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Early Updates from The Fall 2003 Delegation in the Mideast
Recent updates here

October 30, 2003
Traverse for Peace:
Susan called mid-day Thursday (our time) with the following report. They are all well and continuing the work for which they came. They divided into three teams today. The interviewing team met with the former Mayor of Nablus. He described what life was like during the 75 day curfew earlier this year. Palestinians under constant guard of the Israeli military were given only a few hours, sometimes less, to leave their homes for shopping, medical care, or other tasks. They also interviewed a woman who had a member of her family killed in the violence.

Correcting the report from yesterday, it was Bernhard and Kay who went to the refugee camp for a meeting. However a soldier created some disruption inside the camp so the meeting did not take place. Pictures
have been sent to Bob Russell, who is out of town, so hopefully they will be on the website by the weekend.

The team expects to stay again with the Palestinan family of seven. What follows is a report written by Kay on their last three days.

Report Oct 30, 2003
We have experienced much during our three days in the Nablus Region. The first event was at the checkpoint, Hawwara. When we arrived there were about one hundred people waiting to go to Nablus. No one was being allowed through. More and more people arrived so that during our two hours there approximately three hundred people were attempting to go to Nablus through the checkpoint. The Palestinian people waiting wanted us to move to the outside aisle and go to the front of the line; this idea was confirmed by our ISM advisor. When we tried this tactic, the soldiers waived us back and would not talk to us. Back in line we begin talking to the women around us and learned that many were teachers who leave very early in the morning to teach in small out lying villages. They had been held for many hours in recent days. Sometimes not to be let through left to find a place to stay outside of the home in Nablus.

When the crowd increased, after about 30 to 45 minutes of our being there, people began pushing forward moving the plastic barricades the soldiers stood behind. The soldiers started yelling to move back and the
get into single file lines, one for women, one for men. This is a translation because the soldiers were speaking Arabic. After an hour of our being present and no one had been allowed to past, Randy called
Hamoked, a Palestinian Human Rights Organization. Shortly after the call, a DCO vehicle drove by the checkpoint. DCO, District Coordinating Officer, is a branch of the Israeli Military charged with being the bridge between the military and the civilian population. Some of the teachers moved down the hill to the side of the check point and formed a single file line. This was a tactic they had used before but this time it was not successful. One of our group had approached the soldiers and asked why the women were being held up. The reply was that women had been suicide bombers in Haifa. We said these women were on there way home to cook and be with their families.

By the end of two hours, we had cleared the checkpoint and most of the Palestinians had also. So began our time in the Nablus region.

We met with the ISM team in Balata Camp and spent the night in nearby Askar Camp. The next morning we walked to Azmut a small farming village. We walked the back way to avoid the Azmut checkpoint, known as the checkpoint from hell. It was in this valley that a brilliant young student was killed by soldiers as he tried to reach his school when the checkpoint was closed. Having seen Randy's pictures and hearing his stories it felt much like I (Kay) been there before.

We continued the walk beyond the village to the olive grove and joined the family that was harvesting their olives. We soon learned that we were very slow compared to the people who had spent so many seasons
harvesting the olives. They stripped the olives more by touch than sight. Their fingers seemed to milk the olives from the branches while I looked and looked and picked and missed and picked and missed some more. As the day pasted the women became more at ease with us. In the afternoon, a cell phone call was made to someone in the village and shortly a man with a donkey joined us. The donkey took the sack filled with olives to and the village and returned. We were told that earlier settlers had taken a donkey
from boys of the village. The donkey is a very valuable asset in this rocky mountainous region. The donkey can work were machinery can not go.

That evening after the meeting in Balata camp, we again slept in the home of a Palestinian in Asker camp. This home on the second floor had a very large room lined with cushions and pillows. The floor covered with
two oriental carpets. Here the five women slept. The kitchen was small and very clean. The bath had a toilet and shower with the lavatory just outside the bath. There was an office with a computer and desk. This is where the men slept. The family of husband and wife and five children slept in the bedroom. In the morning there was no water. This is another of the oppressions faced especially in the refugee camps where water is shut off every other day or so.

We went into the fields for a second day of harvesting. We learned that these two days were not DCO days. This family was resisting the oppression that directs the harvesting of olives by the Occupation Forces. The military decides when farmers are to harvest their olives (DCO days). The second day was even more relaxed with the farmers enjoying their international helpers with a little teasing. Also, they very graciously
asked us to eat in their presences even though it is Ramadan. When the donkey came in the afternoon Patty took a small ride and picked from higher branches while seated on the donkey. Marian also tried out the experience and noted the donkey was warm and bony. As a last act, the oldest woman took Kay to the tree nearest the settlement and she climbed to reach the best eating olives. She filled her dress from the top to the waist where her belt helped form a large pocket. When the dress was full she stripped the olives to the ground telling me to hurry. I was picking them from the ground into a pail. She came down and helped pick from the ground. We then walked quickly back to the group. On the back to the village, she gave our group a sack full of these good eating olives. Back in the village, we rested and Marian was speaking to a local man. She said no settlers had come. He said, that is because you were there.
For the team -- Kay

October 29, 2003
Traverse for Peace
Patty called from Nablus hotel where they are staying this evening. Had second day helping village farmers harvest olives with no incident. When they returned to Nablus, the heard a little boy was shot in he refugee
camp. Kay and Randy went over but could not get in. Phone message brief because of some phone problems. (Note: due to sun spots sending electronic waves there may be satellite communications problems today and tomorrow.)

October 28, 2003
Traverse for Peace Report
All team members well and feeling good. Randy reports from the refugee camp in Nablus where they are staying that they spent most of today helping Palestinian farmers near the village of Osmut harvest olives.

The background: these farmers have not been able to tend their olive groves for the past four years due to interference from nearby settlers and the military. Thus the crop is not good. Part of the grove which on one side of the hill that's topped by a settlement has been destroyed.

However these Osmut farmers due to the terrible economic times for Palestinians amid the violence, decided they needed to harvest this lesser crop for the sake of the olive oil it will produce. The Traverse for Peace team spent the day with them working the harvest There was no interferences by settlers or military. The teams intent is to return tomorrow and harvest some more.

They were able, through the use of interpreters, to film interviews with a number of the women working the harvest. Also, last Saturday evening, they had dinner and and evening with Gila Svirsky, the leader of Bat Shalom and well known organizer with the coalition of Israeli/Palestinian women's groups working for peace. (See below a recent report from the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Hebron about settlers, military, and farmers and the harvest.)

CPTnet -- October 25, 2003
HEBRON DISTRICT: Harvesting Olives in Palestine
by Greg Rollins
In the Palestinian culture, olive trees are more than a symbol of peace, they are like family. Palestinian farmers care for their olive trees with almost as much love as they give their own children. Owing to the longevity of olive trees, fathers hand down orchards to their sons, from generation to generation. That being the case, it is easy to see why it hurts a Palestinian farmer when he cannot pick his olives, or when someone steals them.

Recently, a few of us from CPT went to harvest olives with Palestinians in Yatta, a town south of Hebron. When we arrived at the orchards, we found few olives. Israeli settlers had stolen most of them, stripping the olives from fifty-five trees. The farmers were crestfallen. We went from tree to tree and picked what the settlers had missed, but there was not much there.

As if it was not enough that the settlers stole the olives, while we worked, settlers came by and tried to enter the orchards. Israeli police refused to allow them to come close. The settlers appeared to be agitated, as if we were on their private property. When the police left, the settlers came back and took pictures of us while we worked, as if they had caught us in the act of doing something wrong. As if they had caught us in the act of stealing their olives.

Even without settlers stealing the harvest, Palestinian farmers already have a hard enough time working on their own lands. The settlers or the Israeli army often deny farmers access to their own lands. It is common to hear stories from farmers who were attacked and beaten by settlers or soldiers when they tried to work on their land.

With so little to pick, the families with whom we spent the day harvesting packed up what few olives they had, and left before noon. They walked away frustrated. We were frustrated with them. They spent a year looking after their trees. There were days when they took great risks in going to their orchard because settlers or soldiers could have attacked or detained them. In the end it was someone else who took the fruits of their labors. The only thing worse than having their olives stolen would be to have the olive trees themselves destroyed, and with the Israeli security fence slated to cut through many farmers' fields in the Hebron district, the farmers here have that fate awaiting them.

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October 26, 2003
Marian Kromkowski, Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus
Hello all. We travelled to Nablus today. We are now in the camp at Balata with the International Solidarity Movement. (ISM) Hard crossing at Huwwara check point 2 hours. Most women there were teachers returning home from schools in outlaying villages. They said it some times takes 4 to 5 hours to get through. We were also told that yesterday the Israeli Offense Force (IOF) used a chemical spray at Zatara check point. Made many women sick, including some who were pregnant. The IOF today just would not let people through. Made us move back, jumped on the barricades and pointed their guns, threatened to use tear gas. IOF was mostly 20 year old boys. Arrogant, illogical and mostly ineffective at their efforts to demoralize the people. The women we stood with were impatient to get home, frustrated by this useless delay. After an hour with no one moving we called Hamoked, a Palestinian Human Rights/Legal organization.

The teachers did a nonviolent action by moving 30 feet away from the regular checkpoint lines and forming a straight single line. This action has met with no success in the past. Today, it resulted in sending over another solider to address that line and sped up the process. But it was all still stop and go.

The first of us was told she could not go through: "certain people" do not have permission. It appeared that most of the people in the crowd of 200 or so must met the definition of "certain people".

After we got through a car with two settlers sped up. They stopped by 3 of us. I saw a steel bat when the young male passenger got out. Perhaps shown to intimidate us. He changed places with the driver, said something vulgar sounding to us and sped off.

We may help with the olive harvest in the next few days. Trouble is mostly from settlers, shooting. Some harrassment from soldiers. We were told that 2 nine year old settler boys stole two donkeys from the from farmers yesterday. Under other circumstances you would chase after the little punks, here they get away with it under the watchful eye of the army.

To me (Marian) the people present themselves as staying strong, keeping going even under these riduculous rules and intrusions into their lives. They are frustrated. Many have expressed gratitude for us being here when we tell them we will go back home and tell what is happening. The Occupation is both predicatible and unpredictible. You know there will be check points, but you never know how slow it will be or how violent. Two men who just came through Huwwara said the IOF were now pushing women down
this six foot embankment. Will we go back tonight?? Some one should.

This all is pretty insane here. But we all hope to remain strong, not to be intimidated and remain determined in our goal to observe, film, send reports and come home to continue to tell what we have seen.

October 26, 2003
Marian reports that they have spent a restful day in Jerusalem. This evening (Sunday) they will interview Gila Svirsky, director of Bat Shalom an Israeli women's peace activist group. Svirsky is also a key person in the coaltion of eleven Israeli/Palestinian women's peace organizations. Tomorrow the team expects to travel to Nablus, where Randy and Kay have been on previous visits.

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October 24, 2003
(Today's report came from Marian just as approximately fifty peace demonstraters assembled along the Boardman River at 11 am Saturday, in downtown Traverse City. So the report was 're-broadcast'sentence by sentence to the assembly just as it came from Ramallah.)

"Hello to all of you from the seven of us in Ramallah. We are pleased you are marching again for peace" (At this point there was a loud cheer from the demonstrators which Marian could hear on the phone.) "We are well and resting after two full days of nonvolence training at a different location. We may go to Jerusalem this evening to join a peace demonstration there. We may go to help with the olive harvest next week. When people ask about nonviolence by the Palestinians tell them what they tell us: 'Our nonviolence is simply living day-to-day under this occupation, surviving curfews, gunfire and sound bombs, closures, and check points without recrimination. That is Palestinian nonviolence."

With that Marian signed off and the assembly by the Boardman gave a minute of prayerful silence for our comrades in Palistine, and for the victims of war throughout the Middle East. Then some announcments, and the assembly walked through down town led by a man with a huges peace flay just brought back from Italy where 1 million people will follow a similar flag today. Then we stood again along the parkway where we'd been every Saturday from September 21 ,2002 until May 24, 2003.

October 24, 2003
Kay reports the team spent an intensive day today (Friday) in nonviolent training. Randy says it's the best one he's ever experienced. They will have another half day of training tomorrow. In the meantime, working by consensus on information they have been gathering, they will decide where to go next. (Report taken by Tom Shea, 5:00 PM 10/24)

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October 23, 2003
Hi Tom and all,
An update of yesterdays activities.
After a rather chaotic night under closure as reported earlier, we left Wed. morning for the village of Jayous, located near Qalquilia. The village has had most of its land cutoff from the village by the "wall". The wall looks like a winding highway with a large chain link fence with barbed wire on top. A large ditch on each side with several coils of razor wire effectivly keeps people from crossing. The Israelis have told the farmers of this village that they will be allowed through the wall at 2 locations where there are gates. But the access is only open late in the morning and closed early so that the time allowed to work is not enough to tend their trees and crops. The farmers are not allowed to take any food with them so they cannot stay overnight in their fields. This and the fact that not every day are they allowed through makes farming difficult if not impossible. This village will probably die from economic strangulation as people have to leave in an effort to make a living. This wall is located 5 km (approx 3-4 miles) inside the 67 green line. It is obvious that a land grab is the real reason for the wall being located where it is. After our visit we returned to Ramallah. The roads we had to travel to and from Jayous were unforgetable to say the least. We travelled thru olive groves, down dry river beds, up almost vertical cliffs. all this was nessesary to avoid road blocks and check points we would not have been allowed through. The trip which took 2.5 hours each way would have taken one half hour if we had been allowed to travel on the highways. This is the reality of the Palestinian people everyday. For us it was an adventure for them it is oppressive. (Note a map of the wall in this area is here)

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October 22, 2003
Patty called from Ramallah, Wednesday (12:30 PM our time; 7:30 PM their time). They are safe. Ramallah quiet after continued shoot yesterday into the night. They traveled 2.5 hours through check point to visit and interview some friends and others in 'Jayush (sp?)', Plan to return to Jerusalem tomorrow (Thursday). (report via Tom Shea)

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October 21, 2003:
An Average Day for Palestinians in Ramallah
"While visiting with friends in Ramallah this afternoon, the Arab network Al-Jazeera announced everyone in the city had 3 minutes to get to cover before a shut down by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Sure enough, on our way back to the hotel, where we are now safely ensconced, we heard some shooting and a number of 'sound bombs' (bombs used to scare people). Our friend and guide who helped get us back to the hotel, said: "just another average day in Ramallah."

That's how Marian's report from the Traverse for Peace team came in at 1:30 pm our time today. She continued to summarize their day's events. Expecting a possible block at one of the more famous IDF check points which had stalled Palestinians earlier in the day; the team got through with no trouble.

They went to Arafat's compound and were waved toward the door by the volunteer Palestian guards protecting the head of the Palestinian Authority. These guard, most barely 20 years old, dressed in blue jean, workshirts, carrying clearly outmoded weapons were very freindly to the team. In fact, Marian reported that all the Palestinian they met so far were warm and welcoming to team members. It's clear they distinguish between their strong feelings about the U.S. government and its citizens who visit.

The team interviewed three people at a fruit stand outside Arafat's compound, the only commerical venture in the area. They also met with the Union of Women of Palestine who assited them in planning their trip for
tomorrow, though given the military closure that may be changed.

Main point Marian made, is that through the 'excitement' of the day, team members are well and safe.

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What follows is a report on today's action via Google/press "News"/search Ramallah.

Oct. 21, 2003
IDF surrounding Ramallah mosque, says fugitives inside
By JPOST.COM STAFF
A large number of IDF forces are surrounding a Mosque in Ramallah. Israel Radio reported that jeeps and other military vehicles have surrounded the large Abd Al Nasser Mosque in Ramallah's Al Manar Square in the city center. The West Bank city has been put under curfew. Apart from many Palestinian worshippers inside the Mosque, the IDF says wanted fugitives are inside the Mosque, Israel Radio reported. An IDF spokesman confirmed an operation was under way in the area of Ramallah, but declined to provide further details.The Mosque is nearby to the offices of the Arab Al-Jazeera satellite TV network, which is broadcasting the IDF operation live to millions of subscribers in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera's website claims that IDF troops are currently raiding the news organization's Ramallah office.

Troops and armed Palestinians are engaged in clashes in the West Bank city.
The Mosque is nearby to the offices of the Arab Al-Jazeera satellite TV network, which is broadcasting the IDF operation live to millions of subscribers in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera's website claims that IDF troops are currently raiding the news organization's Ramallah office. Troops and armed Palestinians are engaged in clashes in the West Bank city.

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October 20, 2003:
Rebecca called with news they all got to Jerusalem O.K.