Qalandiya

As if it weren’t enough that the Gaza patients’ exit is potholed and filled with rain puddles, there is yet the metal gate that was locked and made it very difficult to pass their numerous bags through the narrow turnstiles.

When I wondered why they were not allowed to exit through the compound’s main gate which would make their departure so much easier, someone who knows the system well had the answer: “Making things easier for them is not quite the point here…”

A woman carrying her 40-day old baby in a sling in one hand, and her bags in the other hand, stopped in front of the puddle stretching the entire breadth of the road, fearing to trip. When she saw me on the other side of the water, she handed me the baby to be taken to the designated transport vehicle.

There is something quite delightful carrying a baby making its very first journey home and wish him and his mom all the best.

My delight was erased at once at the sight of armed, uniformed Israelis arresting two children. These are the brothers Rajabi of the Qalandiya refugee camp – the elder is 14-years old, the younger d12, said a man who recognized them in the photos I had taken.

The next time their parents will see the children will be at the Ofer detention base and military court.

What took place was that the boys were standing on the main road in front of the refugee camp and throwing stones at the corner watchtower. It’s true that the cliché says stones kill, but these boys and their stones were no threat to anyone. The watchtower is unmanned, and the children were competing with each other whose stone would hit the tower and make a sound. And indeed, every hit gave a metallic sound… thus until they were arrested.

I don’t know who summoned the armed men, whether the cause was the stones’ sounds, or the cameras that don’t miss a single thing there – I just know for sure that the arrest was only a prologue for the teargas clouds that were fired near the wall and the clouds that covered the refugee camp like flocks of white goats.

Don’t worry, things will get better, said a friend, in an attempt to reassure himself, and my.

Only the first one-hundred years are difficult. Then things work out…