'Why are you firing on us? We're only workers!'

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"April 1st was a fateful day for Sabir al-Shatiya, 74 and Nasser Sabatin, 43. One hails from the village of Salem near the settlement of Eilon Moreh, the other from the village of Husan in the Bethlehem region. Both arrived unconscious at the end of the day to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, and were hospitalized for about a month alongside one another in the intensive care unit. This week they were transferred to the internal medicine ward.

Sabatin, who was shot in the leg by soldiers, is fighting for his life in isolation, after contracting an infection; his breathing is heavy, he looks lost, haunted, as though he is holding onto life with all his remaining strength. That same day he was moved to the ICU. Al-Shatiya, who arrived at the hospital with three broken vertebrae in his neck, four crushed ribs, a hole in his lungs and a broken hand and foot, is slowly recuperating. The respiration tubes in his throat make it difficult for him to speak, his look is glazed, he is drooling. For the first time since regaining consciousness he answers the questions of his son, Ala, as to who beat him. "Settlers," he says, in something between a whisper and a gurgle, demonstrating with hand motions how he was beaten. How many? "Four," he shows on his fingers, his exhausted expression becoming filled with fury. With what? "Stones, rifle butts, a stick," he replies by nodding his head to the possibilities his son enumerates. Immediately afterwards his face falls. He urges his son to bring him soup.

Two Palestinians who almost paid with their lives while trying to work for their living. Al-Shatiya, the father of 11, went out as usual to work on his land. When his sons are not looking for work in Israel, they also work on the family lands, located about a kilometer from the Scali Farm outpost, which is planted on top of a hill and overlooks all the Palestinian fields at its foot. His wife had begged him that morning not to go out to the fields alone. "Who will do anything to an old man of 74?" he had replied.

A few weeks earlier, the hilltop hooligans had already harassed the farmers of Salem. Israeli volunteers who arrived there to help them not only drew their fire even more, but also brought Al-Shatiya's story to the headlines. Nobody wrote about Sabatin, the father of five. Firing on "infiltrators" looking for work within the Green Line or in the settlements is apparently a matter of routine in the new situation created by the fence."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/712950.html

[Englander]

1. "Because we can". n/t