Walls witness daily survival

The first time I saw a bullet wound was when I was a chaplain in a children’s hospital in Atlanta. It was on the arm of a nine-year-old girl who, while in her house, was caught in the middle of a drive-by shooter and the man he tried to shoot. The bullet grazed her arm, tearing open her flesh an inch deep. The second time was on the side of an elementary school for girls inside the wall in East Jerusalem – 100 holes, an inch deep.

On the third full day of our pilgrimage, Omar, the executive director of Sabeel and our guide for the day, led us on the Contemporary Way of the Cross – a 14-station liturgical journey to look deeply and prayerfully into the lives of Palestinians. We were invited to see the many crosses that people are carrying, from loss of their right to live in the city of their birth, to checkpoints, settlements, prisons, the wall and more. The third station took us to Shu’fat, near Anathoth (where the prophet Jeremiah was from) to see and reflect on the plight of Palestinians living inside the wall in Jerusalem.

The Shu’fat neighbourhood is patrolled by a checkpoint that includes a pedestrian gate with barbed wire on metal fences. The neighbourhood inside the wall is very different from the one outside. It is dense, the roads narrow, water tanks on roofs, with very long lines of vehicles waiting to exit the checkpoint. Building permits, we are told, are very rarely granted to Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Yet people live in structures built in recent years, assuming the risk of demolition by Israeli authorities and assuming the risks that come with structures built without permits.

Children of Shu’fat occasionally throw stones as resistance to their living conditions. They throw stones at the gate, at the checkpoint and, less often, at Israeli soldiers. The response is disproportionate. Sometimes children who throw stones are killed or injured. Other times, children are kidnapped from schools and interrogated for information on who the stone throwers are. Periodically, the children who are interrogated are offered a deal to serve as spies and police their classmates and neighbours. The worst consequence for stone throwers is being arrested and taken to Ofer detention centre, which we visited to pray the 10th station: “Child Prisoners.”

Usually, boys are the ones who throw stones. But the girls’ school in Shu’fat is the one with the bullet holes. Omar asked us to guess why this was the case. It turned out to be far simpler than the scenarios we came up with: the girls’ school was more visible from the main street. The wall served as the inch-deep reminder to anyone who might consider bending down to pick up a rock that guns are more powerful than stones.

In the same way that the 10-year-old girl in Atlanta will bear the bullet wound reminding her of the ludicrousness of drive-by shootings, the families of Shu’fat bear the bullet wounds on the side of the school as a reminder of the weight of survival under military occupation.

We ended the Way of the Cross at the Ramallah checkpoint (a city in the West Bank) where a bright red sign read, “This road leads to a Palestinian village. The entrance for Israeli citizens is dangerous.” The wall, eight metres high, loomed over us as we prayed, “Lord Jesus, whose death on the cross tore down the barrier between God and his people, in whom there are no distinctions of nationality, gender or status, break down these walls of hatred, both physical and emotional, in the power of your spirit and for the furtherance of your kingdom.”

And in the desert, from a red SUV, we heard the voice of one crying out, “Don’t believe the sign! It’s not dangerous. We are very welcoming people!” And as if we had rehearsed it, the delegation of nine responded in a chorus, “Oh, we know,” and I saw thumbs go up in my peripheral vision. It was John the Baptist in the flesh, reminding us that the kingdom of God was at hand, and no wall or sign could obstruct the view.

The Stations of the Cross that day, though painfully difficult, culminated in hope. Hope in a God who is good and just. Hope that God’s goodness will triumph over evil and hatred. Omar said something that day that I’ve repeated many times since I’ve been back: “If the millions of Christians who’ve known the Church since its birth saw that the Church today was overwhelmed, they would be disappointed.”

These stories and reflections can feel overwhelming to many of us. But the Church is not overwhelmed. We are a people of witness. And it’s a gift to be able to bear witness to what is happening in Palestine.