wfn.org | Israeli peace activist bombed with Palestinian friends

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Topic:  Israeli peace activist  bombed with Palestinian friends

Tel: 972-(0)3-5565804
Neta  972-(0)50-757504, neta_g@internet.zahav.net.il
http://www.gush-shalom.org/

BEIT SAHUR, (NEAR BETHLEHEM), November 1--The increasingly bitter struggle is
taking a heavy toll in human life and suffering.

Repeated and increased bombings of the Palestinian cities as the
answer to the Palestinian struggle for its independence is a sign of an
ossified way of thought, which regards force as a solution to problems. This
approach failed, even when undertaken by countries bigger and more
powerful than Israel. The source of the problem is the occupation, the
attempt to hold on to Palestinian lands and settle in them. As long as the
occupation continues, so will Palestinian opposition to the occupation,
depite the increasingly brutal measures taken. Follows the story of an
Israeli eyewitness:

"The ongoing bombings by helicopter gunships create an atmosphere of fear
among Palestinian civilians. Children are waking up with nightmares, night
after night" says Neta G., an Israeli peace activist from Jerusalem who spent
last night in the house of Palestinian friends at the town of Beit Sahur,
south of Jerusalem. "The town was subjected to heavy bombings. I could hear 
the
explosions, all too clearly. In the morning I visited the bombed site
together with my friends. One house had burned down completely, and two others
were severely damaged and rendered uninhabitable - all of them the abodes
of civilian families who had nothing to do with any shooting."

She says she had no apprehension about going to a Palestinian town and
staying there the night. "I know many people in Beit Sahur, and have friends
there. The Palestinians are well able to distinguish between an  Israeli who
comes to them as a respectful friend and guest, and one which comes as an
occupier, gun in hand. As a matter of fact, these days I feel more safe as an
Israeli in Beit Sahur then as a peace activist in the streets of Jerusalem,
facing the extreme right".