| Valerie Zink says she will never forget seeing Israeli tanks shoot at two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp this year. The teenagers were out after curfew and throwing stones at the tanks. They weren’t killed but they were wounded, she says.
Zink, a human rights activist from Calgary, has just returned from Jenin, where she spent three months interviewing Palestinians and photographing the Israeli occupation of the town and adjacent refugee camp with journalist Joe Elmers. Zink will be speaking about her experiences on Thursday in Calgary.
"We did see two young boys shot in front of our eyes by tanks," says Zink. "Seeing the targeting of children is appalling. You can’t argue that these children are possibly threats to people in tanks."
Zink, currently a history student at Dalhousie University, funded the trip herself. During her time in Jenin she lived with Palestinian families and in her own apartment. She and Elmers interviewed as many Palestinians as they could and photographed numerous disturbing scenes.
"We’re hoping to share their stories and give people an idea of what it means to be under occupation on a personal level," says Zink. "There’s not a single person in Jenin who is untouched. Everyone has a story that would blow your mind. What stuck out was the depth of people’s suffering."
During her time in Jenin, Zink says she became accustomed to the drone of Apache helicopters overhead, constant gunfire and children going out every night to throw stones at Israeli tanks.
"You see these kids on the street and almost all have a battle wound," she says. "Childhood in Jenin is very, very tragic and needs to be addressed."
Zink describes the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp as shocking. In April, 2002 the Israeli Defense Force bulldozed hundreds of houses and killed dozens of people during a military operation. The Israeli army said the incursion was necessary because the refugee camp had become a major launching ground for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians – the Israeli government said 28 suicide attacks originated from Jenin between October 2000 and April 2002, causing the deaths and maimings of more than 100 Israeli citizens, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
Zink says everyone in Jenin has a horror story about the military attack.
Currently one of the hardest things for people to deal with in Jenin is the constant curfew, which could be imposed 24 hours a day for weeks on end, says Zink.
"When we first arrived in Jenin there was 10 days straight of curfew. That means children can’t go to school, you can’t go to work… You’re under house arrest. If you leave the house you risk being shot. It has a disastrous effect on people who are barely earning a living."
Roadblocks and checkpoints also make getting out of Jenin extremely difficult, even for ambulances, says Zink.
Zink’s talk about Jenin will take place on December 18 at 7 p.m.at the University of Calgary’s MacEwan Student Centre. |
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