Bringing badly needed aid into shattered Nablus with the first relief convoy

April 10, 2002



Michael Jansen negotiates Israeli army checkpoints in a relief expedition on the West Bank.

The first relief convoy enters the northern West Bank town of Nablus in a cloud of fine dust raised by our 15 cars and three lorries loaded with food and medical supplies.

In the lead is Medecins du Monde followed by the French consulate's armoured jeep. Oxfam-Quebec, Medical Aid for Palestinians, American Near East Refugee Aid, Veterinarios Sin Fronteras and World Vision have common four-wheeled drive vehicles, vans and cars.

We drive through ghostly countryside without seeing a Palestinian. At the first Israeli army checkpoint we are detained for 90 minutes. We proceed without high profile television and photo journalists. We show no papers. Two Israeli jeeps escort us into Nablus, a city of 116,000 people.

The destruction here is far worse than in Ramallah or Bethlehem. The entire length of the main road is devastated. Flattened cars hug the sides of the road, shop fronts are caved in, houses bulldozed, kerbs crunched, light poles felled. The road is littered with broken stone and cratered by bombs.

Apartment blocks in the Balata refugee camp, the site of fierce resistance last February, have been burnt. The governor's headquarters, lodged in an old Ottoman barracks, lies in ruins. Only the bare stone arches remain hunched above rubble. We hear explosions and machine-gun fire. Israel's campaign is far from over here. But Palestinians resist by putting out flags on poles and balconies. We make our way to the school for the handicapped which serves as the base for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Ambulance drivers and humanitarian workers gather round as we emerge from the cars. The ICRC delegate, Mr Beat Mosimann, greets us with a smile: "It's a very nice surprise to see you all," he says. "It's the first time anyone comes in 10 days." Before we unload the lorries, Mr Mosimann tells me: "Ambulances are obstructed every time they go out. They are regularly shot at." He shows me two bullet holes in the engine of a UN ambulance. "Two others were shot, each in two tyres." He has been fired at three times by the Israeli army, once while trying to carry a wounded man. "It took seven hours to co-ordinate one evacuation [with the Israeli army] and 12 hours to carry it out. The distance was about 3km. The 12 wounded included children. We would clear one checkpoint and be stopped at the next. There are too many soldiers around, too much indiscipline. The paratroopers [an elite force] can be very nice," he stated.

The ICRC managed to evacuate 25 bodies from a small building inside the old city only because the Israeli army turned up with some journalists.

Mr Mosimann asserts: "From the humanitarian point of view, any armed force in the world has to respect international law and care for the wounded, the sick, old people. If there are wounded, [the force] must care for them and guarantee maximum protection and minimum damage. It must allow food and medical aid. It cannot simply punish \. The others \ also must not hide in heavily populated areas."

He concluded: "In my opinion, \ whole system does not take into consideration humanitarian concerns."

We form a human chain to transfer the boxes of flour, tinned goods, rice, oil and pasta to a storage area in the school. As the convoy assembles to depart, an Israeli helicopter flies overhead and fires a missile into the casbah.