GAZA – JOURNEYS TO HEAVEN AND HELL
17/01/02
25’00”
OPENING PRETITLE GAZA FILM
In Hebrew they say, ‘Go to Gaza’ in the way we say ‘Go to Hell’
This was my first visit
SOF We’re just meters away from the frontier at this stage. Right over there where that yellow taxi is….that's Gaza.'
WALKS ACROSS, THEN FUNERAL
The first thing I saw was a terrorists funeral.
I’d come here to find out how September 11 had affected the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. And a lot more was going to happen than I’d bargained for.
TITLE: JOURNEYS TO HEAVEN AND HELL
Osama Helles had murdered an Israeli mother of four children before he too was shot.
But they call him a martyr, a hero of the intafada - the struggle against Israel. .
He was a member of the Islamic group Hamas. He’d gone on a mission from which he knew there was no return.
PIECE TO CAMERA.
Osama, the man who was killed last night.
He spent the money he’d saved for university on a Kalashnikov.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘We’re hoping to speak to his mother in here’
In his community, Osama was a son to be proud of. Popular, quiet and well behaved
MOTHER SPEAKS
ACTUALITY
‘I’m proud of my dead son,’ she said; the mother of a martyr is meant to hide her grief.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘So he’s a hero’
His sister took me upstairs to his bedroom. It was just as he’d left it
SISTER STARTS TALKING
PIECE TO CAMERA
'She said I'm sorry that he beat me to it in becoming a martyr that he succeeded in becoming a martyr, it is what I would like to do as well.
WOMAN GOES ON TALKING
‘I want to be a suicide bomber’, she told me. ‘It’s wrong to live for yourself rather than die for Palestine.’
HAMAS MEN TURN UP AT TENT
Gaza’s great and good turned out to pay their respects to the martyr, the shahid.
I’d been in Gaza less than twenty four hours, and already I was seeing that everyone was trapped in a lethal ritual.
Sheik Yassin, the spiritual leader of the extremist group Hamas, turned up in his wheelchair. The dead boy was now part of a political process. His father was almost a bystander
FATHER ACTUALITY
“He says I raise my children through religion, I’d prefer if they didn’t do that, to be good Muslims but I didn't raise them having them become shaheeds. That wasn't my intention but they…they learn the religion and they have to make up their own minds but it wouldn't have been his choice.'
People like Osama’s father have watched in dismay as their children have been turned into radicals.
GAZA SCENES
Gaza was ruled by Egypt when Palestinians fled here after Israel was formed in 1948.
In 1967 Israel invaded Gaza, but five years ago allowed it some limited independence..
A new Palestinian Authority headed by Yassar Arafat took on the job of policing Gaza and looking after its million people..
But the hope of that time has turned to despair.
UN HANDOUT
I discovered nearly everyone gets their food from the United Nations.
The local economy stalled when the peace process collapsed into violence 14 months ago and Israel shut its borders with Gaza.
There is anger at Israel, and disillusionment with Yassar Arafat.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'This highway has been closed since the beginning of the intifada fourteen months ago… we can't go any further because there is a risk of being shot at. '
We drove along the no-man’s-land that separates Israeli settlements from Gaza.
My destination was a school run by the United Nations.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘This is an English class we are going to test their English'
CHILDREN WELCOME SANDRA.
I wanted to ask them what they hoped to do with their education. I never got the chance.
PIECE TO CAMERA
There's a particularly loud and seemingly dangerous gun battle going out on the other side…going on the other side of the school room wall.'
A firefight had erupted around an Israeli checkpoint.
This happens all the time, the teachers told me.
NIGHT TIME
On my third night I went to the Rafah district of Gaza. People tell you its not a place for outsiders, but I’d been invited by a man whose father was both high up in Arafat’s al Fatah group and a minister in his Palestinian Authority.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘ We’re on our way to a Rafah community centre. It’s a Fatah organised event. It’s to celebrate or at least to commemorate the 76 martyrs from Rafah, people who have died in last year since the beginning of new intafada.”
Nothing is as it seems in Gaza. The way it’s usually portrayed is that Fatah is a secular, political organisation of old men loyal to Yasser Arafat. Hamas are the religious tearaways.
But this was a Fatah meeting introducing the newly formed Al Aqsa battalion: young and militant. I got the feeling I’d been invited down to see that Arafat was still a force to be reckoned with among the young.
But as the old guard gave their speeches, some of the youngsters began to fidget.
They want action not talk..
Soon fights broke out among different factions.
The leadership tried to restore order, but failed.
Compared with the way Hamas had controlled the funeral, this was chaos.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'We're getting out of here in a hurry there's a lot of commotion going on, the speaker asked the militiamen to stop firing, he said this not the place for shooting there was an angry response from the back someone let off a volley of shots and half the people have rushed out of the hall to try and stop him . Now half seemed to have stormed out , there's been a lot more shooting, the speaker was yelling save your bullets for the Israelis don't waste your bullets now but I am not quite sure what's happening and I don't think it safe to be here anymore.'
ELDERS MEETING
While punches flew, the Fatah elders tried to play down the trouble – just a little misunderstanding, they said.
I was taken to meet a leader of the military wing of Fatah, on condition that we didn’t show his face
He was more open about the problem.
PIECE TO CAMERA
' He says that the clash we saw at tonight's rally isn't not a particularly fair indication ..
he says thought, he acknowledges though that some people within movement are loyal to dissidents within Fatah., that is a problem…..he says it all depends on whether or not a fair political.. a fair political solution is reached for Palestine if that doesn't happen then it will be impossible he says to contain those in the group who prefer the military option, or who are looking for military action.'
NIGHTIME
Outside, the shooting went on. But there was worse to come the next night.
TELEVISION ACTUALITY
In my hotel I could pick up a news channel broadcast from Lebanon by extremists.
There’d been two terrible suicide bombs in Jerusalem. Hamas was trumpeting its responsibility for the atrocity. Ten people were dead and a hundred and eighty injured.
The next morning an Israeli reconnaissance plane circled ominously overhead.
INSIDE CAR
Hamas had another martyr to bury. He’d had nothing to do with the bombs but he’d murdered an Israeli settler the night before.
Enraged by the Jerusalem attacks, Israeli was demanding that Yasser Arafat crack down on Hamas. Arafat was telling the world he’d banned demonstrations like this.
But the Palestinian police wandered restlessly in the crowd, powerless – or maybe unwilling - to stop the funeral.
Hamas was staging a show of strength. Its followers were defying both Israel and Yasser Arafat by staying on the streets.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘This mosque is full of Hamas supporters. The mullah is telling them it’s time to steal themselves against the Israelis. He’s saying that in this conflict starting from now everybody here is united with Hamas.'
The young men in white, I was told, hoped to be chosen as suicide bombers. I made my way through the crowd to talk to them.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'He said we love life he said we do not choose to be martyrs because we want to die, he said don't get it wrong most of the suicide bombers who blow themselves up they have a good economic level they are happy to be alive but as long as this land isn't free as long as it is occupied, this is what they have to do.'
Word spread through the crowd that there had been another Hamas suicide bomb – this time on a bus in Haifa. Fifteen Israelis dead, thirty five injured.
We waited for Israel’s retaliation.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'Somewhere over there, I can hear the helicopters …oh my God look…look there's two of them.'
ACTUALITY
Thousands of miles away, American bombers were pounding Afghanistan in their war against terrorism.
Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had guessed this was one moment he wouldn’t get a restraining tap on the shoulder from Washington
PIECE TO CAMERA
I don’t see flames or smoke….
ACTUALITY
PIECE TO CAMERA
'There are helicopters flying across Gaza city more flying across the sea front, there are just helicopters everywhere bombing.'
PIECE TO CAMERA
'It feels like everything is a target there is no sense of security here at all, none whatsoever.'
NIGHT TIME
I went to look at the damage.
It was clear the Israelis held Yassar Arafat responsible for the Hamas suicide bombs. Gaza was his patch, and he was letting Hamas flourish.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'We can see that it was Yassar Arafat's aircraft hanger that was attacked '
His two helicopters had been emblems of his authority.
Suddenly people told us to run.
PIECE TO CAMERA
‘We’ve had to run, we've been told to get out of here now that the Israelis are bombing again, we have just got to get out of here as fast as possible…(to driver) aircraft in the sky?.. Helicopters , this is where they bombed before and this is definitely where they are going to attack again.'
NEXT MORNING, F 16s
More bombs fell. Israel said it was fighting terrorism - just like America.
On the ground I found the Israeli strikes seemed to fuel support for Hamas and the extremists.
'I asked her how does she feel about the suicide bombers in Haifa Jerusalem and Tel Aviv…
She says that we defend what they do, if nobody else is going defend us, nobody else is going to help us so we would like to go ourselves as girls and do that….she said that if we don't permit suicide bombers we don't do suicide bombings in Israel they will come into Gaza and kill us here so we have to go to them.'
AMBULANCE GOES BY
I heard a major police headquarters had been destroyed.
Arafat’s grip on Gaza was weakening.
WOMEN SHOUT IN THE STREETS
That woman shouting had just had her home destroyed.
UP STAIRS.BLOCK OF FLATS
I went over the road to a block of flats. It had been caught in the attack on the police headquarters..
PIECE TO CAMERA:
'Until this morning this was somebody's sitting room, look at it now'
Sixteen people had nowhere to live. Hamas is famed for helping - and recruiting - the dispossessed. When I asked them whether they’d join Hamas, they shrugged. ‘We’ll join whoever can help us.’
HOSPITAL TRIP
I went to the hospital..
.PIECE TO CAMERA
'Are their children in there?….that girl has shrapnel wounds on her face.'
160 people had been hurt, many children caught between school and home.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'He’s seventeen, he's a high school student someone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
I met some women from the family who’d been in the flat opposite the police headquarters
PIECE TO CAMERA about pregnant woman
she's nine months pregnant and this is her daughter who is also injured in the attack'.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'We've come to the house of Dr Saraj, as you can see in the same street just across the road a building has been bombed in an earlier attack'.
Eyad Saraj is a psychiatrist, a world expert on suicide bombers. I wanted to ask , ‘What forces shape them?’. He was in a gloomy mood.
PIECE TO CAMERA
THE DOCTOR
'This is the most dangerous time for the world since world war 2'
SANDRA
'What the right profile for somebody who can carry out a martyrdom a suicide bombing?'
THE DOCTOR
'It is the motivation, the anger, the political despair, at the end of the day makes a suicide bomber…
It is the insult on his dignity we have no armies to fight. What do you want to as an Arab Muslim Palestinian who feels so desperate to try and liberate your country? You join a clandestine group somebody underground, there you have the teaching of Islam that tells you according to this interpretation which is very serious, that is if you die you don't die, you are glorified as a Muslim, your family will be in the highest status , you will be like a prophet. And what is better reward for a humiliated defeated helpless hopeless person? What is a better reward than to live in the arms of god?'
That night on the radio I heard George Bush denounce Hamas as among the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world.
I had an appointment to keep - with hundreds of its most fervent followers.
They wanted me to watch a farewell video two new martyrs had made before their mission to murder an Israeli settler.
In the video they ask for forgiveness from their relatives, and says they’ll see them in heaven where they prefer to be.
Hamas’s vocabulary doesn’t include a peace deal with Israel.
I asked the brother of one of the killers about his vision for the future.
ACTUALITY
INTERVIEW TO CAMERA
SANDRA
‘Does that that leave room for Israel too.. can they share the land?
BROTHER
'NO,No no no no …this land for me, and for our Palestinians, no.. no Jewish.'
NEW SHOT OF ARAFAT POLICE
For Hamas, Israel is the old enemy. The new enemy is Arafat’s police.
During the night, under to Israeli pressure, Arafat had told his men to put Hamas’ spiritual leader, under house arrest.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'More and more people are gathering to come to the house of Sheik Yassin. The roads have been closed so we have been forced to walk the last bit …..I’m not quite sure what to expect when we get here”
I have the answer soon enough. More violence, this time Palestinian against Palestinian
GUN FIRE
It was a sign of how convoluted the politics of the Gaza had become
OFF CAMERA
'Quick they’re shooting they're shooting….'
PIECE TO CAMERA out of car
‘We're back at the Shiffa hospital this time to see if there are any victims of clashes between Palestinian police and Palestinian protesters.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'So we've just heard that there are marchers from last nights violent clashes outside Yassin's house which means that a Palestinian must have been killed by the Palestinian Police.'
PIECE TO CAMERA
'I want to ask the soldiers, can we see the man who was injured last night at Sheik Yassin's house?'
ACTUALITY
'They're rejecting the idea that somebody was badly injured last night and is in intensive care they 're saying no, there is nobody here severely injured they have left the hospital'.
Before they’d wanted me to see the casualties of violence Not now. They were ashamed.
I insisted on being taken to see the hospital’s director.
INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR
'Someone in the hospital told us a man died at Sheik Yassin's house last night. Do you have a dead person from last night.'
ACTUALITY
'They told me that his name is Ahmed Karim…?'
I had a name, but no body. I went to the morgue, but someone had telephoned ahead.
I knew by now that victim was a member of a powerful Hamas family. His parents didn’t know he was dead, and everyone was worried about what would happen when they found out.
PIECE TO CAMERA
'This is a very surreal situation we are having an argument over who can go and see a body whether or not we can film the sign outside the door meanwhile I think there is a bombing raid starting outside cos I can here the planes…utterly insane ,this situation.'
His relatives gathered by the doors of the morgue.
Nervous Palestinian police monitored what was happening.
FUNERAL
I had been in Gaza for two weeks. He was the third martyr I had seen consigned to the arms of God, but the first to be shot by a Palestinian policeman.
This time no one from Hamas was celebrating the glorious martyr’s sacrifice.
As they passed the nearby police station the children shouted, ‘Traitors, Israelis.’
CHILDREN SHOUTING TRAITOR
In my two weeks in Gaza, I’d seen power slip away from Yassar Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, towards Hamas and the extremists – people with no interest in peace talks. But that wasn’t all.
After September 11 George Bush said that anyone who harbours a terrorist is a terrorist. By that reckoning pretty much everyone here is a terrorist.
America’s bombed its terrorist enemies.
It would smack of hypocrisy to stop Israel doing the same.
Don’t hold your breath for a peace deal. Talking’s out of fashion.