‘Alive Dead People’ Living in a Paralyzed Bethlehem

Locked inside his home in this holy town, Hassan Dalou finds it hard to believe that for two weeks, the Israeli army has controlled the garbage-choked streets outside his front door and enforced a curfew so strict that it has created food shortages.

Just down the road from the home where he and his family have lived for generations, a grim standoff between the Israeli army and Palestinian gunmen barricaded inside the Church of the Nativity continues, holding Bethlehem hostage.

Daily life has been paralyzed by the large deployment of troops around the 4th century sanctuary, built on the site where Christians believe that Jesus was born, and into the streets radiating from it.

Living so close to the church, Dalou said, “I thought I was safe.”

Bethlehem residents have largely been confined to their homes, allowed out only four times in two weeks to dash to food stores, where supplies are dwindling.

When they go into the streets, they find themselves maneuvering around mounds of rotting garbage, through rivulets of raw sewage and past the burned-out carcasses of cars.

Two years ago, Bethlehem shone as the crown jewel of Palestinian tourism. The city attracted hundreds of millions of dollars for development and restoration from international donors in the run-up to the millennium. The money was spent on restoring Bethlehem’s ancient old city, upgrading electricity, water and sewage systems and building hotels and other tourist facilities.

“We had a new look for the town,” said Nuha Khoury, a professor of medieval Islamic studies at Bethlehem University who lives across the street from the destroyed offices of the Palestinian Authority. “Bethlehem was trying to become a cultural center for the Palestinians, and in the year 2000, this town was booming.

“Now,” she said sadly, “it is all destroyed in two weeks. Now death rules this area.”

Economic, Spiritual Ruin in the City

Nearly 19 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting and the army’s reoccupation have wrecked the city’s infrastructure and deeply scarred the psyches of its residents.

Khoury said she has conversations all the time with students who deeply admire the bombers who are strapping on explosives and blowing themselves up in crowds of Israelis.

“I ask them: What if there is a Palestinian Einstein among these young people who have died?” said Khoury, 40. “The question for us as Bethlehemites is, how are we going to rebuild? What will it cost--and not just economically but spiritually?”

Khoury and other residents complain that their plight has been eclipsed by the focus on more than 100 militants, along with priests, monks, nuns and Palestinian officials, who have been holed up inside the Church of the Nativity since April 2. The Israelis are demanding that the gunmen lay down their arms, surrender and face trial in Israel or go into exile. The gunmen say they have no intention of allowing Israel to determine their fate.

Outside the church, dramas play out daily in the streets. Parents hurry along deserted roads, their brows knit with worry, carrying children to doctors or clinics in defiance of the curfew. Other parents send toddlers into the streets to fetch food from neighbors or relatives, betting that soldiers won’t shoot at pint-size curfew violators.

As the curfew continues, residents say, they are finding it hard to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products, as stores have trouble getting deliveries from Israel or other parts of the West Bank.

“My mother,” said Khoury, “is baking her own bread for the first time in her life because many of the bakeries simply have stopped opening when the curfew is lifted.”

Tanks rumbling down narrow cobblestoned streets have crushed dozens of cars. Electrical lines and sewage pipes have been destroyed. Public buildings and private homes have been badly damaged, and some have been reduced to rubble.

A trio of white dirigibles equipped with cameras floats high above Manger Square, the site in previous years of joyous Christmas pageantry, fueling rumors that Israel will soon lose patience with the gunmen and storm the church.

From inside the church, Palestinians warn that Israel will provoke a blood bath if it sends in troops.

The Dalous have suffered both material damage and trauma as the standoff has worn on. All the windowpanes of the home, where Dalou lives with his wife, four children and elderly parents, were blown out during the first days of fighting.

The children sleep on mattresses laid on the floor of the living room. But Dalou’s parents refused to abandon their bedroom. “My father is 90 years old, and he said, ‘Son, I do not fear death,’ ” Dalou said. “ ‘Let me sleep in my own bed.’ ”

An auto upholsterer, Dalou stapled fabric to the window frames in his parents’ bedroom to keep out the cold.

There has been little fighting for days now, he said, but on Sunday, explosions rocked the family home again as Israeli troops walked down the street, tossing hand grenades into crushed cars.

“I think they were afraid the cars might be booby-trapped,” Dalou said. “But they gave us no warning, and the children were terrified.” One blast was so powerful that it blew the back fender of a car onto the roof of Dalou’s three-story home.

Residents Watch TV News Endlessly

Dalou’s eldest daughter, 17-year-old Effat, said the curfew has numbed her senses. She does nothing but watch television news, she said.

“My mind is blocked,” said the teenager, still clad in pajamas at midday. “I can’t do homework, I can’t read books. I’m just sitting. Young people are dying, we aren’t living anymore, we are just alive dead people. I feel useless. People are getting killed, and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t help anybody.”

Effat said she tries to help her younger brothers, who have been terrorized by the gun battles outside their door.

People across Bethlehem said they watch television endlessly for news on Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s peace mission or local bulletins announcing when and for how long curfews will be lifted.

In the Dahaishe refugee camp in southern Bethlehem, brothers Mahmoud and Said Atallah have a special interest in the news. Both men have sons inside the Church of the Nativity. Each time there is a report of gunfire in the area, troop movements or diplomatic efforts to resolve the stalemate, the Atallahs call the cell phone number of one of the fighters inside the church and ask to speak to their sons.

“My son, Zeid, is 17 years old,” Mahmoud Atallah said. “He was in Manger Square the day the troops came and fled to the church, but he is not in any militia.”

He said Zeid’s older brother, Jad, was a militant with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is linked to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and has claimed responsibility for some suicide bombings. Jad was killed March 8 in an Israeli helicopter attack as he drove through the refugee camp. Now, Atallah said, he fears he may lose another son.

“We talk to him every day. We ask how he is, whether he is eating,” he said. “He always says he is fine, he is eating, he is happy. But we know that he is lying. He just doesn’t want us to worry.”

Said Atallah said his 23-year-old son, Mohammed, also is a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The young man joined two years ago, after his father lost an eye when he was shot by Israeli troops during a demonstration, Atallah said. “He wanted revenge,” the construction worker said.

“I wish I could see him come home,” Atallah said. “But it is in the hands of God now. . . . I want us to forget about all this and open a new page in our lives. But if the Israelis make us lose our children in that church, there will be more and more Al Aqsa Brigades.”