The end of day one!

I am trying to remember all the we did yesterday because it was so long and so full of interesting and shocking things that we didn't have time to write anything down last night. After no sleep on the plane we finally crashed out at half eight and didn't wake this morning till the same time! Here's the rest of yesterday...

The most terrifying thing that we heard at the hospital is that, because it is in East Jerusalem (on the Mount of Olives) patients from the West Bank do not have access to it because they have to go through the wall. In fact, in cases of emergency, people have to travel through the check points in the wall and it is basically up to the Israeli soldiers if they go through or not.

We visited a check point this afternoon and on approaching we saw the soldiers sitting in their hut doing nothing. The traffic queue waiting to go through went back until we couldn’t see it any more. When we got closer, obviously foreigners, the soldiers got up from their posts and began to check people’s passes which was intimidating, humiliating and took ages. These were people just on their way home from work so it was obvious that someone needing urgent medical attention would have no chance. We were told of several occasions when people had died on their way to hospital just because they were stuck in a traffic jam behind a check point and even of women giving birth at check points. The soldiers obviously have no medical training and are just making these decisions on the basis of their own racism and mood.

What has really stuck in all of our visits so far is the hospitality and consciousness of the Palestinian people. Apart from being offered tea, coffee and biscuits everywhere we went, the dedication to community, trade unionism and organizing in every way to improve lives here is overwhelming.

We then went to meet the leader of the Teachers Union. He was very passionate and told us how difficult it was to organize unions. Teachers and Academics have not been allowed to publish any of their work. All textbooks are the Israeli version of history and the current situation. They kindly translated them into Arabic for Palestinian schools! One of our group asked a question about the Israeli Teachers’ Union and if they had ever made a statement in support of the Palestinian teachers or their struggle and the answer was a resounding no. Both unions are members of the International Education Union, who did make a statement in 2001 but that is all. There were classes going on the union office with three classes of 17/18 year olds studying maths and science.

Increasingly tired after trying to take in all this information and all the sights and division, we went on to a refugee ‘camp’. This is a place called Shu’fat in the North of Jerusalem behind the wall. The refugees were forcibly removed from where they lived in the Jewish quarter in around 1965, who consisted of 500 families. They were dumped here with no running water or electricity and had latrines outside, one for around each 50 people. They did, however, have separate facilities for men and women- what a generous thing! The authorities say that there are now around 11,000 people living there but we were told it’s more like 20,000. They have managed to sort out electricity and water somehow but the whole place is completely run down. There is rubbish everywhere in the streets due to the fact that the authorities only account for half the people living there. There is a school but only up to elementary age. So the community here has been living in squalor for forty years, just dumped from their homes where they and their families have lived for generations. It is now a sprawling town with potholed roads, half built homes with electricity lines going over head precariously and rubbish everywhere. There is no hospital and no school. What is even more disgusting is that hanging over the camp is a brand spanking new Jewish 'settlement' with immaculate houses. All the Jewish 'settlements' are built on the top of hills and all have large towers looming over them filled with Israeli soldiers.

Our host was an amazing inspiration who talked about building the community themselves from scratch. They have community centres, counselling services and a group for disabled children but everything is makeshift and not even scratching the surface of what they need. They have a football team, which I learned today is common thing and useful in terms of building solidarity, community and keeping young people away from drugs and into the Politics of Palestine without being obvious. His speech made me very tearful but was followed by an amazingly inspiring one by Suheil about peace in Palestine.

A message we heard again and again was that they want peace. They don't hate Jewish people and they understand that they are here to stay but the Israeli side does not act in the same way and continue to abuse the Palestinians, even encroaching and stealing the land that was agreed in 1948.

We finished the day with a beautiful meal at Abed's house (an amazing man who works at the CADFA centre...more of him later) cooked by his mother. We got really full up, had some tea and hit the sack. I can't believe we survived on so little sleep but there was so much to take in.

My overwhelming feeling at the end of the day was of the blatant apartheid in this country. I didn't realise just how much Palestinians are suffering day to day and it seems that now is more than ever with the wall and lack of movement. I thought of South Africa during apartheid and wondered why we are not campaigning the same back in England as we did then. This is a long blog but there is lots to tell and it's very emotional. I'll be catching up a day late so today's installment tomorrow hopefully.