wfn.org | U.S. Church Leaders Visit Jenin, Bethlehem

["Carol Fouke" <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252
E-mail:news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org
NCC4/26/02 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEMBERS OF NCC-LED CHURCH LEADERS GROUP VISIT JENIN REFUGEE CAMP

By Jim Wetekam*

April 26, 2002, JERUSALEM - Four members of a larger delegation of 14
American church leaders toured the Jenin Refugee Camp yesterday (April 25)
and assisted five U.S.-based aid organizations in the delivery of food,
medicine, and blankets to the people of Jenin.

Today (April 26) a part of the delegation accompanied humanitarian aid to
Bethlehem District.  Delegation members also met today with Gadi Golan,
Director of Religious Affairs in Israels Foreign Ministry; Rabbi David
Rosen, Director of Interfaith Relations for the American Jewish Committee;
U.S. Consul General Ron Schlicher, and with staff of the International
Committee of the Red Cross.

The delegation, organized by the (U.S.) National Council of Churches, has
been in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel.  Their 12-day
peace and pastoral mission began April 16 and ends tomorrow (April 27) with
their return to the United States.

As the four delegation members left Jerusalem for Jenin early Thursday
morning, Dr. Bob Edgar, NCC General Secretary, remarked, "We thought it
important that some of us be able to see for ourselves the level of
destruction and make our own assessment.  And as people try to recover and
rebuild from the rubble, but also still mourn their dead and the missing, we
wanted to join in the assistance efforts."

A convoy of four trucks filled with food and medicine, and seventeen other
vehicles filled with volunteers from the aid agencies, set out from
Jerusalem at 7:00 a.m.  The group was privileged to be accompanied on the
visit by the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah.  The
aid convoy was greeted in many places in the West Bank, particularly as the
group neared Jenin, by persons pausing where they were and waving in support
and thanks.

Sponsoring organizations for the aid delivery were Catholic Relief Services,
World Vision, the Mennonite Central Committee, Caritas International, and
the Pontifical Institute.  In all, 1,500 boxes of food were delivered (a
total of 67,000 pounds), in addition to medical supplies and blankets.  Each
box of food was designed to feed a family of five or six persons for a
period of seven to ten days.  Volunteers mixed with residents of Jenin to
unload the supplies in human-chain style over the course of more than two
hours.

However, it was walking through the Jenin Refugee Camp, site of the most
fierce fighting, that left the greatest impression on the delegation.  In
recent days, other international delegations and diplomats have toured the
camp and eloquently expressed their accounts of the massive level of
destruction and loss of human life there.  Where the damage is worst,
everyone continues to exercise caution in their movements, as did the
delegation, since structures are still shifting; live, unexploded ordnance
still is being discovered; and people vigilantly continue their digging to
find bodies still buried in the rubble.

Though it will be some time before an accurate and reliable number of dead
is determined, clearly a cataclysmic event took place.  The site itself
looks very much as if it were the epicenter of a powerful earthquake.  An
April 22 report by a group including the World Health Organization and the
U.S. government aid agency, USAID, estimated that 600 homes were destroyed
and another 200 made uninhabitable. Other parts of Jenins infrastructure,
such as water lines and electricity, had been ripped out and destroyed.

As the delegation toured, people milled everywhere.  Many were seated or
standing at what used to be their homes, willing to tell their stories and
to show pictures of lost loved ones.  Some women stood precariously on
mounds of rubble as backhoes attempted to dig and presumably find the
remains of missing loved ones.  Others just sat by themselves or with their
children or spoke eagerly with neighbors and friends.

Bishop Arthur Walmsley of Connecticut (retired), representing the Presiding
Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the U.S., reported, "I saw four women
sitting in a house that had an eight-foot-wide hole blown in it; they were
simply talking and having coffee.  It would have been a natural sight, I
suppose, except that I shouldn't have even seen them.  But now they were
seated completely open to the street."  Asked how he felt after seeing the
camp, Bishop Walmsley responded, "Appalled.  This action was against a whole
community, not just terrorists."

In the camp, much antipathy was expressed to the delegation about United
States policy, which some residents identified as allowing a massacre to
happen.  Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the United Methodist General
Board of Church and Society, said, "As we waited at a checkpoint today, a
food shipment from the UN was permitted to go around us and right in.  I was
told later that the residents refused to accept the shipment because the
people saw food packages on which were written 'gift from the United States'
and that there were children's toys that read, 'Made in Israel.'''  Winkler
continued, "I am happy when my tax dollars are used for food, but that food
was rejected because a greater portion of my taxes were used to provide
weapons that destroyed this camp and so many of these people.  It is not a
proud day for me."

Near the end of the walk through the camp, delegates and residents alike
were permitted to make use of a temporary house of mourning, where all
sipped bitter coffee shared in common cups. They sat, reflecting on what had
been experienced, and they prayed.  Bob Edgar of the NCC said simply, "This
was our communion with the people of Jenin.  I was privileged to sit and to
drink coffee with them."

-end-

* Jim Wetekam, Media Program Director for Churches for Middle East Peace,
accompanied the NCC delegation and was the fourth delegation member (along
with Edgar, Walmsley and Winkler) who went to Jenin.