Qalandiya
It was sad at Qalandiya. Just sad.
“Even ten years ago things weren’t this bad,” Shadi said, telling us about his neighbor, Muhammad Tarfi, who was murdered the previous night in Ramallah when, after midnight, he went to watch the World Cup and the army, which had invaded the city to make arrests and conduct searches and “uproot every green thing,” in the words of a senior military officer, opened fire on him.
Shadi showed me photographs of Muhammad he had taken with his phone not long before the murder when they were at a feast in Beitunya, and one more photo of Muhammad Tarfi, lying bleeding.
Later, toward evening, during Muhammad Tarfi’s funeral procession, settlers from Psagot (which is situated on the hills overlooking the cemetery), protected by the army, fired on the mourners.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=697375966999067&set=vb.132091353527534&type=2&theater
“It’s a crooked deal between the army, the Palestinian police and that fucking Abu-Mazen” said one man, expressing the very widespread conspiracy theory in Palestine according to which the three youths were never kidnapped.
It was too late to warn a friend who owned a shop on the main street what might happen to his security cameras or tell him that soldiers in Hebron shot out cameras outside of stores.
Already on Friday morning, before the big raid on the refugee camp, soldiers arrived and took/ confiscated/stole his own cameras, which had provided some security, or at least an illusion of security.
The remains of grenades and bullet cartridges were scattered on the ground; armored vehicles facing Palestine testified to what had happened, and also, perhaps, on what will happen at this sorry place in the future.