David Rolstone's Letters from Palestine

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Monday, 5 January 2004 - The dust

Hi All,

This morning the IDF were again in Balata Camp with three jeeps enforcing curfew and occupying one house, this house is regularly occupied and the family is utterly fed up with the situation.

Everyone is starting to feel the strain of these continual invasions and incursions. Some of us stayed in Balata and I went to Nablus. The army is still occupying the same part of the old city but has also increased the area of its intense occupation.

This morning a reporter was shot and wounded and last night a fireman was also wounded. The fireman was attempting with other fireman to reach a house that the IDF had bombed which had caught fire when they came under fire from the soldiers and had to withdraw leaving the house to burn. The old city is so tightly packed that this was a very dangerous situation if the fire had spread, fortunately it did not. Today we delivered food to one house and generally tried to find ways to give support to the people but it is not easy and everyone has a sense of frustration at our inability to do anything in the face of such armed aggression. From one point today I was able to see one of the demolished houses. Earlier in the week I had taken a photo of the same area so I'm hoping that I will have before and after photos of this demolishing. The tanks and APC's continue to brake up the pavements and roads that have only just been repaired after April 2002 and once more dust is everywhere. At the moment it is raining for the first time in weeks so at least the dust will be settled if not the situation.

Still hoping with the Palestinians for peace, Dave

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