Maternal Fears Reach Across Mideast Battle Lines

The wide, deep valley between Manal Kamel’s home in this Palestinian village and Ayala Cohen’s home in the Jewish neighborhood just opposite is now a battleground, a new front line in an age-old conflict.

Kamel, 26, stands by the picture window in her daughters’ bedroom and gazes out at a sweeping view of rocky hills--and at two Israeli tanks, their guns trained squarely on Beit Jala. “It’s enough to panic us,” she says, cradling Juliana, her 1-year-old, in her arms.

From the neighborhood of Gilo, across the Bir Ona valley, Cohen, 33, looks out her living room window. The home’s stone wall is scarred by bullet holes left two weeks ago by sniper fire from Beit Jala. She echoes Kamel’s worry.

“We are afraid,” Cohen says quietly.

On opposite sides of the widening gulf between Israelis and Palestinians, the two women have watched with anguish as the conflict over this disputed land spills, almost literally, onto their doorsteps.

Friday evening, after Gilo came under sniper fire, Israeli soldiers shot back at Beit Jala. An Israeli tank also fired its machine gun but aimed at an open field, seeking to send a warning, an army spokeswoman said. No injuries were reported, but the exchanges increased the tension in the area.

For Kamel and Cohen, their families and communities, the cross-fire that has flashed across the valley this week is a wrenching reminder of other difficult times here, of 1948 and 1967, when open war raged between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in and around Jerusalem.

They fear more nerve-rattling days to come.

The most recent problems began even as Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed, under international pressure, to work to end more than three weeks of clashes that have convulsed the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and parts of Israel. Nearly 120 people have died in the violence, with thousands more injured. A peace process that still seemed to have possibilities a few months ago now appears to be all but dead.

At midday Tuesday, as President Clinton wrapped up his announcement of a deal at the summit in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, automatic gunfire suddenly raked the buildings on Anafa Street, the first row of houses in Gilo on the side facing Beit Jala.

Two tanks that recently moved to the hillside below the Jewish neighborhood to help protect it quickly swung into position and hit back with machine guns. In the exchange, an Israeli border policeman was hit in the chest and severely wounded, and two Israeli civilians suffered light injuries. No injuries were reported on the Palestinian side.

Panic broke out on both sides of the valley.

In Beit Jala, Juliana and her 4-year-old sister, Juwana, were napping on the second floor of their modern stone apartment building when Kamel heard outgoing machine-gun fire from a house just up the hill. She grabbed her girls as they woke up, crying, and ran downstairs. They huddled together, far from the windows, to wait for retaliatory fire from the Israelis.

That night, she and her husband, a candle-maker, took their daughters and spent the night at a relative’s home on the far side of Beit Jala.

“This is the most horrible thing,” Kamel said the next day. “We don’t feel safe in our house. We can’t protect our children.”

Now, Kamel said, she feels confused, frustrated and extremely angry. She is outraged at the Israelis for targeting her village and resentful of the Palestinians for drawing fire and endangering their neighbors.

“We are like victims between them,” she said.

Kamel’s sister-in-law, Shadia Bazazo, 35, lives in the building, too, with her husband and four sons, ranging in age from 8 to 15.

“Palestinians should be strong, and we are strong,” she said, her eyes ringed with worry. “But because of our children, it is hard.”

The neighborhood of Gilo, on the southern edge of Jerusalem, was built on land that residents of Beit Jala consider theirs, territory that was mostly confiscated from residents of the Palestinian village after the 1967 Middle East War. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and greatly expanded the city’s boundaries to the south and east.

A month ago, after spending $25,000 and half a year renovating their hilltop apartment, Ayala Cohen, her husband, Daniel, and their two young children--6-year-old Oded and Liron, 18 months--finally, happily, moved to Gilo.

Two weeks later, the Cohens were watching television on the first night of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, when two bullets slammed into the wall of their ground floor apartment, barely missing the living room window.

They were badly shaken but lucky. “My neighbor stepped out of the kitchen for a minute and returned to find a bullet lodged in his fridge,” Cohen said.

Bullets hit the neighborhood on Tuesday, Wednesday and again Friday evening. Like the Kamel family, the Cohens are spending many nights with relatives in quieter parts of town.

Cohen says she worries about the effects of the violence and fear on her children, especially her son, Oded. This week, she sent him to her parents in southern Israel, away from Jerusalem’s tensions.

Yet on Tuesday, as Israel television aired pictures of the gunfire on his neighborhood, Oded called, tearful and frantic about his parents and baby sister. “I told him, ‘Don’t be afraid, we are OK, the army is here,’ ” said Cohen, who works for one of Israel’s largest candy companies.

Yet on Tuesday, as Israeli television aired pictures of the gunfire aimed at his neighborhood, Oded called, tearful and frantic about his parents and baby sister. “I told him, “Don’t be afraid; we are OK; the army is here’,” said Cohen, who works for one of Israel’s largest candy companies.

She takes comfort from the presence of the tanks, hoping they will help deter the shooting, and from new concrete barriers constructed by the army to try to protect the residents.

But she remains angry and depressed, frustrated about a new home that is suddenly less attractive and a situation she feels helpless to change.

“Who would buy or rent my house now?” Cohen asked bitterly. “Who would want to come live here? And where would I go? This is my country, and I shouldn’t have to be scared.”