Words from Palestine

We have a new volunteer and was giving her a tour of the village and introducing her to some of the villagers. We stopped at the balidyia (the municipality building) and was offered tea by the mayor. While having our short visit, he received a phone call from someone in the front of the village that Israeli Occupation Forces had entered the village. We immediately went out to monitor the situation.
Villagers directed us to where the IOF was. There were 3 jeeps and about 12 soldiers. They drove around the village and parked at the entrance of a boy’s school where summer camp is being held. While the soldiers from one of the jeeps entered the summer camp, fully armed, the other two jeeps parked at the square just outside the school. Soldiers stood outside of their jeeps with machine guns in hand. The soldiers were in the school for about 10 minutes. IWPS volunteers attempted to enter the summer camp but were not allowed to pass the army jeeps. So instead we started taking photos.

After leaving the summer camp, the jeeps drove down the main street and stopped at a shop where we often buy our fruits and vegetables. The jeeps blocked the street and four soldiers entered the shop while the others were out of their jeeps blocking pedestrians, machine guns in hand. At this point the soldiers told IWPS volunteers to stop taking photos and demanded we stay some distance away from them. There were children playing all around. One IWPS member asked a soldier what the problem was. The soldier responded there was no problem. To this the IWPS replied that having machine guns around small children was a problem.

They were in the shop for 5 to 10 minutes before coming out, then drove away out of our village toward the direction of a neighboring village, Kifl Haris . Shop keepers later told us that soldiers were asking them general questions about problems in the village while other village residents told us that the soldiers were asking them about village economy and unemployment.
The same three jeeps came back into the village after a short while. They again drove down the main street and stopped in the middle of the village. There was a truck in the village center delivering the monthly rations of food given to the Palestinians. Sacks of flower, rice and lentils along with large jugs of cooking oil were being given out. The bags were marked USAID. It is a sad irony that aid from the United States is both feeding the people of Palestine as well as fueling the occupation that starves their body and eats away at their spirit.

It seems apparent to me that this incursion was an act geared toward normalizing the occupation. They want villagers to think it is normal for heavily armed soldiers to come into a village, block roads and harass people. They want the children of Palestine to think that Zionists who have come to steal their land are their friends. Though thankfully, there were not arrests or injuries from this army incursion, I found this action of the Israeli Occupation Forces one of the most insidious forms of the Zionist Occupation.