"They Hassle People at Whim"

Nafez Nazzal is a Palestinian who became a U.S. citizen and earned a Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. A part-time reporter for TIME since 1977, he lives in the town of El-Bireh with his wife and two sons. His account of what life was like for one Palestinian on the West Bank last week:

An army truck screeches to a stop in front of our neighbor's house. Twelve soldiers jump out shouting. Clutching their clubs and guns, they barge onto the porch. They think that some boys who threw stones are hiding there. Our neighbor insists that there is no one except her in the house. To no avail. They demand that she give them the key to the upstairs flat. She says the owner is on a trip to the U.S., but they are not convinced. Three of them go back to their truck, get axes and saws and knock the steel door off its hinges. There is no one inside. My four-year-old son is terrified. Over and over again he says, "Bad soldiers . . . bad soldiers."

Shortly afterward we hear shots. The radio announces that a 17-year-old boy was killed when bullets were fired in the air to disperse protesting youths. He must have been flying in the air, I think to myself.

Stillness falls on our small town. The dead boy is taken to his home. Slowly and stoically, men, women and children come to pay their respects. In pain and anger the family carry their son to his resting place. The funeral cortege is broken up by soldiers who fire in the air and lob tear-gas canisters into the crowd. On the way home from the funeral, I see an 80-year-old man being dragged by soldiers from his front porch and forced at gunpoint to clear the streets of debris.

We awaken the next day to find all the streets leading to the center of town closed off with barbed wire, the type often used to fence confiscated land in preparation for the establishment of a settlement. An army jeep with a loudspeaker announces a curfew: no one is to step outside his home for 48 hours. A whole town seems to be placed in solitary confinement.

My son develops a severe case of bronchitis on the following day. Violating the curfew, I bundle him up and sneak through back alleys to the doctor's house. My anxiety grows, and then I feel anger and frustration as I try to pacify my son's whining demands for candy when we pass the closed stores. Just how does one explain these things to a child?

Anyone who lives on the West Bank cannot escape some sort of contact with the Israeli soldiers. For many of us, this is often brutal and dehumanizing. They hassle people at whim. They stop and search cars, sometimes even knocking off the hubcaps. They demand to see identity cards, and woe to that person who has forgotten to carry his with him. After being harassed once, I make certain I have my ID at hand before I even get dressed in the morning.

Occasionally, long and miserable nights are spent outside by people who have been roused from their sleep by soldiers and ordered to line up in the street until the following morning because someone in the neighborhood had thrown a stone at a passing Israeli vehicle. The authorities say that residents are collectively responsible for anything that happens in their neighborhood.

There is an Arab proverb to the effect that hearing about a situation is nothing compared to witnessing it with one's own eyes; not to mention living in it. It has been a frightening week in the West Bank. The feeling today is that peace has never been so far out of reach.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.