoping to protect our Palestinian comrades. The demonstration continued for about 25 minutes with chanting "1-2-3-4 occupation no more" and "Free Free Palestine!" until it was decided for the Palestinians to retreat sown a side street to safety. During this time 3 international activists were arrested, at least one being punched in the face and kicked in the side.

I witnessed one soldier lining up a group of Palestinians in the sight of his rifle and stepped in the way, he immediately lowered his gun. This is the difference in how we are treated here, our lives are valued as internationals, Palestinians are not. At one point soldiers attempted to arrest me and I sat down in a ball and was held onto by fellow activists until the soldiers gave up trying to drag me away.

We will continue to support the Palestinian people as they organize to resist this brutal occupation. In the past several weeks the majority of the West Bank has found itself under total house arrest. Punishment for leaving one's house can be death. Virtually the entire society is in shambles. Nobody is working, no money is being made, society is virtually shut down. How long will we allow this to continue? How long will we as Americans continue to pay the bills that allow Israel to create this Apartheid state?