Searching For Eliyahu Gorey



By



Rob Eshelman



East Jerusalem comes alive early. The six a.m. sun hits the high, stonewalls of the Old City and castes a long shadow before the Damascus Gate. Radios from taxi cabs and passing police vehicles squawk commands to the cab drivers, already chain-smoking, and the 18-year old soldiers behind the wheels of their jeeps. A cab driver yells, “Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv” over and over, while the smell of falafel balls frying in hot oil and Turkish coffees waft through the crisp morning air.



Despite being in Palestine, some things remain the same for me – the need for a morning caffeine fix and a look at the day’s headlines. For the second consecutive day, the English language addition of Haaretz is focused on a missing Israeli cab driver, Eliyahu Gorey, suspected of being apprehended by Palestinian militants. It smacks of the same stupid sensational journalism rampant in the US: Lacy Peterson, or that child star from Colorado who we were commanded to care about.



The ride to Ramallah is bumpy and I arrive at the Qalandia checkpoint outside of the city within 30 minutes. Checkpoints – the object which so clearly illustrates the realities of Israeli occupation. From above, Qalandia would take the shape of a dumbbell. At each end of the checkpoint, massive amounts of activity. Cabs, trucks carrying goods, people trying to get to work or to see their families. In the middle, a long narrow stream of people passing nearly single fill under the gaze of young Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons.

nolympics submits

by Juliana Fredman



Art.55 To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.



Art. 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the public Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties. Geneva Convention.


In the perversity that overwhelms while making a documentary about other people's misery we had to make a conscious effort not to lament the recent, albeit limited, easing of restrictions. 'If only you had been here last year', everyone said. 'You would see they shoot at the ambulances every day. We were so short on supplies that now we keep 6 months worth in all towns'.



So many patients die of kidney failure at checkpoints that first Jenin and now Tulkarim have been forced to establish small dialysis units. The trip to Nablus had become too hazardous, too long, and often the patients were turned around and left to go home and die. More than 70 patients have died in ambulances being held at checkpoints. Many more babies have been born at checkpoints or at home in villages because ambulances could not reach them. Incidents of death during or just after labor for both mother and child have increased dramatically in the past two and a half years. I was here last summer, riding ambulances, doing direct action, too horrified and busy to pick up a camera. But now things appear quieter.