Chapter 8 - A hospital ward in Nablus
I had heard that Ahmed Masri, a boy I’d met in Balata refugee camp, had been shot. I went to visit him in Rafidia hospital.
The walls of the ward were covered with posters of martyrs stuck on with Elastoplast. Ahmed, his arm encased in plaster, sat up in bed surrounded by the faces of dead militants.
Ahmed was nineteen, a pleasant-looking boy with even features under thick, straight eyebrows. He was studying for the tawjihi exams and had been working at Zatara checkpoint, helping to load and unload trucks being searched by the army. A few days previously he had been standing in line waiting to show his ID to the soldiers to get the go-ahead to start work.
‘I heard the sound of bullets,’ he told me. ‘A lot of bullets, like the sound of a train. I looked down and I saw my arm was bleeding. I didn’t feel pain immediately. A soldier told me to sit on the ground. I was bleeding for thirty minutes without any help. The pain was like something boiling. The jeeps started to come. They were shooting here and there. Maybe there were Palestinian shooters, I don’t know. The Israelis shoot at random. My friend here,’ he waved his hand towards the boy in the next bed, ‘he was shot in the leg. The soldiers said to us, “Wait, wait. We will bring the ambulance.” After thirty minutes the soldiers made the first aid for us. My friend had said, “Please, by your God and by your religion, please help us.” I was overwhelmed with pain. Blood was pulsing out. I tried to stand up but I couldn’t. I fainted. They helped us very gently and it was very nice, but not so much as they care for a soldier or somebody important. I don’t say they didn’t care. They cared, but not as much as for one of them.’
Ahmed was lucky. The bullet had passed clean through the lower part of his arm without causing any bone damage. His friend had got off less lightly with two bullet wounds in the thigh. It was the third time he had been shot by Israeli soldiers.
A small boy called Nasser, wearing a track suit and with a towel draped round his neck, limped over carrying a catheter bag in his hand. He sat on Ahmed’s bed smoking. He had been shot in both arms, one leg and the abdomen, Ahmed told me.
I asked Nasser what had happened.
‘I was going home at about half past nine. Some other boys in the village were throwing stones at a jeep. The soldiers saw me. They shouted at me to go over to them. I was afraid to go. I ran away. The soldiers shot me.’
Nasser tossed his cigarette end on to the floor and ground it under his heel. He lit another one.
A Palestinian ambulance had come for him, he said, but it was stopped by the soldiers who had shot him. They kicked him and punched him, then choked him for two minutes, stopping only when he began to pass out. His father, who was with him by this time, tried to intervene, shouting at the soldiers to stop, that they were killing Nasser. The soldiers hit him and told him to shut up. An Israeli army doctor tried to take one of the bullets out of his leg, handling him roughly. Nasser was screaming, demented with pain. ‘The soldiers said, “He’s just pretending, not really injured.” And they said bad words about my mother and sister.’
As I scribbled down the details of his story I felt that it would seem unbelievable. Yet I believed it because I had heard so many others that were similarly outrageous and aberrant, and also because of the matter of fact way in which he spoke. It was nothing special to Nasser or the others in the ward. It was just part of the daily Palestinian grind.
Ahmed passed round a packet of biscuits I’d brought him and tossed the wrapping into one of the overflowing rubbish bins. He introduced me to the man in the bed opposite who was lying with his leg in traction. He too had been shot, as had the man next to him, Ibrahim, who had five bullet wounds in his legs. It was Ibrahim’s second spell in hospital; the previous time he had been shot in the stomach.
Every patient in the ward was there as a result of Israeli-inflicted injuries. Even the visitors had all been shot.
Abdel Mowaz, an eighteen-year-old, had recently lost four fingers. The stump of his hand was still bandaged. He pointed to a scar along his left jaw, the result of a previous shooting, and then pulled up his shirt to show me bullet wounds in his chest from a third incident. On each occasion he had been throwing stones at soldiers. I asked him how, after experiencing the atrocious pain of the first shooting, he had continued to run the risk of it happening again.
‘He offers his soul and his body for Palestine and Al Aqsa,’ Ahmed translated for me. ‘He wants to be a martyr.’
Sami, another young man, had been shot in the thigh while throwing stones but no longer did so. His father forbade it.
An older man had been shot three years previously and still had the bullet lodged in his back. Another, only twenty-one, had already been shot four times.
‘Many of my friends, at least fifty per cent have been shot,’ Ahmed said. ‘Now me. Soon it will be one hundred per cent.’
A man in his mid-thirties joined us round Ahmed’s bed. His name was Fowaz. He had just come in an ambulance from Tulkarim with his cousin who had been shot by soldiers in a passing jeep while he was walking along the road. The cousin, Mohammed, was in the operating theatre having surgery on his thigh and his hand. While he waited Fowaz recounted the catalogue of injuries and imprisonments suffered by himself and his family.
Mohammed had previously been shot in similar circumstances, caught in the crossfire as a band of Israeli special forces gunned down a group of men in the street. Fowaz’s brother had been shot and lost an eye. Mohammed’s sister was serving seventy-five years in an Israeli prison. A student at An Najah, she had been accused of assisting with a suicide bombing in Netanya.
‘I myself was in prison for three and a half years,’ Fowaz said. They took me from my house. I was nineteen then. I had been throwing stones. It was during the first intifada.’ He talked about the many prisons he had been in, the bad food, the cold in winter.
The others started reminiscing about their own experiences of arrest and brutality.
Ahmed Masri had woken up one morning surrounded by eight soldiers, one of them pointing a gun at him. He spoke in the same calm voice and with the same beatific expression that he always had. ‘They beat me, they kicked me in the ribs. They searched the house, they broke everything in my room. Three or four soldiers were punching me in the face, another one was hitting me with his gun. They have to practise, it is like a sport. They said, “We will kill you like a dog, we will come again.” My younger brother – he was only thirteen – he had a toy gun he had made himself. The soldiers hit him and kicked him because he had this gun.’
Mohammed’s bed was wheeled back in from the theatre. He was unconscious, wearing the same bloodstained tee-shirt he had arrived in, with an old grey coat thrown over him. The orderlies parked his bed over a patch of floor strewn with bits of newspaper, cigarette ends and empty drink cans and left him to come round.
I asked Ahmed how he imagined his life would be if there wasn’t the conflict.
‘I would be studying, preparing for a career, enjoying myself with my friends, instead of lying in hospital with gunshot wounds.’
The walls of the ward were covered with posters of martyrs stuck on with Elastoplast. Ahmed, his arm encased in plaster, sat up in bed surrounded by the faces of dead militants.
Ahmed was nineteen, a pleasant-looking boy with even features under thick, straight eyebrows. He was studying for the tawjihi exams and had been working at Zatara checkpoint, helping to load and unload trucks being searched by the army. A few days previously he had been standing in line waiting to show his ID to the soldiers to get the go-ahead to start work.
‘I heard the sound of bullets,’ he told me. ‘A lot of bullets, like the sound of a train. I looked down and I saw my arm was bleeding. I didn’t feel pain immediately. A soldier told me to sit on the ground. I was bleeding for thirty minutes without any help. The pain was like something boiling. The jeeps started to come. They were shooting here and there. Maybe there were Palestinian shooters, I don’t know. The Israelis shoot at random. My friend here,’ he waved his hand towards the boy in the next bed, ‘he was shot in the leg. The soldiers said to us, “Wait, wait. We will bring the ambulance.” After thirty minutes the soldiers made the first aid for us. My friend had said, “Please, by your God and by your religion, please help us.” I was overwhelmed with pain. Blood was pulsing out. I tried to stand up but I couldn’t. I fainted. They helped us very gently and it was very nice, but not so much as they care for a soldier or somebody important. I don’t say they didn’t care. They cared, but not as much as for one of them.’
Ahmed was lucky. The bullet had passed clean through the lower part of his arm without causing any bone damage. His friend had got off less lightly with two bullet wounds in the thigh. It was the third time he had been shot by Israeli soldiers.
A small boy called Nasser, wearing a track suit and with a towel draped round his neck, limped over carrying a catheter bag in his hand. He sat on Ahmed’s bed smoking. He had been shot in both arms, one leg and the abdomen, Ahmed told me.
I asked Nasser what had happened.
‘I was going home at about half past nine. Some other boys in the village were throwing stones at a jeep. The soldiers saw me. They shouted at me to go over to them. I was afraid to go. I ran away. The soldiers shot me.’
Nasser tossed his cigarette end on to the floor and ground it under his heel. He lit another one.
A Palestinian ambulance had come for him, he said, but it was stopped by the soldiers who had shot him. They kicked him and punched him, then choked him for two minutes, stopping only when he began to pass out. His father, who was with him by this time, tried to intervene, shouting at the soldiers to stop, that they were killing Nasser. The soldiers hit him and told him to shut up. An Israeli army doctor tried to take one of the bullets out of his leg, handling him roughly. Nasser was screaming, demented with pain. ‘The soldiers said, “He’s just pretending, not really injured.” And they said bad words about my mother and sister.’
As I scribbled down the details of his story I felt that it would seem unbelievable. Yet I believed it because I had heard so many others that were similarly outrageous and aberrant, and also because of the matter of fact way in which he spoke. It was nothing special to Nasser or the others in the ward. It was just part of the daily Palestinian grind.
Ahmed passed round a packet of biscuits I’d brought him and tossed the wrapping into one of the overflowing rubbish bins. He introduced me to the man in the bed opposite who was lying with his leg in traction. He too had been shot, as had the man next to him, Ibrahim, who had five bullet wounds in his legs. It was Ibrahim’s second spell in hospital; the previous time he had been shot in the stomach.
Every patient in the ward was there as a result of Israeli-inflicted injuries. Even the visitors had all been shot.
Abdel Mowaz, an eighteen-year-old, had recently lost four fingers. The stump of his hand was still bandaged. He pointed to a scar along his left jaw, the result of a previous shooting, and then pulled up his shirt to show me bullet wounds in his chest from a third incident. On each occasion he had been throwing stones at soldiers. I asked him how, after experiencing the atrocious pain of the first shooting, he had continued to run the risk of it happening again.
‘He offers his soul and his body for Palestine and Al Aqsa,’ Ahmed translated for me. ‘He wants to be a martyr.’
Sami, another young man, had been shot in the thigh while throwing stones but no longer did so. His father forbade it.
An older man had been shot three years previously and still had the bullet lodged in his back. Another, only twenty-one, had already been shot four times.
‘Many of my friends, at least fifty per cent have been shot,’ Ahmed said. ‘Now me. Soon it will be one hundred per cent.’
A man in his mid-thirties joined us round Ahmed’s bed. His name was Fowaz. He had just come in an ambulance from Tulkarim with his cousin who had been shot by soldiers in a passing jeep while he was walking along the road. The cousin, Mohammed, was in the operating theatre having surgery on his thigh and his hand. While he waited Fowaz recounted the catalogue of injuries and imprisonments suffered by himself and his family.
Mohammed had previously been shot in similar circumstances, caught in the crossfire as a band of Israeli special forces gunned down a group of men in the street. Fowaz’s brother had been shot and lost an eye. Mohammed’s sister was serving seventy-five years in an Israeli prison. A student at An Najah, she had been accused of assisting with a suicide bombing in Netanya.
‘I myself was in prison for three and a half years,’ Fowaz said. They took me from my house. I was nineteen then. I had been throwing stones. It was during the first intifada.’ He talked about the many prisons he had been in, the bad food, the cold in winter.
The others started reminiscing about their own experiences of arrest and brutality.
Ahmed Masri had woken up one morning surrounded by eight soldiers, one of them pointing a gun at him. He spoke in the same calm voice and with the same beatific expression that he always had. ‘They beat me, they kicked me in the ribs. They searched the house, they broke everything in my room. Three or four soldiers were punching me in the face, another one was hitting me with his gun. They have to practise, it is like a sport. They said, “We will kill you like a dog, we will come again.” My younger brother – he was only thirteen – he had a toy gun he had made himself. The soldiers hit him and kicked him because he had this gun.’
Mohammed’s bed was wheeled back in from the theatre. He was unconscious, wearing the same bloodstained tee-shirt he had arrived in, with an old grey coat thrown over him. The orderlies parked his bed over a patch of floor strewn with bits of newspaper, cigarette ends and empty drink cans and left him to come round.
I asked Ahmed how he imagined his life would be if there wasn’t the conflict.
‘I would be studying, preparing for a career, enjoying myself with my friends, instead of lying in hospital with gunshot wounds.’
