The missiles were falling, the tanks were firing rockets, the home invasions were on a rampage, the Italian photographer was shot dead, killed in cold blood in Ramallah and Fr. Ibrahim Hijazin opened his church as usual to pray during the daily Mass. This was not a well attended service on Wednesday afternoon with the severe curfew in Ramallah and the Israeli snipers high up on buildings shooting at anything and anyone that moves. Fr. Ibrahim is a firm believer of keeping the faith and teaching his parishioners the eternal joy and peace that comes from accepting Christ as our Savior. He feels praying is a must: “without prayer we are lost” he told me as I call daily to check on him since they are shooting right outside his convent which happens to be where my office is as well.

O Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever (Psalm 107)

The missiles were falling, the tanks were firing rockets, the home invasions were on a rampage, the Italian photographer was shot dead, killed in cold blood in Ramallah and Fr. Ibrahim Hijazin opened his church as usual to pray during the daily Mass. This was not a well attended service on Wednesday afternoon with the severe curfew in Ramallah and the Israeli snipers high up on buildings shooting at anything and anyone that moves. Fr. Ibrahim is a firm believer of keeping the faith and teaching his parishioners the eternal joy and peace that comes from accepting Christ as our Savior. He feels praying is a must: “without prayer we are lost” he told me as I call daily to check on him since they are shooting right outside his convent which happens to be where my office is as well.


The catastrophe in Ramallah started on Monday morning where on our way to school we saw dozens of trailers carrying tanks to the outskirts of Ramallah. Something felt a bit strange. After school on the way home, the same trailers were carrying more tanks. By midnight Monday the majority of tanks had surrounded all of Ramallah and by 1 a.m. the Israeli army had complete control of the city with over 150 tanks in the area and 20,000 soldiers in the West Bank. It was one of the worst and major invasions since the war with Lebanon. The principal at the Ein Arik School with five tanks in front of her house alone told me: “We want them to leave, the situation is very bad. We are just sitting in the house and we are very scared. Four days just sitting home doing nothing. I just want to open my door and go outside…I want to breath…we need to sleep safely and go to our work safely,” said Mervat who keeps her two little girls sleeping with her because they are too frightened to sleep alone. The sound of bombs and shooting have kept every adult and child awake the last few nights not just in Ramallah, but Bethlehem, Gaza and most Palestinian cities and towns. Mervat has food supplies to last a few more days. But in other neighborhoods the situation is much worst especially for mothers with very young children who need milk.


With dozens of tanks in front of her house and heavy shooting in her area, Maha, one of our English teachers has been without electricity for two days and most of her food in the refrigerator is beginning to spoil for her three children. “We hope an end will come to this situation, we are just prisoners without electricity inside our homes…it is so dangerous to move…we hope they leave…I can’t even look outside of my window because of the snipers, it is like a ghost town.” She thinks she can feed the children for about a week with macaroni that she has in the house and then she would have finished everything.


My Greek friend Margarita ran out of bread early because she lives next to many shops and can purchase everything she needs fresh and daily so she was not prepared for a four day prison sentence in her own home. She has been feeding her little girl dried beans and lentils day in and day out until the stores are allowed to open again. Her mother-in-law that did have large supplies of food such as large bags of flour, rice, sugar and large containers of oil had it all sabotaged by the Israeli soldiers. As they do in most homes, they locked up the women and children in one room of the house while they took the men outside to torture them and at the same time destroyed everything on the premises. Also the Israeli soldiers took the bags of flour and spilled them out on the floor and on top of it the bag of rice and on top of it the sugar and poured the containers of oil to finish them off. Then, they continued to look for the “terrorists.”


Rana who is an assistant principal to Fr. Ibrahim at the Al Ahliyyah School has been sitting in one corner of her house for the majority of the time. All the members of her family sit in one spot because they are too scared to escape as her neighborhood is being bombarded next to Arafat’s headquarters. Sometimes, really, we have a hard time understanding why the American government continues to provide Israel with weapons used against civilians. And even more shocking is how the American people don’t stop their government from supporting these crimes against humanity in the Holy Land. Many houses in different locations in Ramallah have been taken over completely by the Israelis and turned into military posts. The Israeli soldiers terrorize the small children in these homes with their guns. Their tanks and jeeps traumatize even adults because the sound of their movement is so loud and agonizing. Life as “normal” has stopped to exist this week and for most people it has been devastating since September 28, 2000.


The worst situation is the way the Israeli army surrounded the Ramallah hospital and will not allow ambulances to come or go within the city. The hospital has been without electricity and water. The medical staff is prevented from helping wounded people. The dialysis patients were prevented from receiving dialysis treatment since this nightmare began on Monday night. Two women that have died in Margarita’s neighborhood could not be buried or placed in the hospital to await burial because of this awful curfew. Nikki, another Greek-American living in this land is passed her due date and does not know where or how she will deliver her baby with Ramallah under occupation.


We ask for your prayers and we ask you to contact your government officials to pressure Israel to stop the occupation and the military escalation against the Palestinian people living in the Holy Land. In this third millenium, the Israeli army does not know the difference between a hospital, a school, a church, a university or a “terrorist.” They are simply destroying everything in their site while breaking all humanitarian laws and international laws. Is that what it means to be God’s chosen people…to be above the law and to deny over three million Palestinians their human rights?