QUNFUZ: Things that happened while I was there
By Robin Yassin-Kassab
Editor’s note: the following is a list of things that took place during the author’s trip to Palestine a couple of weeks ago.
A large demonstration was held in central Nablus calling for the release of the thousands of prisoners held in the Israeli gulag.
Israeli forces shelled Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority arrested 53 men in overnight raids.
I passed a settlement built during Netanyahu’s ten-month settlement freeze.
Two settlers were shot in the legs by Palestinian fighters while driving near Hebron.
PA president Mahmoud Abbas let slip that he might not pull out of peace talks when the settlement freeze lapses.
The Palestinian Authority arrested 20 men in overnight raids.
Dana wrote a story about a girl raped by a relative.
Hamas forces closed down a Gaza restaurant because a woman had publicly smoked the argileh there.
A settler shot dead a Palestinian in the Silwan area of occupied Jerusalem. Another Palestinian was critically injured. Palestinians confronted occupation forces in Silwan and at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Haneen Zoabi gave a lecture at an-Najah University in Nablus.
The Palestinian Authority arrested 12 men in overnight raids.
The first Palestine Human Rights Film Festival kicked off in Nablus.
The Balata camp outside Nablus was raided by Israeli forces in the early hours of the morning. Several men were arrested.
Iyad Shelbaya, a Hamas leader, was assassinated by Israeli forces in Tulkarm.
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began a hunger strike.
Israeli forces blocked entry to Nabi Saleh village.
A checkpoint was set up in Silwan and many boys and men were arrested.
Israelis killed a fisherman in Gaza.
In the market I bought guavas, avocadoes, mangoes, figs, olives and oil.
An Israeli friend called me from Tel Aviv. When she hung up her phone company called her to ask if an Arab had stolen her phone.
Settlers celebrated as the ten-month freeze officially lapsed.
Beesan told me she’d heard several stories of sons meeting their fathers for the first time in prison. Like this: the father is arrested while his son is a baby, or a foetus. When the son is fourteen or fifteen he is arrested in turn, and finds himself in the same prison unit as his father.
Three men were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza.
The Nablus Bicycle Club, a group of about twenty young men and women, met to plan their next excursion. They discussed checkpoints, safety measures, and media relations.
At two in the morning Israeli forces entered Nablus’s Old City and arrested six men, including two from the kiosk at the end of my street.
I called an east Jerusalem number which didn’t work. The telephone exchange explained the problem in Hebrew and English, but not in Arabic.
A Palestinian baby died of tear gas inhalation in Jerusalem.
A farmer’s legs were broken by a wild boar. The wild boar had been released onto Palestinian land by settlers.
A worker from Hebron was shot dead while attempting to climb through a gap in the Separation Wall south east of annexed Jerusalem.
Linda wrote a story about a man whose house is bombed. Everything is gone. He focuses solely on the broken clock.
Settlers vandalised a mosque and burned Qurans in Bait Farraj.
In the graveyard Abu Jalal unexpectedly found the tomb of a man he’d been locked up with for two years. “I’ll see him soon,” he said. “It won’t be long.”
I was there for less than three weeks. My list is not comprehensive.
Robin Yassin-Kassab is a journalist and writer based in Scotland. This article originally appeared in his blog, Qunfuz. Reprinted with his kind permission.
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