Articles
Dr. Ramzy Baroud’s latest book The Last Earth offers a
long-absent Palestinian narrative voice available to readers
of English and other foreign languages. His methodological
approach to modern Palestinian history by blending oral
interviews with written, narrative construction of the
interviews is refreshing and vibrant.
While reading chapter four about Hana al-Shalabi, I was
struck many times with my own memories of events she
describes. Of particular note was the death of her cousin
Shadi al-Nubani, who was killed during the Israeli invasion
of the Jenin refugee camp commencing April 3, 2002.
Hana’s narrative did not offer details of the aftermath of
Shadi’s killing. However, I will here supplement that detail
of her incredible story as I have direct experience with
Shadi’s situation after he was killed.
As with Hana’s narrative, what follows is rooted in lived
experience. In narrating lived experience, the events in
question have the ability to maintain integrity with the
dynamics and emotions present as the events were unfolding
at the moment and as such, provide clearer windows into the
actual situations of people involved.
Thus, the reader is able to understand the situation in a
more holistic manner than, say, an academic report on the
circumstances could convey. Herein lies the importance of
the historical method employed by Dr. Baroud, one that is
hopefully mimicked by others in telling Palestinian history.
**
As an international volunteer, I entered the Jenin refugee
camp on April 11, 2002. During the two months I lived inside
the camp, I assisted with the recovery of Shadi al-Nubani.
He and three of his companions were killed in the process of
missiles from Apache helicopters striking the home they were
in, the fire created on impact, and the entire roof and two
walls crashing down upon them.
I saw one of those killed next to him at a time when the
Israeli military was still in the camp. It was Monday, April
15, 2002, at four in the afternoon. We entered through the
front door of the house and immediately ascended up a flight
of 12 stairs to the second level. We walked to the right for
five feet and turned to our left. There was the black and
charred corpse of Abed Ahmad Hussein. A colored blanket
rested ignorantly across this thing, barely recognizable as
human except for the white toes.
When I came back to the site five days later, I learned that
Shadi was still buried there. Behind the spot where Abed
lied and totally buried under the concrete walls and roof
was Shadi.
Like all of these recovery attempts, it was incredibly
risky. Everyone was operating under a partially collapsed
and possibly shifty ceiling, digging frantically by hand,
with small shovels and one pickaxe. We went through numerous
bottles of perfume, poured upon the surgical face masks
covering each person’s mouth and nose, to assist with the
most pungent odor available to humanity: death.
As the search came closer to Shadi’s body, one of his
brothers appeared on the scene. He watched for a moment, dug
for a moment, then watched some more. The look on his face
was sullenly energetic and aware that his brother’s life
ended in a horrible manner.
More than this was the impression that he was soon to be
removed in parts, unable to be buried as the intact person
he was only days before. The imposed transformation from a
walking, talking, living human being to a burned, mound of
pieces small enough to fit in a sack was, to me, a sign of
the absolute ferocity of humanity.
Two gentlemen named Mohammed, both from the camp, both
untrained in the recovery efforts they were engaged in, both
with hearts of gold, dug ferociously at the rock and rubble
hiding Shadi’s body. One was using a pickaxe after coming
across what seemed to be a piece of wood.
The ax stuck into the wood, which turned out to be a door,
and as the ax was raised for another swing, the door went up
with it and Shadi’s body was spotted. Many people let out
tapered yelps to communicate to Mohammed not to take another
swing with the pickaxe as the body may be struck.
The ferocious digging with small tools slowed to a quiet
recovery by hand. Both Mohammeds gathered rock and dirt by
hand into a green, plastic bucket, which was passed to
various people standing by ready to help and emptied away
from the site of recovery. This process was repeated over
and over and over, seemingly endlessly due to a shifting
ceiling and more dirt and rock falling on top of the
recovery area.
After some time the door was removed and the majority of
Shadi’s remains were visible. Calls for the press rang out
and photos were snapped of this once living being. His body
was burned and charred like Abed’s, though instead of lying
in the open air like Abed, he was entombed by the dirt
around him. The smell cannot be described. If you have
smelled one-week old death, you cannot describe it, nor
forget it.
A part of his leg was pulled out and placed in the white,
plastic body bag standing at attention. We pulled out parts
and bones. Reddish-black material —a combination of blood,
fire, and flesh—clung to everything removed, whose stench
snarled faces like the sun shrinks grapes into raisins. The
lower half of Shadi came out over the course of a half hour
in pieces ranging from 18 inches to morsel-size. Every now
and then a small pile of stuff would be held up for
examination by untrained but empathetic eyes to determine if
any part of the body was trying to escape.
After the most loving, cautious work over another 45
minutes, the majority of Shadi’s torso and skull were
removed in one piece. This was one small victory for
everyone there: to remove Shadi’s torso and skull together,
rather than in pieces like the rest of him. The whole
recovery process was a redemption of the cycle of the life
of Shadi al-Nubani: recovering his remains, remembering his
life, and preparing him for burial.
---
– Brian Wood lived in the West Bank of Palestine from 2000 – 2002. His final months were spent helping with disaster relief and conducting interviews with survivors of the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002. In part, because of what he witnessed in Jenin refugee camp he chose nursing as an occupation.