April 25, 2002

Unloading donations in Jenin for relief support.

Women and children amidst the Jenin Camp rubble.

School is back to full capacity, apart from a handful of students and one teacher who is getting married tomorrow (normalcy welcome). The ilhamdulillah as-salaame ("thank God you're safe") greetings we heard around the Camp yesterday echoed here in school. We are getting a lot of ribbing about "running away," but it's good-natured (little do they know we have a rental car to return!).

Around nine this morning, Marthame and Abuna Aktham left school for Jenin to meet the Latin Patriarch, Michel Sabbah. He was on his way from Jerusalem with a convoy of relief goods headed into the city for distribution - Caritas, Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran World Federation, Mennonite Central Committee, World Vision, and others had coordinated their work. They waited near the Jalame checkpoint for four hours. The soldiers were refusing entrance to Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs, but eventually they were let through.

Children amidst the rubble of their homes in Jenin Camp.

A Palestinian woman sits atop the rubble, staring off into the distance.

Then there was the waiting at the Benevolence Center to unload the four trucks - another couple of hours - before heading into the Camp. Around a hundred people all told, Jerusalemites and foreigners alike.

Marthame ran into some students from the University and spent the rest of the afternoon with them, similar to yesterday. There are a few more bulldozers, which have begun to find walls of buildings buried in some places. You can't get used to this scene, though. Men carrying armfuls of clothes, children digging at the rubble with bent pipes, women just sitting and despairing. This work will carry on for a long, long time, but the journalists and international attention will likely go away. It's awful. Truly awful.

A Palestinian woman holds a young girl in the midst of the destruction. A crushed wheelchair sits on the ground next to them.

As we put the day to rest back in Zababdeh, gunfire sounds again from the military camp. There's nothing quite like getting used to it all.