Ambassadors Garden. The northern entrance to El Bireh, a city abutting Ramallah in the West Bank. A huge
Palestinian
flag flaps in the breeze above the tall stone monument at the
intersection near the City Inn Palace Hotel, broadcasting imaginary
independence. Nearby is a modern shopping mall and the Al-Huda gas
station, across the way are the Israel Defense Forces’ Coordination and
Liaison Office and the settlement of Beit El. A bubble in the shadow of
the occupation.
Ambassadors
Garden is a small, relatively well-tended playground along the main
road to El Bireh. Colorful slides and swings, a few stands selling
candy, which are closed on this weekday. A girl is sitting on a bench,
across the way a young man is talking on a cell phone, two women arrive
in a car with their children. Quotidian midday tranquility.
The
remnants of burnt tires at the edge of the garden are a jarring note
among this semblance of serenity, as is the trampled fence next to the
public toilets, which are painted pink and in a state of neglect.
It’s
quiet here now, but things were tempestuous a month ago, on Friday,
February 9, one of the recent “days of rage” in the West Bank. A few
dozen children and adolescents made their way to the road that day,
throwing stones at the IDF soldiers positioned opposite them. The 20 or
so soldiers who were scattered on the hills around the road opened fire
in order to push the children back toward the playground. All sorts of
ammunition were used: live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets and of
course tear-gas grenades. The youngsters retreated to Ambassadors
Garden, the soldiers hot on their heels.
Two soldiers stood on the crushed fence near the pink bathrooms, and opened fire. It was about 2 P.M.
Fourteen-year-old
Mohammed Nubani was standing in the sandy area next to the swings,
about 20 meters away from the soldiers. Suddenly he felt a powerful blow
to the face. Blood spurted from one eye. He pressed his hand against
his eye, trying to quell the searing pain; blackness swirled around him
and he grew dizzy but somehow managed to stay on his feet. He had no
idea what was happening. Nor did he see the soldier who had fired the
bullet coated in black rubber that smashed into his eye socket and
lodged there.
Mohammed’s
friends helped evacuate him: A Palestinian ambulance that was parked
nearby – as is standard procedure at demonstrations – rushed him to the
Government Hospital in Ramallah. The hospital doesn’t have an
ophthalmology department, so after initial treatment, the wounded boy
was moved to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus.
During
a three-hour operation, the bullet was removed but Mohammed’s eye
seemed doomed. Four days later he was transferred to St. John of
Jerusalem Eye Hospital in East Jerusalem, in yet another desperate
attempt to save his sight.
The
Nubani family lives on the third floor of a middle-class apartment
building in the lower section of El Bireh, on the last street before the
Psagot settlement. Boasting a winery and homes with red-tiled roofs,
Psagot is just a few hundred meters away, across the valley, perched
with crass defiance over the outer edge of the Palestinian city. You see
Psagot when you look out of the window from any home on this street in
El Bireh. Behind this first row of homes lies the Palestinian national
soccer stadium.
Brown-velvet
sofas and matching chandeliers, a shiny ceramic floor. Mohammed’s
father, Ahmed, 48, is a building contractor in Ramallah; his mother,
Nibin, 41, wearing traditional attire, is a homemaker. Mohammed has
three sisters and a brother, ranging in age 2 to 20. The littlest one,
Jory, is already wearing gold earrings. Mohammed is the second youngest.
The
Nubanis are building a new house in the village of Surda, not far away,
and will soon move there. On one occasion, when Mohammed visited the
construction site, he discovered that Israeli soldiers had taken over
the skeleton of their new home. When he tried to protest, they detained
him for a few hours. The soldiers left the site a few days later.
Nibin
warns us not to tell Mohammed the truth about his eye: She and Ahmed
haven’t yet told their child that it will never regain vision. They
don’t want him to give up hope.
The
boy is at school when we arrive. He’ll be home soon; it’s his first day
back since he was wounded. He’s in the ninth grade at a local boys’
school.
That
Friday, four weeks ago, like other Fridays, was not a school day.
Mohammed woke early, had breakfast and went to the mosque to pray.
Usually he goes with his father, but that day he went alone. After lunch
he said he was going to play with friends, close to home. At 2 o’clock
the paramedic in the ambulance that took him to the hospital called his
mother to inform her that her son had been wounded and was being taken
to Ramallah.
“Where
was he wounded?” Nibin asked, frightened. After being told that it was
an eye injury, she tells us, she felt somewhat relieved: At least he’s
alive. She called her husband, and the two of them rushed to the
hospital; a few hours later, they accompanied Mohammed to the Nablus
hospital.
They show us a fragment from the rubber bullet
that slammed into their son’s eye, along with the medical report from
the Jerusalem hospital. The bullet struck Mohammed’s optic nerve and
probably destroyed it. This week he was examined by a British eye
specialist who works in a clinic in Anabta, next to Tul Karm; he too
could offer them no hope.
The
doorbell rings. Mohammed is home. He’s wearing a quasi-military
camouflage sweatshirt with a hood, and has a blue schoolbag draped over
his shoulder. He has a bit of trouble making his way to the living room.
His right eye is covered with transparent plastic, but he’s pressing on
the healthy left eye. It hurts. It’s obvious that he has a hard time
seeing. He has a modish haircut and his voice is squeaky, like that of a
younger child; there’s still no sign of facial hair. A boy. He rubs the
plastic bandage covering his eye, embarrassed and shy in the presence
of the strangers in his home. He blinks; his good eye is tearing up.
“How
was school?” his mother asks. His head really hurt, he replies, looking
like he’s about to cry. It’s hard for him to open his healthy eye, he
adds. “Did you go to all the classes?” Nibin wants to know. He says he
did, but it was really hard for him.
It
emerges that not even one teacher or guidance counselor talked to him
about what happened, on his first day back at school after a month.
“Do
you want to go to school tomorrow, too?” his mother asks. He doesn’t
know, he tells her. “You seem confused,” she says, and he answers, “Yes,
everything is strange for me” – perhaps because of the strangers,
perhaps because of the return to school and the effects of the trauma.
He’s obviously still suffering.
“You have to go to school, you’ve already missed a lot of material,” Nibin adds. His father is silent.
Mohammed
is stingy about providing details about his Black Friday. He went with a
friend, they wanted to see the demonstration, he didn’t throw stones.
A
relatively long distance of more than a kilometer as the crow flies
separates his home high up on the hill from the playground below where
he was shot.
“I
was standing there and suddenly I felt something hit me hard in the
face. I didn’t shout, I didn’t cry, but it really hurt,” he says, almost
in a whisper.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stated, in response
to a request for comment from Haaretz: “On February 9, 2018, there was a
public disturbance at the ‘Ayosh’ Circle, within the purview of the
Binyamin Division. The force took measures to disperse the
demonstration. We are not aware of any claim of a Palestinian being
wounded. In the event that additional information is received, it will
be checked out in depth.”
Mohammed Nubani, a 14-year-old boy, half-blind, a victim of the occupation.
“Think
what feelings he will develop against those who shot him in the eye –
what he will feel when he grows up,” says a friend of the family, Nasser
Shehadeh, from the nearby Qalandiyah refugee camp, who’s come to visit.
“Only when the occupation ends will we all see with two eyes,” he
offers, as a punch line
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