April 20, 2002

Food Delivery, Nablus

[East Jerusalem, Palestine] A ghost town -- that's how Nablus can be described. The population of more than 200,000 people was not to be found. It was so eerie to caravan through the empty streets. Damage and destruction was everywhere, yet residents were absent, locked in their homes by a military curfew. The only people in abundance were Israeli soldiers in tanks and APCs.

Israeli soldiers had not withdrawn from Nablus when we arrived, so it took our group of 20 vehicles three hours to clear the checkpoint. Although they were approved yesterday, two European diplomatic vehicles were prevented from entering the city -- supposedly because they lacked the necessary paperwork.

Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Mennonite Central Committee, Caritas, the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, and the World Lutheran Federation continued their relief program and delivered four large truck loads of food, water, blankets and medicine.

A tank storms into a parking lot at the Nablus checkpoint.

Waiting in the mud at the checkpoint.

Empty streets of Nablus.

Soldier watches residents under curfew in residential area.

A small part of the damage in the streets of Nablus.

Waiting around a corner.

Along our route, our convoy was forced to pass between tanks.

Unloading food supplies in Nablus.

Unloading water was easier.

Soldiers in APCs were interested in our relief work.

One Israeli soldier watched by the gate as we carried food and humanitarian aid into a building.

We waited three hours at the checkpoint going in. Two hours coming out.

Tanks were quite close.

Tanks rumbled closely by our convoy. They parked in front so we couldn't move. They parked on either side. And sometimes they rapidly wove between our vehicles as we sat there.