IN the aftermath of September 11, I started attending various seminars and meetings in London to acquaint myself with the campaign the dissident groups here launched against UK government’s “shoulder to shoulder” support of the Bush Administration’s agenda. Academics, such as Prof Fred Halliday of LSE’s, analysis of the malaise that afflicts the Muslim world and the probable causes that led to the events of 9/11 obliged me to focus on Palestine. The firsthand accounts of people who had been in the occupied territories spurred me to make the journey myself — to see whether things were really so black-and-white. I and my 23-year-old daughter, started off on July 15 and returned on 24th.

We were part of ISM (International Solidarity Movement), a group formed in August 2001 by International citizens’ peace-making campaign. Their objective is to assist proactive tactics of nonviolent direct action by international activists. They came into their own last December, when Ramallah was besieged and Yasser Arafat’s compound surrounded. ISM encourage individuals in Americas and Europe to travel to occupied territories. The Internationals make their own travel arrangements and bear all costs of their stay. ISM’s role is confined to coordination and assistance, in matters of logistics and guide, once one is there.

Here is an account of my visit to the occupied territories.
 

July 15: Mohini has booked the mini cab for 6.45pm. The driver grabs hold of my bag, puts it in the boot and gets behind the wheel, ready to go. Mohini is taking leave of her mother and I motion the driver to wait. He does not want to and is impatient. Finally, she emerges and we are on our way to North Greenwich. The driver knows it as the Dome. It transpires that he is from Algeria. We exchange greetings. Instantly, the invisible thread of Ummah binds us together — he is a brother and we are more than his customers! He wishes us safe journey when I tell him where we are headed for. A good, omen.

Terminal 4, unlike the cacophony of Terminal 3, is civilized. The takeoff is on time. Most passengers are Israelis, among whom the (male) Ultra Orthodox stand out because of their elaborate dress and hairstyle.
 

July 16: At Tel Aviv, the plane parks away from the terminal. I ask the young woman at passport control not to stamp our passports. She asks the purpose of our visit. To visit holy places, I answer. Obviously, we are not the usual type of visitors. She asks us to follow her and disappears with our passports. Another young woman invites us to a room and asks why we are here. Have we visited Israel before? Do we know anyone in the country? Have we any relations here? Her puzzlement at what the two of us are upto in Israel is palpable. The passports are handed back to us and we are through.

Or so we think! Another young woman at the exit, from Passport Control, takes our passports and hands them over to others nearby. Again we are asked the purpose of our visit, etc., and we are asked to collect our bags from the carousel and bring them over. The bags are screened and so are we. Finally, the scrutiny is over and we are offered a drink!

The journey to East Jerusalem by a shared van is uneventful. We get down at American Colony Hotel and ask for directions to YWCA, where we have booked a room. We lose our way and are disorientated. Kindness of stranger manifests itself. A taxi driver, who saw us earlier at American Colony Hotel, picks us up and drops us at the YWCA. We have to go to Faisal Hostel to see Heather of ISM. The next training session is two days away, on Thursday. But a demo is due this afternoon at Ramallah and a group of International volunteers will be travailing in a van shortly. We are jet-legged as we did not sleep the night before and decide to rest.
 

July 17: A walk along Salah-el-Din Road leads us to Herod’s Gate and to the Old City. Cobbled and stepped path going down and then a left turn. We stop at a deserted corner cafe for freshly squeezed orange juice and sit down to address greeting cards picked up earlier from newsagent, at Salah-el-Din Road. Soon, we head for the gate at the end of the street. Someone warns us that visitors are not allowed through this gate. As we near the gate (Bate Hutta), soldiers with arms check us. Passports are screened and they want to know why we are there? Eventually, the name in the passport saves the day. They want to know if we are Muslims and if we can recite the Holy Quran. I start reciting Surah-Al-Fatiha and voile! We are strangers no more and are waved through with show of much goodwill. (On the way back, one of the soldiers fills our empty bottle with cold water from his thermos.) We proceed to the Dome of Rock, which is an exquisite building.

Going upto the room in YWCA, we encounter firebrand Helen Salmon coming out of the lift. She is an active socialist and I think on the executive of NUS (National Union of Students). Have seen her speak with passion about the Palestinian cause at various venues since last October. She is travelling with a group of health workers, students and academics to show solidarity with Palestinians. I fetch Gemini and, after introductions, leave them together.
 

July 18: Training day at the Church of Redeemer in the Old City. Shaggy Mike McCardy from United States starts the proceedings. Sherrill from Massachusetts, Erik from Sweden, Anders from Norway, Ethan from California and the two of us are joined later in the day by Marty Goodman from Brooklyn, Art from New York, young Mikka and Polly from Britain.

Ethan, Marty and Art are Jews. We are the only two Muslims. Fragrant Huwaida, born in Detroit, takes over from Mike later in the morning and comes back in the afternoon to complete the day’s proceedings. The potential for violence in everyday situation in the occupied territories we are volunteering to travel to is dramatized. As the occupied territories are declared Military Security Zones, entry of foreigners is prohibited. If caught, we are liable to be handed over to Military Police and prosecuted and, eventually, deported from the country. Our being from Western Europe and America, however, gives us certain latitude in defying the occupation as Israel tends to avoid adverse media coverage in Western press about its tyrannical occupation of Palestine.
 

July 19: Last training session in Knights Palace Hotel, near St. Saviour Church (delightful old building with an enchanting, hidden courtyard). We would be travelling to Nablus where the situation is dire and our presence is required. We gather at Faisal Hostel and with Cathy, the 11 of us pile up in a van and leave at 1.30pm. The first hour’s journey is uneventful. We take the diversionary route to Jericho, travelling zigzag to avoid road blocks and military check points. The landscape is filled with green fields interspersed with desolate stretches. All green areas are fenced off and belong to settlers. Network of pipe lines bring irrigation water at heavily subsidized rates from afar, while in places like Hebron the Palestinians are deprived of running water in their homes.

An hour later, we have a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere and the driver is unable to change it. Ten of us get down and take shelter from the blazing sun in the shadow of a nearby tin shade. Ethan and the driver take the van in search of a garage and return two hours later, at 4.30pm. We move on to a place where two other vans are waiting to pick us up. We divide in two groups. One group will be dropped off at a point from where there is a three-hour march on foot, through back trails, to Nablus bypassing all check points. The other group will be taken over dirt roads to a point close to Nablus from where we will have to make our way on foot. We are in the second group of six.

We veer off the tarmac onto a dirt road that climbs a mountain. The driver is accompanied by a mate of his. A bend near the summit and the van comes to a sudden halt. The driver and his mate have their hands up and are visibly frightened. There are shouts from outside. Because of the curtains, I am unable to see through. We manage to get out with our hands up.

An army jeep is blocking the road and there are four nervous soldiers, with rifles aimed at the van, standing on higher ground. Identity cards from the driver and his mate, and our passports are collected. The driver twice slips in the dirt and falls down. His humiliation is complete. We are ordered to sit down on the other side of the road. The soldiers are young and the one seemingly incharge speaks reasonable English. He holds our passports and keeps leafing through them while questioning us. Sherrill from Massachusetts keeps her cool and in defiance remains standing. Half an hour later, our passports are returned and, instead of being turned back, we are sent on our way.

On the other side of the mountain, we avoid a road block by going through a grove. A car leads us through the alleyways of Belt Fariek and, eventually, we are dropped off near the main checkpoint to Nablus. It’s past 7 o’clock. The checkpoint is not manned and we stroll through to the other side, where John and Lisa are waiting to escort us to Nablus. The walk after the encounter at the mountain top is soothing.

We enter Blaata refugee camp, much in the news lately. Children start swarming. ‘What is your name?’ is the chant. Progressively, they grow bolder and start touching our back packs and become a real nuisance. There are people out and about and I ask a couple of them to check these children. Not effective and the thought occurs that we might be in more danger of physical harm at the hands of these excited and unruly children than we were by the Israeli soldiers on the mountain top.

Mercifully, this ordeal comes to an end when we are ushered through a 40cm slit between two buildings and up the stairs to the safety of the Atiti household. One of the sons was a martyr/suicide bomber in May and the family now fears demolition of their house in retaliation. We, the Internationals, by staying in their home hope to deter the Israelis from bringing their bulldozers in the middle of night, evict the family and destroy the building. Israelis, so far, being averse to bring down a house over the head of an American or British citizen.

The first group who opted to walk for three hours joins us and the Atiti living room is crowded. Four Japanese volunteers have come in earlier in the day. We meet Heidi and Neta, the ISM coordinators in Nablus. There is another vulnerable house in the camp where some of us will be left behind. A report comes in that the medical centre in Nablus maybe a target tonight. Art and I volunteer to go there. Heidi leads us out of the camp and delivers the two of us to Susan, who is waiting at the top of the road. The medical centre, run by Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC), is used as dormitory for paramedics and ambulance crew. One room is allocated to ISM volunteers. The facilities are spartan. A mattress and a blanket are provided for one to sleep on the floor. John tells me that if the Israelis come, it will be in the dead of the night. After a shower, I lay down and am woken up a couple of hours later by loud rattling of front metal doors. Thinking it is the Israelis, I wake up John, who says it is the paramedics back from a call out.
 

July 20: Packets of biscuits, purchased last night at Blaata, come handy for breakfast. Others are still sleeping. Sudan is the last one to be up. The curfew (after seven days round-the-clock closure) is lifted today, from 8am to 1pm. She takes us to visit the house of Abu Hijleh, on Tel Road, occupied by the army on June 20, 2002. The Israel are using the house as a command post for the neighbourhood, with tanks and APCs guarding. Abu Hijleh’s family is confined to one room in the basement and their movement restricted. The taxi driver is not willing to take us upto the house. We return to the medical centre and are told to go to the checkpoint on Ramallah Road, where trouble is expected.

We reach the checkpoint at 10.40am. About 55-60 people are waiting to cross. Two Israeli soldiers are giving water from their water canteens to babies held in their parent’s arms. Another soldier carries a canteen from the jeep and moisten the towel a father holds out to cover the head of young baby in his arm. Susan asks John if he would take some pictures. I count ten soldiers standing around and discussing. There is no movement of people though the checkpoint and the day is getting hot.

Art and I approach one who looks like an officer. After identifying ourselves, we inquire why people are not being allowed to go through. The officer, a Lt. Col. of a branch of the army (presumably intelligence) but not part of the detachment manning the checkpoint, softly asks if we can guarantee no one will sneak through explosives. He is interrupted by a telephone call and we speak to another who turns out to be the major in command of the unit responsible for the checkpoint. Eventually, we are told to get families with children and old people come forward first and the processing starts. We notice people from the other side start filtering through towards us.

It is 11.15am, and Palestinians from the town are coming in droves now. The crowd is getting thicker. Vehicles, carrying goods and some empty, are lining up to get through. Processing is not keeping pace. Susan and Art are taking people with children and medical needs to the soldiers to expedite checking of their papers and bags. The Israelis are taking the IDs of most single male and making them sit on one side of the road in the sun. Some people are turned back because they live in Nablus and, according to Israelis, don’t need to go anywhere. A young couple, the man bearded like a Taliban and his wife in a burqa-like gown, with two very young children are allowed through only when the wife submits to body search by Susan and, as they move on, the man is in obvious rage. Single young men, considered cocky and not pliant, are summarily turned back.

By midday, the clamour of people, now in their hundreds, is too great to be let through. At 12.10pm, the Israelis halt the crossing process altogether, as people are not standing back as asked. The soldiers told us earlier the checkpoint would close at 1pm. Susan is beseeched by desperate people and she pleads with soldiers and at 12.40pm the processing starts again. The soldiers I saw in the morning quenching the thirst of babies with their water canteens are now tense and hostile. People keep pushing forward. The Israelis want them to remain on the other side of the concrete barriers. Susan and Art keep helping the old and people with children. Cars and taxis keep bringing more and more people to the checkpoint. One o’clock comes and goes. A trickle of people keeps going through. Every now and then, it gets on edge. At one point, the soldiers take aim to fire as the crowd pushes its way beyond the barriers.

John is taking pictures. A soldier notices and calls him over and after making him delete some frames, he warns him not to use his camera again otherwise it will be confiscated. It’s past 2 o’clock. The despair of the people is great. Some have been here for hours. Others are still coming. The crowd has again pushed forward the barriers. The Israelis use their jeeps menacingly to push them back. The four of us are exhausted and, at 2.30pm, we decide to return.

There is a debriefing meeting at Blaata. Art and I attend. Young Mikka’s group has had an exciting time, with Israeli light tanks/APCs playing hide and seek in the alleyways of a nearby village, and I am disconcerted at this confrontational approach. I notice the faces around, all haggard and strained and correctly surmise that none has eaten. Nor have we. Art comments on lack of organization and suggest a base with a telephone line be set up — to collect and disseminate local information and data and to coordinate various groups’ activities.

On return to medical centre, we find young Saleha from Dundee. Her family is from Patiala and Kotri. She is doing medicine and is here to do a documentary for BBC. Has been to Ramallah and is travelling on her own. Wish there were more Muslim females like her in Britain. I share the sandwich I picked up at Blaata with her.
 

July 21: The curfew is in place and the Palestinians are again caged in their homes, round the clock, God knows for how many days. Intermittent gunfire continues throughout our stay. One of the two toilets in the medical centre is in a mess and requires repairs. I go to see Dr Ghassan Hamdan, the director of UPMRC, in his office nearby. He is a genial man, passing his time playing card game on the office computer. I ask him to get the toilet repaied and then I retire next door to draft house rules and general information on Nablus for circulation to ISM volunteers. As I am working on the computer, Abdur Etahman, a colleague of Dr Ghassan’s, comes in, calling me brother. We embrace and both of us are overcome with emotions. The plight of Palestinians and the hopelessness of their situation is heartrending, indeed.

In the evening, a young paramedic takes me to see his father, who is an accountant in Saudi Arabia. He is a prosperous man, with four sons. The youngest is at university and was to sit for his exams this month, but the curfew has closed down the university and all other institutions. Father had invested in local businesses after Oslo and all that investment is now lost. He is unable to return to his job in Saudi Arabia for fear of losing his home. One gets a bird’s eyeview of the valley from his balcony.
 

July 22: Art, heroically, cleans up the centre single-handedly, and Dr Saber shames a couple of paramedics into giving him a hand in picking up the rubbish they all have been throwing in the front garden for weeks. In the afternoon, he prepares soup, which rather foolishly I do not partake. Susan told me earlier there should be a cafe or flafel shop open in the old town, but it is not and I return with some apples to share with Saleha.

I get around to going through the magazine section of Ha’aretz, which I picked up on Friday, in Jerusalem, but haven’t had time to read till now. A feature spread from page 8 to 11, titled Settling the Indians and makes astonishing reading. According to Ha’aetz, two months ago, at the order of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, a delegation of rabbis travelled to Peru. During their two-week stay, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origins. The rabbis converted only those who said they were willing to immigrate to Israel immediately.

Batya Mendel, who until two months ago was a Peruvian citizen whose first name was Blanca, is quoted as saying: “Yasser Arafat isn’t even a Palestinian and he has no rights to the Land of Israel, because he wasn’t born in the land of Israel. This land was promised eternally by God only to those who were born here. Just because I was born in Peru and don’t have Jewish roots makes no difference, because the Book of Zephania states that those who want to believe in the Holy One and are believing Jews, only they have rights to the land of Israel. Maybe, when the Messiah comes and all the Palestinians are converted to Judaism and believe in God with complete faith, only then will we allow them to live in the land of Israel.” All these people have been placed in settlements.

In the evening Yasin, a young Nablusi, escorts seven of us around the old town, to show us the destruction Israelis wrought in their first invasion last April. The museum interior and exhibition was wantonly ransacked. We inspect centuries-old houses damaged. Sewage and water pipes broken so that the narrow, steep alleys have sewage running through them.

Houses shelled and demolished, and the rubble not allowed to be removed. On top of the mountain, overlooking the old town, the Israelis have a battery they used in April to shell the town. Yasin’s commentary is precise and eloquent. Everywhere in the old town are posters bearing pictures of various martyrs. We saw the same phenomenon in Blaata, where every street is literally covered with pictures and posters eulogizing various martyrs. Icons of them in lockets are worn by children and young men. I see a small shop open, where a man is busy making fresh humus and buy half a tub for two shekels (40 cents). It is the most delicious humus I have ever had.
 

July 23: I gather my things in the rucksack and reach Blaata by half past seven. Five of us are leaving for Jerusalem. The curfew is in place. Mohini and Summer go out to test the checkpoint. It is over 40 minutes walk away and they are to telephone us when they reach it. They succeed in getting across, telling the Israelis they have been working on a water aid project to purify the drinking water. We follow and, by 10.30am, we find Mohini and Summer debating with Israeli soldiers, on the other side of check point, about the ill-treatment of Palestinians. A van comes to pick us up, and 45 minutes later we are at YWCA in Jerusalem.
 

July 24: Our flight is at 5pm and I am a little apprehensive of the airport security, which, by all accounts, is more severe on the way out. I take the precaution of putting all my notes, names and addresses in an envelope and put it in the post. I and Mohini agree about what to say about our activities if questioned. The van picks the two of us up at 2 o’clock. Two passengers, a middle-aged man and an Ultra Orthodox man, are already there. The van travels around West Jerusalem to pick up another three, who are all youngsters. As we get on the motorway to Tel Aviv, the Ultra Orthodox man takes out a religious text to read. The girl next to me digs in her purse for a what looks like a prayer book and reads it.

Security near the airport is checking all vehicles and there is a long queue. The soldier catches sight of my face in the back, quickly comes around to open the door and barks something in Hebrew. The people in front mumble something and assuming that he is asking who we are, I say British loudly. And that’s that.

The baggage check is thorough but, unlike the Americans, we are not made to take off our shoes. There is no interrogation like the one we faced on our way in. The flight is full of bearded ones with families (Ultra Orthodox) and, like the Pakistani variety, they don’t believe in stopping after one or two kids but carry on. We are back at Heathrow at dusk.