by Anna Baltzer

Five years ago, nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in
their West Bank home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a
nearby Israeli Occupation Forces military base. The Army had moved in
on a hill near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and
would frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often
retaliating against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the
suburb. As the gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed
began to shake violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive
paralysis. His grandmother ran to pick him up and also inhaled the
gas, causing an intense burning sensation all over her body. When she
realized her grandson had stopped moving, she pleaded with the
soldiers outside to open the road out of her town and raced Mohammed
to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe neurological
deterioration resulting in a vegetative state. The Palestinian
Ministry of Health and UNRWA conducted extensive tests on Mohammed and
his parents to determine with certainty the cause of his condition.
After a full genetic investigation, doctors confirmed that Mohammed's
state was neither hereditary nor due to a chromosomal abnormality, but
a result of the poisonous gas.

I met Mohammed's father Sami waiting at a checkpoint near Haris. He'd
hesitated to publicize his son's story for fear of harassment from the
Army. He said his family was suffering enough - their personal tragedy
only began with the gassing. After Mohammed's injury, Sami's father
went from being a strong healthy 47-year-old to an emotional and
physical wreck, and died one year later from stress and heart
problems. Mohammed, now six, continues to suffer from severe
neuro-developmental delay, poorly controlled seizure disorder, the
loss of sight, and inability to eat normally. He eats via a G-tube
(poking directly into his stomach) and is fed a special formula
"Pediasure" that is not available in Israel/Palestine, so Sami travels
to Jordan every three months to bring the formula and anticonvulsants
that Mohammad requires. Each time Sami crosses back to the West Bank,
he is forced to pay Israeli customs taxes on the formula, totaling
hundreds of dollars a year. This is in addition to countless other
expenses: land travel, adult diapers, maintaining his customized bed
(to prevent bed sores), medicine, and round-the-clock care. Sami and
his wife spend so much money taking care of Mohammed that they lack
the remaining funds to take legal action against the Israeli Army for
poisoning their son.

Tragic stories of Occupation-induced paralysis are common in the West
Bank, so even if Mohammed's family had the money for a lawsuit there's
little reason to believe it would be remarkable enough to bring the
Israeli Army to justice. I recently interviewed Moussa, a young
paraplegic who lost the use of his legs five years ago at the age of
19 when the Army shot him in the colon. One Monday in February, Moussa
began experiencing severe pain from an infection in his wound, which a
Red Crescent doctor warned could become systemic if not treated
immediately. The infection risked reaching the bones in Moussa's back,
developing gangrene, and poisoning his blood, but even the best West
Bank hospitals had sent him home because they were ill-equipped to
treat such a serious condition. On Tuesday, Moussa's doctor referred
him to a hospital in Jordan, and in two days the family renewed
Moussa's passport and obtained a transfer from the Palestinian
Ministry of Health to receive treatment in Amman. Then on Thursday, as
the family was preparing to leave, Israel refused the sick
wheelchair-bound young man permission to leave the West Bank for
unspecified "security reasons." When Moussa's doctor explained that
waiting could mean the difference between life and death, the Israeli
DCO invited the family to appeal the decision, but only three days
later, after the Jewish Sabbath.

We put Moussa's family in touch with Physicians for Human Rights, who
were successful in getting him to Jordan before his infection could
become fatal. But Moussa will still never walk again, nor will my
neighbor and friend Issa, who shot by soldiers outside his home in May
2001 as he ushered children in from the streets during an Army
invasion. In spite of his handicap, Issa remains committed to working
nonviolently against the Occupation. Last time we spoke, he quoted an
Arabic saying: "You can't clap with one hand." He said Jews,
Palestinians, and the world must work together to end injustice and
oppression everywhere.

Almost three years ago, Issa wrote an open letter to the two anonymous
soldiers who shot and paralyzed him. It was published in Haaretz and
elsewhere
(http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Westbank/murderers_levy_haaretz.html),
and I've copied it below. It is worth reading:

"I remember you. I remember your confused face when you stood above my
head and wouldn't let people come to my aid. I remember how my voice
grew weaker, when I said to you: `Be humane and let my parents help
me.' I keep all those pictures in my head. How I lay on the ground,
trying to get up but unable. How I fought my shortness of breath,
which was caused by the blood that was collecting in my lungs, and the
voice that was weakened because my diaphragm was hurt. I won't hide
from you that despite this, I had pity for them. I felt that I was
strong, because I had powers I didn't know about before.

"That was exactly three years ago. I rushed out of the house in order
to distance the village children from the danger of the teargas. They
were used to playing their simple games on the dusty streets of the
village while the pregnant women watched over them and chatted. I
didn't believe that your weapons contained live bullets or dum-dum
bullets, which are prohibited under international law. I was able to
protect the children and get them away from your fire, and I don't
regret that.

"I pity you for having become murderers. Since I was a boy, I have
hated killing, hated weapons and hated the color red, just as I hate
injustice and fight against it. That is how I have understood life
since I was a boy, and that, in the same spirit, is what I have taught
others. I gave all my strength for the sake of peace and justice and
for reducing the suffering that is caused by injustice, whatever its
origin. Yes, I pitied you, because you are sick. Sick with hate and
loathing, sick with causing injustice, sick with egoism, with the
death of the conscience and the allure of power. Recovery and
rehabilitation from those illnesses, just as from paralysis, is very
long, but possible. I pitied you, I pitied your children and your
wives and I ask myself how they can live with you when you are
murderers. I pitied you for having shed your humanity and your values
and the precepts of your religion and even your military laws, which
forbid breaking into homes and beating civilians, because that
undermines the soldier's morale, his strength and his manhood.

"I pitied you for saying that you are the victims of the Nazis of
yesterday, and I don't understand how yesterday's victim can become
today's criminal. That worries me in connection with today's victim -
my people are those victims - and I am afraid that they too will
become tomorrow's criminals. I pity you for having fallen victim to a
culture that understands life as though it is based on killing,
destruction, sowing fear and terror, and lording it over others.
Despite all that, I believe that there is a chance for atonement and
forgiveness and a possibility that you will restore to yourselves
something of your lost humanity and morality. You can recover from the
illnesses of hatred and the lust for revenge, and if we should meet
one day, even in my house, you can be certain that you won't find me
holding an explosive belt or concealing a knife in my pocket or in the
wheels of my chair. But you will find someone who will help you get
back what you lost.

"You will find a soft and delicate infant here, whose age is the same
as the second in which you pulled the trigger and who will never see
his father standing on his feet but who is full of pride and power,
even if he has to push his father's chair, having no other choice.
Even though I have reasons to hate you, I don't feel that way and I
have no regrets."

-Issa Suf; May 15, 2004; the third anniversary of my being wounded

Issa is Arabic for Jesus, who is also revered as a prophet in the
Muslim faith. Some would say it's a suitable name for a man who
believes in responding to injustice with passionate nonviolence and
forgiveness. Mohammed and Moussa (which means Moses, also a prophet in
Islam) never wrote a letter like Issa's, but they and their families
welcomed me, a Jewish American, into their homes with gentle kindness
and openness. Struggling for peace and survival in spite of great
personal tragedies, the three prophets' namesakes and their families,
like so many Palestinians paralyzed physically (as well as
emotionally, spiritually, and economically) by the Occupation, are
some of the true - albeit often forgotten - heroes of Palestine.

Anna Baltzer
(Pictures by Anna Baltzer)

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