occupation kills

"That's it, Tarek.. That's it.. Khalas.. I know I'm going to die now. God has chosen me to be a martyr." It was as though from a Hollywood movie. I told him to shut up. Not my first patient. No way. Despite his protestations, I kept my hand firmly planted on the bullet wound, and I insisted he would live..

I had a terrible vibe about the day from its beginnings. Late the previous night, I - like millions of Palestinians - found out that 15 people had been killed and another 172 wounded in a "targeted assassination" carried out by the Israelis. Earlier that day, Hamas had tabled an offer saying that it would exchange an end of operations inside the Green Line (1967 Israeli borders; Israel proper) for the freeing of political prisoners and withdrawal from besieged West bank cities. The report announcing this offer earlier in the day had ended, almost prophetically, by saying that Hamas was awaiting Israel's response. I think that response was "No!"

I'm so scared. I guess it's normal, but I'm still ashamed.. I have reverted to my 6-year old state. As I walked home today, the single street lamp lighting my way burned out, leaving me in total and utter darkness. I didn't panic, but I was afraid. Very afraid. As I looked ahead, I saw the complete nothingness of the unlit streets in the black night. In the distance I saw both nothing and everything. I clearly played out each way in which I could be killed. Israelis thinking I'm Palestinian. Palestinians thinking I'm Israeli. Anything. Everything. The more I stared into that nothingness, the more I saw.

"Come here!!!! I want to FFFFFUCK you!". I was flattered, and for a moment, I even blushed.. But as appealing as the offer was, I refused. Saying no was itself a gamble. Two guns were pointed at each of our heads. With our hands still up, we started backing out of the situation.. And with every step they took forward, we took two back. We weren't going to be caught by these guys. That was the only thing we knew for sure..

We were almost to the end of the street, and had decided which way we would run when a streak of person came running out of an alleyway, closer to the soldiers than to us. He froze. The Brit was our team cameraman, and had gone to the bathroom just before the situation began. In his rush to get back, he found himself the new target of all the guns. It is more luck than anything that I do not sit here writing his obituary..

I've decided to get a "martyr trading card" for each person who dies in my tenor as a "civil protector". I think each is a badge of my failures here, and a reminder of the costs of making mistakes.. So far, there are two or three that we could have specifically prevented with our presence.. I don't have all of those cards, but I'm sure I'll find them..

As a Muslim, it is a religious duty for me to attend another Muslim's funeral and pray for them. As I went through the motions of this, my first real funeral since I got here, I wondered if there was any way around it.. Funerals, I don't like..

I didn't kill Imad, but that doesn't make it any easier. He died on my watch. He died because we couldn't get to him in time. It could have been any one of us. It could have been me. If it was, I would want somebody to have helped me the way we didn't help Imad. The news of Imad's death came to me as I was on the phone with the Canadian consulate over the illegal detention of my brother.

I was the first to wake up Friday morning. I woke up to a phone ringing with some news. In no time, I woke everybody up, and was briefing them. Mass arrests had begun of every male aged 15 to 60 in the neighbourhood of the person who had stolen the gun the day before. We discussed our dispersement strategy, what we could do, and what we couldn't do, and then we went about the business of getting ready: water bottles in case of tear gas.. tooth-brushing to prevent tartar build-up.. and so on..

The only sound we could hear was the whir of the newly purchased fan, which lapped us with streams of cool air. At that moment, we could easily have been mistaken for a bunch of twenty-somethings on summer vacation. We laid quietly on the couches, exhausted by the day's happenings. God..

I keep thinking that it can't get any more intense.. Every situation seems like the worst possible thing until the next day happens.. I was in the net cafe teaching some techies about motherboard shorts when I heard the first spate of shooting.. An Israeli tank had run over a utility pole for kicks and ended up being caught in the electric wires that came down when the pole did.. The soldiers panicked. Two tanks huddled around the immobilized one, and they started shooting. They shot one of the reporters, and then another. One of them will live. I don't know about the other one.. A single bullet put a 7 cm gash in his femoral artery.. The guy flatlined for 14 minutes on the table.. The best case scenario is still not terribly good.. His name is Imad abu Zahrah.. The other guy was shot three times in his bulletproof vest and once in his ankle while trying to haul his friend out of the line of fire..

Late night

I stopped taking pictures long ago. I just don't see the point anymore.. That and I refuse to see the bodies of dead people. Amongst the locals, that makes me quite strange. For some strange reason, they just don't get sick of this stuff.. No matter how much they see, they never mind the images and the pictures. As for me, I do. I just can't see how it helps my work here to get even more upset. It's so pointless..

I think Gay people are the same no matter where you go in this world. I ended up at a hair-stylist's place today where I think all the Euro- or gay- people of Jenin congregate (I can't tell them apart, truth be told).. The hair stylist was very upset at me for insisting on no hair gel. He was even more upset when I insisted on no mousse either.. "You mean you just want me to... comb it?" "Yes.." Of all the looks of disgust mixed with despair I've seen thus far, that look had to be the worst.. and the fruitiest..

Canada Day

"ALL WE ARE SAAAAAAAAAYYYYIIIIIINNNNGGGGG..." The words screamed through my head for reasons that I cannot possibly understand.. "IS GIVE PEACE A CHAAAAANNNNCCCCCEEEE". And as they screamed through my head, I screamed them at the top of my lungs. Nobody

The men played soccer today, and the kids played tag.. I was one of the kids, which was itself quite fun : ) They loved that we (the internationals) were there.. It was a little bit about salvation, and it was a little bit about a tradition we were going to start: the post-curfew game playing.. The kids screamed with glee as we hoisted them into the air and took them back to "base" in our games of tag, or as we found them in our games of hide and seek.. I regained my childhood, and they regained theirs..

The kids played extra hard today, and so did we. Bassam Al-Saadi was shot in the heart hours earlier. Who knows how quickly he died. The Israeli army had been driving through declaring curfew, and thought they'd remind everybody of their "shoot to kill" policy.. Some people say there was a flurry of bullets.. some people say there were only two.. Regardless, the end result is undisputed: Bassam is dead, and Fidaa has had some of his lower left leg blown off..

My brother and I were following a tank today when we decided to pause for a while.. We stopped where a tank had produced a beautiful circular pattern in the street, and quickly melted into our surroundings, watching