Nablus

As I rode into Nablus, I could tell that it had a longer history as a city than Ramallah. Ramallah's rapid growth from a small village to the defacto capital of a country shows in the narrow winding streets that don't easily accommodate the heavy traffic, the new white high-rise buildings that spread haphazardly across the hillsides and the construction that is visible everywhere.

Meanwhile, in Nablus's new city, the busy, wide streets were lined with tall buildings. But the shabby, soot-stained buildings in the new city and the crubling ancient ones in the old city suggested that the city had fallen from its grandeur. My hosts told me that Nablus used to play a far more important role in the country than that it does today. “Nablus used to be the biggest city in the West Bank, both in terms of size and economic pwoer. Many companies were based here, and students came from all over the Arab world to study at our university.”

However, 1999 began a ten year siege of the city by the Israeli military. Checkpoints around the city isolated it and inhibited movement. My friend Heba comes from a nearby village which took us only 20 minutes to reach by bus, but she tol me that until they opened the checkpoints several years ago, the trip took two to three hours.

My hosts told me that nightly raids, shellings, curfews and other military operations had devastating effects. They had abandoned half of their house because rooms near the street were too dangerous, and confined themselves to the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, where they all slept.

The mother of the family told me that one night she woke up and saw light coming from the front of the house. “We couldn't have any lights on at night—only a small candle. I didn't know what the light was, but I was scared and sent my husband to go see. The house was on fire. The door was open just a little, and I took my children and fled the house.”

The room was repaired, but never fully restored. When I saw it, it was unadorned and contained some soot stains, but my friend told me, “This room used to be beautiful. There was a blackboard and many things. Everything was destroyed—the beds, the window and many things. Now this room is ugly.” The family doesn't have the money to replace everything, and is reluctant to spend their sparce resources on things that they fear will be destroyed again.

Bombing has stopped, night-raids are much rarer and most of the heckpoints have been opened, but Israeli military bases loom over the city on two of the mountaintops between which the city is nestled as a constant reminder of what once was, and could easilly happen again.