Democratic Palestine : 27 (ص 22)
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- Democratic Palestine : 27 (ص 22)
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tion in 1967, we had experience in both open and secret work.
After the occupation, the same people from the villages, where
we had gone to make meetings and classes, came to us saying:
«You taught us - now what do you want us to do?» These
women participated in the resistance to the new occupation in
various ways. Those who had learned to type, typed statements
against the occupation; others distributed these as handbills,
etc. Some women visited the part of Palestine occupied in
1948, to gather information that could be useful to the
resistance in planning anti-occupation actions.
CONFRONTING OCCUPATION
In the first days after the 1967 occupation, one of the main
things was to prevent emigration, for it was the Israeli plan to
have as many Palestinians as possible leave, to empty the oc-
cupied territories. Every morning at 3 a.m. there were an-
nouncements over loudspeakers in Jerusalem that buses were
waiting at the Damascus gate to take anyone who wanted to the
bridges to Jordan free of charge. Of course, some people who
has family members outside wanted to go to join them. We
went to the Damascus Gate every day to talk to people, to tell
them that this was an Israeli plan to get them to leave their
homeland for good, and to try to dissuade them from leaving.
Another thing we did was to campaign against buying the
Israeli goods which flooded into the markets with the occupa-
tion. Of course, we couldn’t stop this from happening, but we
used it as an opportunity to make the people more aware of
how the enemy was working to dominate us and destroy our
own social and economic structures. We tried to keep people
from going to buy Israeli goods in the other part of Jerusalem
and 1948 occupied Palestine. At the beginning, the people
refused to deal with the Israelis. Later, with the economic
restrictions put by the occupation authorities, they were oblig-
ed to do so. In the beginning, people tried to buy as much as
possible in Jordan, then return to the West Bank illegally.
Some of these people were shot by the Israelis. They fell into
the river and we never saw them again. Whenever such things
happened, we would spread the information to the people so
that they knew as much as possible about the enemy’s prac-
tices.
TEACHER’S STRIKE
In the autumn after the June 1967 occupation, the Israelis
tried to reopen the schools. The teachers went on strike because
the Israelis were trying to replace them with less qualified
teachers. We struggled with these new teachers not to accept
the posts, and for four months, the strike continued. When it
was Over, many of the original teachers were unable to return
to their jobs. We also mounted a campaign against the Israeli
attempts to change the curriculum in the schools. (These
changes consisted mainly of omitting certain chapters in
schoolbooks about Palestine’s history and geography.) We
encouraged the people to refuse these changes and urged
teachers not to follow them.
At the time of the strike, I was teaching mathematics and
science at the UNRWA school in Shuafat, right outside
Jerusalem. We were not allowed to be absent from work at the
UNRWA schools, so we went each day for four hours, but did
not go into the classrooms. Upon my suggestion, we teachers
22
sat and knit woolen pullovers for the fedayeen (freedom
fighters). I had the job of standing at the door in the morning
and explaining to the children that they should go home as we
were on strike, protesting the occupation. One mother com-
plained that I was preventing her child from going to school,
and I was called in to the inspector’s office. I said that it was a
compliment to think that I was the one influencing all the other
teachers to strike, for I was the youngest of them all. I ex-
plained that as a Palestinian, one could not be silent and let life
go on as usual after the occupation. We had to make the
parents understand that it wasn’t because we didn’t want to
teach. In general, many of the UNRWA personnel were in-
volved in anti-occupation activities. An inspector at another
school carried weapons for operations in her car.
SUPPORTING THE FEDAYEEN
The same year the Israelis occupied the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, the PFLP was formed from the ANM. We women who
were organized met in the name of the GUPW. We met with
women all over the West Bank, to plan how to support the
fedayeen who were coming back across the borders into
Palestine to fight the occupation. The Israelis issued new iden-
tity cards after the occupation. The fedayeen usually came
without such ID cards, so they needed help with this. They
needed help in moving about and safe places to stay, etc. For
such work, we involved only organized people or friends who
were very loyal and trustworthy. It was my job to contact
people to see if they were willing to help by keeping someone in
their house, providing clothes, etc. I went all over the West
Bank, and every two weeks to the Gaza Strip, to coordinate
with the comrades there.
I remember an old woman in Jerusalem. She had an empty
apartment in her house because her sister had married and
moved away. She opened it for our use. She learned how to
move about, for example to deliver messages, without anyone
noticing she was doing anything out of the ordinary. Once, a
comrade who had been staying in her house was arrested. She
immediately came to me to arrange for moving his things
without anyone noticing. This showed she had begun to feel
responsible for our work. She gave shelter to many fedayeen.
This old woman also joined her neighbors in organizing protest
demonstrations against the Israelis’ demolition of Palestinian
homes.
Women began to come to us, saying they were ready to
transport things needed by the fedayeen. Once we wanted to
move weapons from Ramallah to Jerusalem. We asked a
woman who had offered to help, and we made arrangements
with a taxi driver whom we knew and trusted. He agreed to
take us and a big bag without knowing the contents, only that
they should be kept secret. We drove and he stopped abit away
from the checkpoint where the Israelis were. The woman car-
ried the bag on her shoulder and passed safely through the hills
to the other side of the street.
One day we learned there had been a big battle between the
fedayeen and the occupation forces in Beit Fariq village. Nine
fedayeen had been killed; another managed to escape, but he
was wanted. He informed the comrades in Jerusalem that he
was in hiding and needed help. I sent two young women to get
him. Actually the Israelis had-entered the house where he was, - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 27
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