Anne Gwynne

Fighting for Life in Balaata

Submitted to the Palestine Monitor February 24, 2006

Jareer Qanadilo is an Ambulance Driver, a man who has over the past 5 years brought hope, help and life-saving skills to hundreds of injured and assaulted people in the great Northern Palestinian City of Nablus and in mukhayam Balaata. Balaata is the biggest refugee Camp in Palestine, as well as the longest-standing as its 100-year lease was signed with the Douwekaat Family of al-balad-Balaata in 1952.

I tried to call Jareer many times yesterday: last night Muntasser, the Jenin MRS Driver, told me that Jareer was in theatre undergoing surgery, in the ultra-modern Nablus Speciality Hospital: this morning he is in Intensive Care. On Thursday afternoon he was in mukhayam Balaata, where he had been since midnight 18/19 February almost continuously saving lives, when he himself was hit and seriously wounded, at point-blank range by an Israeli soldier (IOF), as he tried to take the critically-wounded children to hospital. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in his hand and a very large piece had sliced into his leg, severing the artery. When Feras al-Bakri tried to take him to hospital, in a life or death situation, the Israeli soldiers said “good, let him die, you can go only after he is dead” and held the Ambulance for more than 60 minutes at baab al-mukhayyam – the camp exit. But Jareer refused to die – he is a Palestinian and they don’t give up easily – and, thanks to the depth of his medical knowledge and the skill of the young Volunteers of MRS, he is still with us in ICU today: he lost more than 2 litres of blood, requiring four units of transfusion. Hundreds of litres of blood have been transfused to the wounded, but there are no shortages in Nablus – quite the contrary, queues of donors wind their way around the centre only too willing to give blood, however frequently it is needed.

Thursday was the 6th day of the total blockade and siege of the Camp: the IOF are still there today, occupying dozens of homes as temporary barracks and sniper positions, devastating dozens of home, killing 9 youths among them 2 children, wounding more than 55 youngsters, several journalists, a doctor and medical staff, arresting more than 40, and devastating or demolishing schools, goldsmiths workshops, shops and family houses, such as the Hamiimi home, the Ishtiiwi home and the ‘Adel’Ayl 5-family home.

Jareer, shot by Israeli forces in Balata

Jareer, as I said, is the driver of a UPMRC (now MRS) Ambulance: he is not on the IOF lists of mattloubiin or mutaraadiin (‘wanted’ or ‘for assassination’) and he is not a member of any armed Resistance group. Although, like most people here, he is a fighter and a great one, for the past 5 years fighting to save the lives of the countless hundreds of, mostly, youngsters shot by the soldiers of the self-styled “only democracy in the Middle East”, who have killed around 1,000 children and grievously wounded tens of thousands just for throwing stones which fit into the hand! Pick up a palm-sized stone – it is pathetically small defence against the weapons of the world’s fourth-ranking military.

Jareer Qanadilo is a big, bluff man - an adored father of four. He has a calm and sunny disposition, twinkling eyes and a wicked sense of humour! He was the driver with whom I spent my first three weeks in Nablus, when I was so green that he would have been forgiven for throwing me out of the Ambulance, and he can multi-task better than anyone I know: he can drive at high speed alongside precipitous drops, eat a falafel sandwich, admonish children who are too far from home, give me instructions on how to save the patient’s life and talk on the dispatch phone and his own mobile – all at the same time without batting an eyelid and managing to operate the air-horn too!

Jareer relaxing in his Ambulance

He risks his life every time his MRS Ambulance plunges into the centre of an IOF attack on the civilian populace of Nablus-Balaata, innocent of any crime. The last 5 years of constant pressure which is the lot of all the MRS Ambulance Drivers, has clearly taken its toll on him. During the current attack (hideously dubbed by Israel “Operation Northern Lights”), the worst for 12 months, now in its seventh day, four MRS Ambulances have been constantly in the camp. They were allowed to move only within the camp and have not been allowed to go outside: two 17-year-olds bled to death on the street within sight of Jareer’s his ambulance; he was refused access to them “until they are dead” as the IOF terrorists said. Stretchers bearing wounded have had to be carried on foot 2 kilometres to hospital and a field hospital has had to be set up in the souq since both schools were taken over as barracks by the IOF, the UNRWA staff assaulted and put outside.

Ambulance Drivers from all around answered the desperate call: Feras Al-Bakri, 35, also the father of four; the amazing Muntasser Abdel Rahiim, 26, came from Jenin (both of whom many readers will remember from previous stories); Uday Jallad from Tulkarm; and Fidaa’ Subuh, a Jenin driver, from Al-Farrah Refugee Camp. They were constantly harassed, threatened and pinned-down under sniper fire from the rooftops of 25 occupied houses. Working with the drivers in Balaata are the brave volunteers Mustafa Farah, Muhammad al-Ghazzal and Taaher Al-Kousah amongst others. And with them, as always doing more than his duty at the centre of the danger, Dr Ghasaan Hamdan, MRS manager in Nablus who, as Manager, could remain at his desk as co-ordinator but he cannot think of letting his staff and volunteers face this situation while he is safe.

Palestinian medics, including Mustafa Farra (l), working in Balaata during the latest invasion

All mobile communication with the Camp and Nablus Old City is, as always, cut. Nowadays often the e-mail servers are cut from Northern Palestine. Most people have Jawwaal SIM-cards in their mobiles and it is never possible to call anyone in Balaata or in Nablus when the IOF are in occupation: immediately after they leave the signal is restored. Obviously I don’t know how they do it, but from the moment they arrive until they leave, no one can call out on Jawwaal and we cannot call in. Those with Cellcom (Israeli) cards are luckier: the IOF cannot cut their communication since the Jewish colonists who surround Balaata-Nablus in their illegal colonies use the Israeli network. This week we were able to use the landlines though those carbon-fibre cables have often been cut too.

Tomorrow we hope that Jareer will be out of Intensive Care and back on a Ward, where I will be able to speak to him on his mobile. Like all the drivers he will back in the Ambulance as soon as he is on his feet again.

This is normal in the life of the Palestinian Ambulance Drivers – I know few who have not been injured several times. On February 16th 2003 Feras Al-Bakri was shot; on the 18th we were both shot at and injured by an Israeli soldier in Nablus. He was shot again in the head in Balaata in June 2004. He was seriously injured in June at Sarra’ T-Junction,, September and December 2003 in his neck, eyes and feet, trying to reach injured in Saalem village, and was shot in the head and in the hand outside Al-Watani hospital in Nablus in December 2005: in addition he has been used as a human shield many times. Muntasser suffers the most appalling humiliation, delays and beatings daily, even being forced into kissing the IOF boots to save the lives of the sick, especially at the vicious roadblock at Shaffi Shamron: all the UPMRC Ambulances are spattered with bullet holes, even in the stretchers. Almost every day he is threatened with death and one day it may happen.

Some 25 Doctors and medics have been murdered, with scores injured, and 85 Ambulances totally destroyed in more than 1,300 attacks on Ambulances since September 2000. This week Dr Anaan Al-Atiira was wounded in the head in Balaata Camp as she tended a dying child, and a young volunteer was seriously injured.

“You know, Anne”, sighed Muntasser Abdel Rahiim, 26, last night, “we are drivers of Ambulances, not drivers of tanks”.

* Anne Gwynne, an elected member of the International Federation of Journalists and the National Union of Journalists (UK), has worked with the PMRS (UPMRC) in Nablus. She can be contacted at gwynne_anne@hotmail.com.