Behind the Wall – ‘Dancing under Occupation’

A little over forty years ago, that is to say forty years and two days ago (as I write this piece), the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, East Al Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip began. This marked a second mass exodus of Palestinians from their lands as many, some becoming refugees for the second time or more, fled their homes and left Palestine in fear of their lives. Many died trying to escape. Those that remained and that have remained steadfastly in their country until today have now suffered over four decades of inhumane and illegal Occupation, Occupation that seems more brutal and more oppressive now that is ever has done.

A new watchtower was constructed near to Rachel’s Tomb in late April. It is larger than the others nearby, no doubt offering an even greater vantage point into people’s houses and lives than the array of watchtowers which already surrounded Aida Camp. Not that the IOF particularly need a better vantage point, they demonstrated in December quite how good their observation points were into residents houses as they shot a twelve year old child, Miras, whilst he was playing in his bedroom. The children of this family now all sleep downstairs together on the living room floor refusing to take the risk of going upstairs in their own house. The night the new watchtower had been built Miras’ father, Nidal, told me he had no need for bedside lamps anymore:

“I could have read a book in bed with the lights out as the lights from the tower were so bright!”

When the IOF entered Aida Camp on Weds 7th June it was well before most of the Camp’s residents had risen. The soldiers had entered the Camp’s cemetery which stands between the watchtowers at Rachel’s Tomb and the Camp itself. They were chopping trees and braches in the cemetery and generally hacking at anything that may or may not obscure their view from the watchtowers into people lives. They swarmed around the cemetery with their M-16’s, over the graves and tombs of fathers and brothers, and mothers and sisters of Aida’s residents, destroying some of the few remaining trees in or around the Camp.

By late morning the IOF were still very active and highly visible, and people were nervous. As word spread the ‘shebab’ (youth) began to arrive hoping to repel the invaders and get them out of the Camp and back to their base hidden somewhere behind their Wall (this is the small section of the Wall which breaks away from the main Wall to surround Rachel’s Tomb and some surrounding Bethlehemite Palestinian houses). As the shebab gathered the IOF began, as usual, to shoot…

As tear gas and rubber bullets were being shot into the Camp Lajee Center attempted to go about its business of trying to be a children’s centre amongst all this. Our doors never close during such events, in fact on the contrary, when such things happen it’s vital that the children know they can come into Lajee to get away from the danger in the streets. Some children were in the center, others were getting ready for a Dabka (folk-dancing) training session. It is disturbingly surreal that children are thinking about dance rehearsals to a backdrop of automatic gunfire but when such events have become commonplace the continuation of any sort of normality becomes a form of personal resistance. And on a practical level if life stopped every time shooting was heard in Palestine it would rarely start such is the Occupation’s military control on the country. Many of the struggles which our Dabka Troup have faced mirrored some wider national issues. The Troup lacks adequate facilities, suffers from financial problems, and faces traveling problems (to performances) much as all Palestinians suffer under such issues. Members of our Troup, who are all aged between ten and fourteen years old, have relatives in prison, one has himself been shot by the IOF but is thankfully dancing again, and more importantly, he is still alive.

The position of trainer or coach for the Dabka Troup has also thrown up demonstrations of the wide reach of the Occupation. Until last summer a female student from Bethlehem University was coaching our young dancers alongside local volunteers but as she was beginning her last year of studying she unfortunately could no longer devote the time away from her academia. A month or two later a young man from Aida Camp came to see us at Lajee, he had just been released from prison and was keen to get involved at Lajee and help coach Dabka. Rasmi was full of enthusiasm to work with the children, keen to start rebuilding his life, he was also back at University. Like so many of Aida’s young men and youth Rasmi had had time stolen from him, time when he should have been maturing in freedom not under lock and key, but after his release he was determined not to look back and instead to work hard to build his future. All the Dabka Troup took to Rasmi, but then a couple of weeks later whilst traveling back to Aida Camp from University Rasmi was stopped and questioned at a checkpoint. He was told to report to an Israeli Police Station for ‘questioning’. When such demands are issued Palestinians are given a set number of days, maybe seven, in which they must report to the police station and are also prevented from traveling through other checkpoints before they report to the station. In other words they cannot move once the demand has been issued and if they do not report to the station during the given number of days they then become ‘wanted’. Rasmi went for his ‘questioning’ as he had been ordered. He has not been seen since. Rasmi was sentenced to three months Administrative Detention, a law under which Palestinians can be sentenced for renewable periods of three months detention without proof of guilt, trail, or legal defense under the pretext of ‘security’. He is due to be released soon but we have heard from others in prison with him that he is very worried that his Administrative Detention will be renewed and extended. No appeal is pemitted.

Whilst our children have worked with different Dabka teachers they have also, throughout all this time and more, worked with Khalid. Khalid is a member of our ‘New Generation’ (teenage) group. He has been a member of Lajee for a long time and is much liked but also greatly respected by everyone. One of the goals of Lajee has always been to work with children right through to their teenage years and encourage them to take responsibility for their own center and Lajee’s younger members. The New Generation demonstrate this role now during activities, summer camps, and trips, when they will help organize and look after younger children. Khalid has taken on this role with our Dabka Troup. He is their assistant trainer, their organizer of transport, of costumes, and of performances. He is also their friend.

As usual Khalid got the music ready and organized the children together in our Art Gallery, which doubles as our dance studio and is used for these energetic and spirited training sessions. Everybody knew the IOF were in the Camp, they could all hear them well enough, but everybody in the room was there to practice Dabka. Khalid had locked the door into the Gallery to prevent disturbances so when everybody heard a bang on the metal door it was Khalid that went to open it assuming it would be children or someone with a message from the Center…

The big hand that quickly grasped Khalid around the neck as he opened the door and pulled him outside caught him by surprise. Three IOF soldiers were immediately on top of him and many more, the occupants of four or five IOF jeeps, were in the narrow street that runs from Lajee’s main Center to the Gallery.

As Khalid was being bundled into an IOF jeep Nidal (Miras’ father) was sitting in the front room of his house trying to relax for a minute away from the noise and shooting outside. Suddenly children burst through his front door:

“Come quick! They are taking Khalid!”

Dressed only in his shorts Nidal jumped up and dashed outside following the children. He wasn’t aware the IOF were right inside the Camp and was surprised to see so many soldiers in the street outside his house. Seeing the soldiers arresting Khalid, who he knew had been doing nothing other than trying to teach children to dance, he cautiously approached the soldiers trying to intervene. As he neared them one of the soldiers made a move towards Nidal and barked an order at him:

“Go home!”

Nidal looked up at the soldier, he was making no moves towards them now:

“Excuse me! I…”

He stammered as the young IOF soldier made a move towards him raising his M-16. Nidal managed to turn slightly to avoid the full impact of the blow that was aimed into his chest with the butt of this heavy gun:

“I tried to talked to him, just I wanted to tell him that Khalid was dancing, training dance, but others shouted and wanted to hit me…”

At this time Nidal’s wife came outside and went to help her husband. As she reached him she moved him away from the soldiers and back into their house sporting bruises up one arm and across the back of his hand.

Khalid was whisked away in an IOF jeep up to the IOF military base at Rachel’s Tomb. Nobody had any idea at all why the IOF had come for him, he had done nothing, Khalid hadn’t been involved in other events in the Camp and was simply trying to work with the children. He was not involved with the Shebab who had been trying to defend Aida against the IOF invasion.

Khalid is no longer a child at Lajee, he is now an active volunteer, but when he got to Rachel’s Tomb he found himself alongside two children from Aida Camp. One was aged thirteen years old, the other fourteen. The IOF began to beat their captives, to hit and kick them and to beat them with sticks.

Some women from the Camp, such as Khalid’s mother, Nidal’s wife, and his sister-in-law, made their way up to Rachel’s Tomb to try to find out what was happening to Khalid and the children and in an attempt to secure their release. The response they received chilled them all:

“Khalid has been throwing stones! He is going to prison!”

Everybody knew Khalid had not been throwing stones but they also knew that such facts bared little relationship to the actions and decisions of the IOF. If the IOF say someone has been throwing stones it seems that is evidence enough for a prison sentence.

By 7pm the IOF were still all over Aida Camp. The foul stench of tear-gas still filled the air as did the ominous echo of their gunfire. Three of the Camp’s residents, two of whom were children, were getting beaten by state-legitimised thugs in Rachel’s Tomb. Trees were still being ripped down and tombs clambered over by steel toe-capped boots and uniformed legs. The Shebab still tried in vain to make it all stop.

One of the shebab spoke to Nidal:

“They (the IOF) are not only attacking us but they are also bothering the dead people too now!”

Nidal didn’t know this young boy who was probably no more than eleven years old. Maybe he was from Aida or maybe he had come from neighbouring Al Azzeh Camp after hearing about the invasion, but as he explained it didn’t matter so much were he lived. Nidal asked him if he himself had relatives buried in the cemetery underneath the trees, he looked straight back at Nidal with the eyes and mind of someone many years older and smiled:

“All the people there are mine…”

Around 8.30 pm Khalid and the two children who had been arrested were all released. This was not only a huge relief to everybody but also a surprise, it is unusual for the IOF to release people in this way and often after such events people, even children, will spend a few months in prison irrespective of guilt or innocence. I spoke with Khalid shortly after his release:

“I am OK don’t worry! They kept me about four to five hours and kept beating me saying I had been throwing stones. They kept taking photographs of me.”

As Khalid was getting kicked and beaten around a cell his captors had been continually taking photographs of him. Was this a trophy for them or will these photographs reappear at a later stage as some kind of evidence or threat against Khalid? Nobody is sure. As I spoke to Khalid he was so matter-of-fact, giving me details and relaying them through Nidal as though he was describing the weather or a day at university. Sadly everybody knows these events happen regularly, they surprise no-one anymore, and at least on this day Khalid came back to the Camp rather than being sent off to see other friends from Aida who have suffered a similar fate and are already languishing in Occupation prisons somewhere. When Khalid was released the IOF didn’t give him his ID card back that they had taken from him during his arrest. He realised this whilst leaving but was just concerned with getting out of the military compound as quickly as possible:

“I was afraid I would be beaten again if I asked them for my ID. I just wanted to leave Rachel’s Tomb.”

Without ID Khalid cannot move, caught without it he would be arrested. He must now wait until the IOF return it or grant him permission to get another. In a couple of days he has a final exam at University but without ID he will be unable to pass the checkpoints to reach his place of study.

Khalid is nineteen years old and thankfully has never been in prison, but he has grown up for much of his life without his father who has spent many years locked up. He has also seen many friends and relatives arrested. He knows this is the life growing up in a Refugee Camp under Occupation, a fact which he cannot change however unjust and wrong it may be, and he is just relieved that it was not his turn, just yet. I hope it never will be…

Thankfully Khalid will teach Dabka again next week. He will continue working with the children in this beautiful form of traditional dance, this art form that teaches grace and poise but also teamwork, culture, and dignity. Through their dance, and the challenging of obstacles they face to practice their art, our children show their inner strength and their beauty in equal and abundant measures. Khalid is an example to them all.

As Lajee Center continues to seek out creative ways to work with our children, through music, art, and dance, the Occupation proves that it intends to continue unabated well past its fourtieth ‘birthday’ with its violence and inhumane treatment of a people and a country. Whilst international media has this week given air space to recollections of events from 1967, the results of these events today, and the effects of earlier events such as Al Nakba, continue to vividly and grotesquely map out the daily lives of Palestinians.

Exile continues, Occupation continues, inhumanity continues…