Notes from the Transition

I remember the death of Ziad Hassan. He was making coffee for his family. The whole town was under closure. The year was 2002. The Israelis came in, as they did every dawn, creeping with their humvees and their jeeps - this time they didn't bring in the tank. But later that same day they did, tearing up the streets of Qalqilia, taking down all the palm trees that were in the median strip of the main road in town, crunching the pavement into pieces of rubble. Ziad was shot before we were awake. But I was on the ambulance crew - just an observer, just a helpless fucking 'human rights observer', doing the same thing Rachel Corrie was doing when she was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer made in Peoria, Illinois for standing in front of a doctor's home in Rafah with a megaphone trying to tell them to stop. She was braver than me, maybe. I didn't stand in front of the D9. But I saw it. I saw it in Qalqilia. I took pictures as it came barreling down the stree