Eyewitness report from West Bank: Watching rockets, uncertainty, and fear for the future

Toine van Teeffelen's new book

Toine van Teeffelen, Author and Pax Christi partner at the Arab Education Institute in Bethlehem writes: Last night: absurd to the point of being surreal. From our windows, we watch Iranian rockets in the sky, as if they were fireworks. Fragments intercepted by Israeli rockets. Heavy booms in the distance.

Aside from the rockets and their limited impact, many people are dying in Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon and Beirut. In various places in Gaza this morning: dozens of deaths from Israeli bombings. Gaza just disappears from the news. In Jaffa yesterday, an attack by Palestinians left several dead.

Our family has been back in Bethlehem for a few weeks after a trip. What you mainly see among people here is uncertainty and fear for the present and the future. No one knows what the coming days or weeks will bring.

The uncertainty also concerns travel. The checkpoint at the "container," the strategic hinge between the southern and northern parts of the West Bank east of Jerusalem, has been closed for several hours during the day for the past few days. Traveling to Ramallah is impossible or sometimes takes 3-4 hours instead of the usual 1 hour.

The unpredictability also applies to the other hundreds of fixed and mobile checkpoints within the West Bank. The short trip from the West Bank to Jerusalem is only possible in exceptional cases. It seems like a new normal is emerging.

This morning, I hear that some Palestinians at checkpoints, with videos of the rockets from yesterday on their phones, were arrested. Several were beaten badly, and a few hospitalized. On social media, someone writes to Abu Mazen, the president of the Palestinian Authority: "Ihmouna! Protect us!" The responses mock Abbas and what he can do.

There is great uncertainty about the economic future, with work in Israel blocked, the Palestinian Authority without income, and tourism in Bethlehem at a standstill. The Church of the Nativity is completely empty. It's an image that reminds one of the Second Intifada from 20 years ago. That Intifada memory also applies to the mentioned travel problems, the unpredictability, and the accompanying disorientation.

Incidentally, it's not as though there is an obvious movement of Israeli troops from the West Bank to the Lebanese border. As for Bethlehem: there are almost daily raids in the villages surrounding the city, also in some parts of Bethlehem itself and the neighboring towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, and especially in the adjacent refugee camps. Other parts of the West Bank, particularly the north, are under even greater pressure.

Palestinians avoid the Wall. I've wanted to place a large Wall poster with a Danish love song around Bethlehem on the Wall for some time ("Jesus loves the wall down"), but no one wants to do the job now, far too dangerous, especially when you're filmed by cameras.

Land confiscations, the new outposts around Bethlehem-all of that continues, even accelerated. Just like the increase in Palestinian emigration abroad.

It's strange. While many people are dying daily in Gaza and southern Lebanon, we know all too well that the Israeli government, in its attempt to "reshape the Middle East," certainly also has its eye on the "reshaping" of that other front-in-the-shadows, the West Bank - now and in the future.

Toine van Teeffelen

Bethlehem

2 October 2024

Toine van Teeffelen recently published: 'The Birthplace of Jesus is in Palestine - to be - reviewed soon on ICN See: www.amazon.co.uk/Birthplace-Jesus-Palestine-Memoir/dp/B0CY7ZR4C9