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Five years ago, nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in their West Bank home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a nearby Israeli Occupation Forces military base. The army had moved in on a hill near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and would frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often retaliating against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the suburb. As the gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed began to shake violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive paralysis. His grandmother ran to pick him up and also inhaled the gas, causing an intense burning sensation all over her body. When she realized her grandson had stopped moving, she pleaded with the soldiers outside to open the road out of her town and raced Mohammed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe neurological deterioration resulting in a vegetative state. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and UNRWA conducted extensive tests on Mohammed and his parents to determine with certainty the cause of his condition. After a full genetic investigation, doctors confirmed that Mohammed's state was neither hereditary nor due to a chromosomal abnormality, but a result of the poisonous gas. I met Mohammed's father Sami waiting at a checkpoint near Haris. He'd hesitated to publicize his son's story for fear of harassment from the army. He said his family was suffering enough -- their personal tragedy only began with the gassing. After Mohammed's injury, Sami's father went from being a strong healthy 47-year-old to an emotional and physical wreck, and died one year later from stress and heart problems. Mohammed, now six, continues to suffer from severe neuro-developmental delay, poorly controlled seizure disorder, the loss of sight, and inability to eat normally. He eats via a G-tube (poking directly into his stomach) and is fed a special formula "Pediasure" that is not available in Israel/Palestine, so Sami travels to Jordan every three months to bring the formula and anticonvulsants that Mohammad requires. Each time Sami crosses back to the West Bank, he is forced to pay Israeli customs taxes on the formula, totaling hundreds of dollars a year. This is in addition to countless other expenses: land travel, adult diapers, maintaining his customized bed (to prevent bed sores), medicine, and round-the-clock care. Sami and his wife spend so much money taking care of Mohammed that they lack the remaining funds to take legal action against the Israeli Army for poisoning their son. Tragic stories of Occupation-induced paralysis are common in the West Bank, so even if Mohammed's family had the money for a lawsuit there's little reason to believe it would be remarkable enough to bring the Israeli Army to justice. I recently interviewed Moussa, a young paraplegic who lost the use of his legs five years ago at the age of 19 when the army shot him in the colon. One Monday in February, Moussa began experiencing severe pain from an infection in his wound, which a Red Crescent doctor warned could become systemic if not treated immediately. The infection risked reaching the bones in Moussa's back, developing gangrene, and poisoning his blood, but even the best West Bank hospitals had sent him home because they were ill-equipped to treat such a serious condition. On Tuesday, Moussa's doctor referred him to a hospital in Jordan, and in two days the family renewed Moussa's passport and obtained a transfer from the Palestinian Ministry of Health to receive treatment in Amman. Then on Thursday, as the family was preparing to leave, Israel refused the sick wheelchair-bound young man permission to leave the West Bank for unspecified "security reasons." When Moussa's doctor explained that waiting could mean the difference between life and death, the Israeli DCO invited the family to appeal the decision, but only three days later, after the Jewish Sabbath. We put Moussa's family in touch with Physicians for Human Rights, who were successful in getting him to Jordan before his infection could become fatal. But Moussa will still never walk again, nor will my neighbor and friend Issa, who shot by soldiers outside his home in May 2001 as he ushered children in from the streets during an army invasion. In spite of his handicap, Issa remains committed to working nonviolently against the Occupation. Last time we spoke, he quoted an Arabic saying: "You can't clap with one hand." He said Jews, Palestinians, and the world must work together to end injustice and oppression everywhere. Almost three years ago, Issa wrote an open letter to the two anonymous soldiers who shot and paralyzed him. It was published in Haaretz and elsewhere, and I've copied it below. It is worth reading: I remember you. I remember your confused face when you stood above my head and wouldn't let people come to my aid. I remember how my voice grew weaker, when I said to you: 'Be humane and let my parents help me.' I keep all those pictures in my head. How I lay on the ground, trying to get up but unable. How I fought my shortness of breath, which was caused by the blood that was collecting in my lungs, and the voice that was weakened because my diaphragm was hurt. I won't hide from you that despite this, I had pity for them. I felt that I was strong, because I had powers I didn't know about before.Issa is Arabic for Jesus, who is also revered as a prophet in the Muslim faith. Some would say it's a suitable name for a man who believes in responding to injustice with passionate nonviolence and forgiveness. Mohammed and Moussa (which means Moses, also a prophet in Islam) never wrote a letter like Issa's, but they and their families welcomed me, a Jewish American, into their homes with gentle kindness and openness. Struggling for peace and survival in spite of great personal tragedies, the three prophets' namesakes and their families, like so many Palestinians paralyzed physically (as well as emotionally, spiritually, and economically) by the Occupation, are some of the true -- albeit often forgotten -- heroes of Palestine. Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. For information about her writing, photography, DVD, and speaking tours, visit her website at www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com
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