December 2, 2001 — Mudeif Productions

*Mother and child waiting to see if they’ll be allowed to return home to Jenin*

*Children waiting to return home to Jenin after spending the night in Zababdeh*

So the plans involving heading to Nablus included worshiping at St. Matthew's in Zababdeh first and then heading down with the Anglican priest. But we then learned that Abuna Aktham (the Latin Priest) had been working with the Red Cross to get the Jenin kids home. They were planning to leave after the Mass, so we joined them for worship instead.

*The Red Cross intervenes to get school children home to Jenin*

We then began the long wait of negotiations. They had begun yesterday, but were still hoping to get the school kids - as well as students from the the Arab-American University - home in one convoy, led by the Red Cross. The man doing this work had arrived here from Ireland six months ago. We waited, and waited, and waited. He continued to make phone calls to push the process along, even dropping the University students from the negotiations (since it was possible that the fact that there were young men among them might give the Israeli Army pause).

In the midst of all this, another suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in Haifa. Not only was that very depressing to hear, we also knew that it wasn't going to make our situation any better. Some of the Muslim kids broke the Ramadan fast today - there's a provision for doing so in extenuating circumstances, and this certainly falls into that category. But as it got closer to sundown, the kids were anxious - particularly the preschoolers, who hadn't seen their parents in a day and a half.

*Fr. Aktham seeing if there is another way for the children to return home to Jenin*

*Taxis meet the children in the hills to take them home to Jenin*

There was no way we were going to get approval. Meanwhile, people were on the phone to find out the situation in and around Jenin. If the bus could get to the edge of Jenin, the kids could meet taxis and the taxis could drive into town - tanks were on the roads, but taxi traffic (not bus traffic) was being allowed through. Since we didn't have official IDF approval, the Red Cross representative advised against it - he feared for the safety of the kids in case an Israeli military action was being planned. But since risk is part of everyday life here, the administration decided getting the kids home was the best idea. And so, as the sun approached the horizon, we set off with one school bus, forty kids, one secretary, two Americans, a Catholic priest, and a Vice-Principal. We arrived to the outskirts of Jenin and headed up into the hills to wait for the taxis who would meet us there. It was a long fifteen minutes.

*Birds in the Zababdeh trees welcome us home*

We could hear some gunfire nearby, as well as the tell-tale grind of a tank heading towards Jenin from the South. Soon after, we heard a loud noise of an approaching vehicle from the bottom of the hill. Expecting an army vehicle, we were relieved to see a vegetable truck.

The taxis arrived (after they went to two or three other erroneous hillcrests to meet us), and the older kids piled in. The younger kids, remembering yesterday's trauma, were scared to leave the bus. Elizabeth carried one small boy, who couldn't negotiate the last step off the bus by himself. He was crying as Elizabeth brought him to a taxi. And then, they took off through the hills.

We headed back to Zababdeh, hoping that we wouldn't meet the tank we heard along our path (we didn't). We went home by way of the center of town, where the birds in the trees welcomed us home.