Diary of a nurse in Palestine

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday April 20, 2002 17:28 by Mary Kelly - International Nurse Palastine

Mary Kelly from Ireland who works as a nurse with Red Cross and Red Crescent in Palestine has written a diary of the past week

This is the first oppurtunity of a computer. the internet lines have been cut but some genious managed to nick an Israeli dialing no. and hopefully this will reach you. I have just had my worst day . I think I was behaving like a machine up to now, suddenly I feel ill, need to weep for a year. Feel very hopeless at times. I saw on tv a young girl of abour 12 singing the saddest saddest song in arabic. She was surrounded by many kids. As the song reached the climax she had a little baby of about 1 year on her lap. He started to pour with tears and she had tears streaming down her face.It was heartbreaking. she was singing of the history of her country and her desperate wish for peace.
I feel very accepted and welcomed by the people here. They are very honest , there is no stealing, and they are too generous. I am becoming used to the sound of gunfire and seeing tanks everyday and have become a bit numbed. I cherish every little bit of news you send but unfortunately am not able to check my email for news. Mike could you tidy this report up please and send to the Cork Examiner? These are the bravest and most peceful people I have ever met. Mary

Monday April 15.
Dr Saber at the Medical Relief Centre invited me to go with him and visit his family whom he had not seen for 16 days. They were delighted to see him , his wife tearful and very frightened. Their children her parents and 2 sisters had all been living in one room , lying on the floor too terrified to move. many bullet holes in the wall. She said her children tremble in their sleep as the shelling breaks out during the nights. They pour out their stories of terror to Doctor Saber. The women have all got university degrees. One of them an Archaeologist who has been very involved in the restoration of the old City is very angry at the total destruction of the town's ancient buildings. They are young and beautiful but all disraught with grief and despair. The Grandparents have suffered the invasion in 1948. Always they are glad to meet someone from Ireland. They know a lot of our history of occupation and efforts to maintain our neutrlity.
We had to leave after 2 short hours. All families in this city are living in similar and much worse conditions. The Israeilis say they want to root out terrorism. Their mission seems to be to massacre as many people as possible and destroy their land and homes. They daily wage a war of terror on the peolple. Some slight rays of hope today came when I heard that the UK have suspended supplying the IDF with weapons. I hope that the Department of Trade and Enterprise in ireland is refusing to issue export licences to the Arms factories in Ireland that are manufacturing parts for the Israeli tanks. Just for the record, there is only the sound of Israeli gunfire here. No one is fighting them back. This is not a war, its the Israeli army massacring and terrorising a nation.

Tuesday 16 April.
Today we planned to take food and medicines to 2 of the refugee camps , Belata and Askar, which we heard are under attack and have been under curfew for weeks. We were 6 Palestinians one of them a Doctor and 5 Paramedics and 25 activists, 15 from France, 5 from UK, 3 from US 2 Danes and myself from Ireland. We set out with supplies walking through the deserted empty streets, shocked to see that the huge building of the Palestinian Police had been bombed the night before. A trail of wanton destruction is all around, with shops, houses and cars all destroyed. Before long we met an army checkpoint of the IDF soldiers, with one tank. We declared our mission to them ,showed our passports fopr inspection and we got through to Belata. The people there are suffering terribly, from diseases caused by lack of hygiene , and are unable to dispose of rubbish. They have no fresh food or medicines. As alays the biggest factor is the constant atmosphere of fear and terror, with tanks patrolling and shooting into the camp. 16 thousand people live in this camp. They showed us the remains of the house of one of the Palestinian Authority which has been bombed. This man is one of the people currently in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem , which is undr seige for 18 days. Everyone who has tried to leave the Church has been shot by the IDF, including a Policeman, the Bellringer, and a priest.
Our efforts to visit Askar were stopped by two tanks which blocked our way. The soldiers fired warning shots from machine guns. We turned back and started walking home. We were stopped at the same checkpoint but this time they did not let us through and wanted to punish us for taking foood to Belata. They told us to wait, but the waiting turned into 2 hours. We tried negotiating with them but the commanding officer said he was awaiting orders from his Captain. Then we were suddenly surrounded by 4 tanks and 2 Police vans all revving their engines belching foul black smoke. Many rounds of machine guns were fired into the air. Things escalated quickly. We were told that they wanted to arrest the Palestinian Doctor and the 5 paramedics, but that we could leave. We all unanimously refused to leave without the Palestinians. They threatened us and warned us that things would get ugly if we did not obey. We quickly formed a protective ring around our Palestinians friends, Suddenly the shocking noise of a percussion grenade was exploded into our group , then the soldiers started beating us kicking , punching and rifle butts were used. They managed to drag the 4 Palestinian men away from us, beat them, forced them to kneel and handcuff them. We were very shocked, to put it mildly! Some of us crying and shaking in a huddle, Many of our group injured, especially the men, but we still had the 2 Palestinian women protected in our midst. They threatened us with more violence, but we refused to move and linked our arms tightly around the women. They destroyed the film in all our cameras. We refused to leave until they returned the 4 men. A standoff situation went on where we were expecting another attack from them. We let them know we would not move until they returned the 4 men. After what seemed like a lifetime, they returned the prisoners to us and allowed us to go home. They beat us , but did not win! We were recieving a fraction of the violence that Palestinians recieve every day from the IDF. We all contacted our Embassies and hope that a collective complaint will let the Israeli Government know that their soldiers cannot behave in this brutal way. It wont do any good as the Israelis are not answerable to noone. Most of the soldiers were vicious and behave like machines. But one came up to us afterwards and said he was "sorry it had to be like this" One of the Frenchmen ( over 60 )when he was being beaten by a Soldier screamed at him "Have you all been so brainwashed?!" he was told to "Shut the fuck up" by the soldier and beaten again.
It was incredible to see how brave the Palestinians were in this situation. I was expecting to see them shot after they were handcuffed . They never showed any fear and were so dignified, despite the terrible intimidation they recieved. They were very pleased with our solidarity. The French group left town that day.

Wednesday April 17
Today I did several trips in the Ambulance,around the city delivering medicines to people who can't get out because of the curfew, and taking others to and from hospital. At one point we had to drive up a steep hill that overlooks the town. As we rounded a bend , there was 6 tanks just perched there. The IDF now have a huge base overlooking the town.
The Old Town ( inner part of the city ) is devastated. Some parts of it are 1,000 years old. Now many of the old buildings have been bombed. Theres bullet holes in every house, the water tanks that perch ontop of the roofs have been destroyed. In the first days of the invasion, the Red Crescent volunteers, mostly all teenagers set up an emergency field hospital in one of the main Mosques. The place was full of wounded and dead people, and many died from lack of emergency treatment. One of the young volunteers made a video of the situationn in the mosque of those first days. It showed horrifying scenes of carnage. The soldiers entered tyhe mosque and very roughly searched the wounded and dying. The youth all feel tremendously proud to help their country, and the feeling of unity and solidatrity is magnificent. When I visited the wounded at this place they all asked the same question ; Why is the world watching this happening to Palestine?
There are so many ways that we foreigners can help the Palestinians. An Australian Grandmother who is part of our group is campaigning to have her government give a pension to elderly people who want to be Ambassadors of peace in war torn countries. One of the most inspiring ideas that I have heard, as it is criminal the way older people are made redundant in western Countries, when they have so much experience wisdom and maturity that can help transform conflict situations. I have worked in many Old peoples Homes around Cork and felt so despairing of a society that does not help our elders remain active.

Thursday April 18
I saw Colin Powell's press conference on TV. He said the Israelis have to withdraw. The IDF obviously have not heard the news as 20 new tanks arrived in town this morning!
Today, I visited the injured people at Rafidia Hospital. There were many new injured. One young boy had his hands blown off by a bomb left by thr Israelis, that he had touched. There are many injuries like this, always to young kids. One man that had been on a ventilator now has a tracheotomy tube in his throat to help him breathe and is recovering quickly. I felt overwhelmed by looking at the terrible injuries, many of them children and teenagers. The worst experience was when I went into the Hospital backyard and saw all the bodies of the martyrs killed by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The stench of rotting flesh was so strong as many of the bodies have been there for 18 days. This is the first day that the curfew has been lifted for the peoiple to bury their dead. It was heartbreaking to see the families distraught with grief; the bodies were bound in white sheets then loaded onto a dairy truck and taken to the cemetry where some men had been working with a digger making an enormous trench. They made a grave for each body using breeze blocks and big slabs of stone to cover tthe corpses. Hundreds of people came to mourn. The cemetry wall has been damaged by tanks. I felt sick with despair and grief and powerless to help. At the graveside I met a female doctor who helped many women deliver their babies by telephone during the invasion. I have heard so many stories of stillbirths and women giving birth under gunpoint at the checkpoints . It was a great relief to meet this woman. She asked our group to help in her work with the people who are silently suffering which we will be very glad to do. This was the first day I have seen young kids playing happily together out in the street. A beautiful and hopeful sight.
Back at the Red Crescent Medical Relief Centre where I have been working on their Ambulances, one of the Paramedics told me he had taken a very seriuously wounded boy who was hit by a missile to a Hospital in Jerusalem. On the journey there Israeli settlers had held them up for hours by throwing huge rocks at the Ambulance. In Nablus everyday, we get held up by the IDF. Sometimes the patient has bled to death. On another occasion a patient we eventually got to was dead, from a heart attack. Death is eveywhere. The Ambulance drivers and Medics are often furiously arguing with each other, but later they are very united and very caring to each other. They live under incredible tension , amd have not seen their families now for 19 days. They risk their lives every time they go out in the Ambulance, but their No 1 goal is to help the sick and wounded. I have never met a braver people.