Settle Violence Hotline , The Palestinian Human Right Monitoring Group

In the Newspapers ,,23 November 2001

High-risk occupations
If a Palestinian worker somehow still has a job to go to in the morning, he doesn't know if he'll make it home at the end of the day
By Gideon Levy

Muhammad Majamas: His complaint is just one of about 50 received in recent months.

Three of the Majamas children wait for their father to start the Ramadan meal: Tomorrow they'll have lentils.
(Photo: Miki Kratsman)

Muhammad Majamas, 54, gropes his way in darkness. He grasps at everything he finds in his path, trying not to stumble. His steps are hesitant. His vision is very poor: His right eye is very weak, and he will never see out of his left eye again. His vision was fine until the day some kippa-wearing youths hanging out in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev, where he was working, ganged up on him and beat him up. Majamas was making his way home after another day of work building houses in the neighborhood, as he has done for the past few years. According to his testimony, he was attacked all at once, for no apparent reason.

Yunis Najar, 51, was on the way to work when he was injured. He also built homes and paved roads to be used by Jews. Shortly after four in the morning, as he was heading off to another day of work on the Gush Etzion roads - this time, to pave a road for the settlers - he was shot in the back from a passing car. The passengers, apparently settlers, raked the vehicle carrying Palestinian workers with bullets. The operation was carried out by a Jewish terror cell. Since it happened almost a month ago, he has been lying unconscious and on a respirator at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital. Even if he survives, he will remain paralyzed.

Two men, one virtually blind - forever - and the other paralyzed - forever. All they wanted to do was to get to or return from another day of working for the Jews, and they were attacked for no apparent reason - apart from their being Palestinian. All our constant talk of security, security, security and the "victims of terror," never refers, of course, to the personal safety of people like Majamas and Najar. If a Palestinian worker somehow still has a job to go to in the morning, he doesn't know if he'll make it home at the end of the day. The police closed the Majamas case a while ago for lack of evidence; the investigation into the shooting attack on Najar and his companions is continuing. And we say the Palestinian Authority is the only one not fighting terror as it should.

A festive air seemed to pervade the village of Jab'a. It was twilight when we arrived and all the residents had gathered in their homes to break the daily fast observed during the month of Ramadan, which had begun two days earlier. The streets were empty, as in Israel during holiday mealtimes. A sliver of moon hung in the sky; the village was steeped in quiet. The terrible poverty of this village is especially acute this year, and the same is true all over the blockaded territories. Here, like everywhere else in the territories, the meal to break the fast is not a truly festive holiday meal. Most families are separated from their relatives, who were unable to join them because of the closures. And, due to the situation, the food on the table is nowhere near as grand as is usual on such occasions.

Muhammad Majamas has 13 children. Eleven of them still live in the family's well-tended home in Jab'a, northeast of Jerusalem. The children of the family have already sat down for the meal: several plates of avocado and hummus and a platter of fried potatoes with a few meatballs scattered among them. They haven't eaten any meat at all for the past few days, only beans. Tomorrow, they will get lentils.

Suddenly, a beating

For most of his life, their father, Muhammad, worked in construction in Israel. For the past two years, he had been working in Pisgat Ze'ev, which the Palestinians (and most of the world) consider a settlement, but Israel calls a neighborhood of Jerusalem. He earned NIS 120 a day, paid to him by a subcontractor by the name of Muhammad Salman Ahmed from Ta'mara near Bethlehem. Ahmed hired Majamas on behalf of the Eliam company for the job in Pisgat Ze'ev. Before that, Majamas had been hired by contractor Natan Lifshitz to work in construction near the Tisch Zoological Garden. On April 17, he finished working at 4:30 P.M. and started for home. He waited along with some fellow workers for the van that would take him as far as the checkpoint. But the van was late that day, and Majamas decided to walk instead.

After having gone several hundred meters through the streets of the neighborhood he was helping to build, he suddenly saw two young men sitting on a railing at a street corner. He says that one of them looked about 18 years old and the other appeared to be about 20. One of them pulled out a gun. Majamas says that he started to scream in fright. The second one knocked Majamas, who is not a young man, to the ground.

"I managed to get to my feet and then they sprayed something on my eyes and one of them also hit me very hard in the eye. It seemed to me that he had something in his hand, a metal bar or something like that. I felt intense pain in my eyes. I was bleeding and I fell to the ground. Then one of them told the other to beat me."

They didn't say anything to him, he says; the beating and kicking and punching at his face lasted for about 10 minutes. Let us recall that Majamas is about the age of his assailants' parents. When they were done beating him, the two young men disappeared among the neighborhood houses. Meanwhile, his friends from work came running over, perhaps having heard his cries for help. They hailed a car and rushed Majamas to Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, where the lacerations in his face were stitched up. Then he was transferred to St. John's Eye Hospital, where Dr. Tim Lavy, the hospital director, wrote in his chart: "Left eye blind as a result of traumatic optic nerve damage and cuts in the skin around the left eye as the result of an attack." After describing Majamas' injuries in detail, Dr. Lavy concluded: "The patient was hospitalized for two days, with no improvement at all in his vision. The vision in the patient's left eye will never return."

Several days after he recuperated, Majamas filed a complaint at the Neve Yaakov police station. This week, he said that he could identify his attackers. "They were skinny. One was tall and one was short. They both had skullcaps on their heads. They were clean-shaven and fair-skinned. I'm certain that I could identify them." He says he remembers their faces well. The policeman wrote down his complaint and told him that they would call him. Six months have passed since then and, of course, he hasn't heard a word.

Jerusalem district police spokesman Superintendent Yaakov Zerihan said this week: "We know about the incident. Based on what he told us, we didn't have much chance of pursuing an investigation. The case was closed. We have no evidence that will lead us further. The fellow cannot identify his attackers and the time that passed until he filed the complaint made the investigation irrelevant. He cannot identify his attackers and is incapable of giving a description. We are familiar with the incident and if more information comes up, we'll reopen the case. Incidentally, why are you interested in this case?"

Majamas has not worked since the attack; he is unable to work. And he has not been paid for the last three months he worked before the attack. He receives no compensation or any other support. His wife cleans the neighbors' houses for NIS 20 per day. From time to time, the neighbors also give her a little food to help feed the 11 kids she has at home.

This week, Majamas went to the office of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Audren Bomse, the American attorney who runs the hotline for Palestinian complaints against settlers, took down his testimony, which has been added to approximately 50 similar complaints the organization has received in recent months. When he finished telling his story, Majamas got up and started moving slowly toward the door. It was heartbreaking to watch him groping his way with such difficulty. A few hours later, back home in Jab'a, the children were sitting on the floor, waiting for him to come and break the fast with them.

Things aren't progressing

Attached to a respirator, with numerous tubes connected to his body, the elderly laborer Yunis Najar lies in the respiratory intensive care unit at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital. The bed next to his is decorated with balloons, apparently from the patient's children, but Najar hasn't had many visitors, because of the closure. His wife and children have not been to see him, apart from one quick visit by his eldest son, who sneaked in without a permit (This week, Najar's brother finally received a permit enabling him to spend several days by his bedside). Najar has been lying here unconscious for a month.

A 51-year-old father of eight from the southern town of Yata, Najar had worked in construction in Israel for the past 10 years. Recently, he was paving roads near Gush Etzion. He would leave the house at 4 A.M. every morning and return home at about 5 P.M. He earned approximately NIS 3,000 per month.

On October 24, he left his home in Yata at the usual time and headed for Gush Etzion. There were six workers in the van. When they approached the Hebron bypass road after leaving Yata, the passengers noticed a car parked at the side of the road, facing them. The driver flashed his lights, apparently in order to see the faces of his future victims. Adnan, a cousin of Yunis, says that the van driver hurriedly tried to return to Yata, but the car, whose make they were unable to identify in the dim pre-dawn light, took off after them and began to pass them.

That was when the gunfire erupted, and bullets ripped into the left side of the van. Adnan says their vehicle was hit about 60 times. One worker was miraculously unhurt, but the other five were injured. Yunis, who took a bullet in the back, was the most seriously wounded. Adnan says the soldiers at the checkpoint near Yata told them they couldn't do anything for them. They continued driving until they reached Hebron. Yunis was taken to Al-Mizan Hospital in the city, the rest were brought to Al-Ahli Hospital. At Al-Mizan, they operated on Yunis and then called Hadassah. He was rushed there some hours later. Dr. Yoram Weiss, director of the intensive care unit at Hadassah: "He was injured in the back, an injury that damaged the spine and also caused very serious lung damage."

Yunis' chest is full of bullet fragments; his doctors are not sure if he will make it. They know for certain that he is permanently paralyzed, perhaps just in his legs, but maybe also in his upper limbs. His diaphragm is still functioning and they may soon try to see whether he can breathe on his own without the respirator. Until then, he will remain sedated and on the respirator. The hospital administration vehemently denied permission to photograph him, despite written permission from his family.

And the police? They are continuing to investigate, of course. Superintendent Rafi Yafeh, a spokesman for the Judea and Samaria district: "This incident was the last - I hope the absolute last one - in a series of six incidents attributed to the Jewish cell. This investigation is the responsibility of the Shin Bet and of the Judea and Samaria district, and we are investing great resources and great efforts in order to bring about swift results. The court has issued a restraining order forbidding publicity about any aspect of the investigation. That is all I can tell you."

Are you making progress?

"For the moment, things are not progressing in a way that one could boast of."