Summary
Northern West Bank city that Chapter 3, “Outside In”, of Palestine Inside Out treats as a major site of resistance kept under siege: raided almost nightly, subjected to the 2002 offensive in which about 600 people were killed there — more than anywhere else in the West Bank, as the work presents it — and to 4,808 hours of curfew between the summer of 2002 and the fall of 2004 (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.234-235, p.242, p.245).
Details
- One day of total closure fell for every three days of “normal” movement in Nablus in 2006; the city of over 130,000 serves a further 350,000 people in the northern West Bank (PDF p.101-102).
- Medic Lutfi of the Balata refugee camp told the author in 2004: “Every night, until now,” the soldiers come into the city, entering houses by blowing holes through walls from neighbouring houses (PDF p.235).
- In the 2002 assault a tank-wide avenue of obliteration was carved through the old souks so tanks could reach the core without exposing infantry; the city was held under a twenty-four-hour curfew for ten days at a stretch, water and electricity disrupted, and anyone venturing out could be fired on (PDF p.243).
- For the first ten days of the 2002 attack rescue and evacuation were practically impossible and the main hospitals received no wounded for a week; pharmacist Tahani Fattouh’s premature baby died for want of an incubator two kilometres away after the ambulance was turned back and fired on (PDF p.243-245).
- According to UN-OCHA there were 436 raids in the Nablus governorate in the first half of 2007, detaining over 600 people; curfew hours were 379 in 2005, 342 in 2006 and 224 in the first half of 2007 (PDF p.245).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Jenin, Closure system, B’Tselem