Scott Lewis

DOCUMENTARY: Beyond The Bullets

Daily life in Israel and the West Bank during the second Intifada

'In our village in Palestine, we were living in paradise. We were lucky to be living in that part of the world,' Jawdat Hindi, resident of Raleigh, North Carolina and former mukhtar, or mayor, of the Arab village of Tantura in 1948. When Israeli soldiers seized the village as a strategic point during the War of Independence, Hindi was the young leader of the beachtown. Today, a group of Israeli teenagers from the nearby Jewish village of Zikron Ya'akov spend a beautiful day on the beaches of present day Nahsholim.
  
Israeli National Police forces try to control crowds at the Church of the Holy Sepulcre during Holy Week in Jerusalem. Tensions are always high in the holy city.
   
A memorial to those killed in terrorist attacks in Hadera, Israel, stands on Ha Nassi Street in the downtown of this northern city on the Mediteranian coast. Each person's name is carved in Hebrew with the date of the attack. There were five terror attacks in Hadera during the second Palestinian Intifada which started in Sept. 2000. Eighteen people were killed and 253 were injured. Four of the attacks in Hadera occured on this main drag which houses a plethora of small shops, restaurants and boutiques.
     
  
Barak Kleiman, 10, shoots hoops at his home in Efrat, Israel just outside of Jerusalem. Kleiman moved with his family to the West Bank settlement from Raleigh, North Carolina in August 2000. Kleiman's parents, Adolfo 'Avi' and Ilana, believe that the land of Israel was granted to the Jews by God and that all Jews have a duty to return 'home.' Avi believes that if every Jew around the world moved back to Israel it would end the conflict with the Palestinians. The fields in the background are owned and farmed by Palestinians who live in a nearby village while another Isreali settlement sits atop the far hill. The more than 200 settlements in the West Bank are a major cause of the tension between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. The Palestinians want land that was taken during Israel's wars in the first twenty-five years since it's creation by the United Nations in 1948. Israeli's say the land is theirs, won in battle against countries that attacked them without provocation.
   
A couple strolls through The Goldman Promenade in Jerusalem during the weekend of Orthodox Easter. The promenade provides one of the most spectacular views of Jerusalem and is normally teeming with people this time of year but like most public places in Israel during the Second Intifada it was all but abandoned.
   
Ziad Amash waits for customers at Bonjour, a sidewalk cafe on Ha Nassi Street in Hadera, Israel. When a car bomb was set off in this block of the city's downtown on November 22, 2000, Amash was injured from flying debris when a bus, thrown from the blast, crashed into the cafe. Two people were killed in the explosion.
     
  
A crowd gathers at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the old city of Jerusalem for the Holy Fire ceremony as part of Orthodox Easter celebrations. For those Israeli's and tourists who are out on the street, most speak about a raised level of tension and awareness during the second Palestinian Intifadah which began in September 2000.
  
Teenagers socialize on Ha Nassi Street in Hadera, Israel. The teens lied to their parents and said they were going to a mall. The streets in the town were considered dangerous as there were several terrorist attacks on the street during the Second Intifadah which began in 2000.
   
'We were shot at for two years and the Israeli government's response were these ridiculous things,' Adolfo 'Avi' Kleiman, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Efrat said of the concrete barriers . The barriers are there to block bullets, fired by Palestinians angry at the presence of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. After the road was built, drivers were getting shot on the road as they traveled from Jerusalem to the settlements. The tunnel road was built to give Jewish settlers a path around the community of Bethlehem, which has historically been hostile toward the Jewish settlers.
     
  
Surrounded by posters of Palestinian martyrs and the leader of Hezbollah, a child gets a treat at a dessert cafe in the casbah in Nablus, West Bank.
   
Palestinians look to cross from Israel into Ramallah, West Bank at the end of the work day. The Israeli checkpoints are a constant presence of everyday life and have been a point of contention between Palestinians and Israelis.
   
A Palestinian businessman talks on his cell phone before getting in line at the Qalandiyah checkpoint in Israel. The checkpoint is the main thoroughfare for pedestrians and drivers traveling between Jerusalem and the West Bank towns of El Bireh and Ramallah and the surrounding villages. The rules of the checkpoint are dependent on the Israeli soldiers that are on duty. Who gets through and who doesn't and how fast the traffic flows often changes daily. Sometimes travelers are stuck for up to three and four hours waiting to get through. The checkpoints are a major source of frustration for the Palestinians who feel humiliated by the intense screening of those passing through. The Israelis say it is a necessary security measure to catch potential smugglers and suicide bombers.
     
  
Pediatric nurse Helwa Farah weighs two-month-old Shams Abu Qash at the Birzeit Women's Charitable Society in Birzeit, West Bank. The society is a clinic for women and children. During the Israel incursion into the West Bank in 2002 the clinic had been overrun with patients often needing care that can only be administered at a hospital.
  
In Nablus, West Bank, a worker clears debris from a retail store that was damaged when the Israeli military destroyed the building next door.
   
Yasser Arafat speeds from his compound in Ramallah after spending several weeks under seige by the Israeli military.
     
  
Nader Atta, right, and his son Ameer, 5, look out a window in their home in Ramallah, West Bank. For twenty-five days, Atta and his family were confined to their house as Israeli tanks patrolled the streets and snipers sat in buildings such as the one next door, at left. The family was forced to keep the blinds closed and stay away from the windows as Israeli soldiers would shoot in their direction if they looked out.
   
Nader Atta reaches out to take in the scope of a scene of destruction in Nablus, West Bank. The space in front of Atta was a building where five families with 28 people lived before an Israeli military bulldozer, the size of a two story house, turned the home into a pile of rubble. According to the Israeli government, soldiers encountered gunfire coming from the house. Atta is a Programme Management Officer for the United Nations Developement Programme's Environment and Infrastructure Unit. Atta, a Palestinian-American, graduated in 1993 from North Carolina State University with a Master's Degree in Technology for International Development. Atta lives in Ramallah in the West Bank with his wife and three children.