No Baby Born in Bethlehem

In the Holy Land LWR helps to heal the sick, train young adults, and rehabilitate people broken in body and spirit. Reaching help is a gamble, however, in a society scarred by settlers, soldiers and suicide bombers. In the report below, a young woman tries to go to Bethlehem to have her first child.

By Sean Hawkey, editor for the World Association for Christian Communication*

Bethlehem, December 2, 2002 — When Nahed Fawaregh became pregnant earlier this year she and her husband felt blessed. She was due to give birth in the first days of December and would travel to the nearest maternity hospital in Bethlehem.

Nahed and her family live in a small village called Ma'sarah (meaning Olive Press) where the countryside is spotted with olive groves and vineyards. While many of the villagers drive herds of goats and sheep, Nahed's husband drives a taxi, so getting to the hospital wouldn't be a problem.

Nahed, who just turned 20, was the subject of family affection as her baby grew, friends gave her small gifts, old ladies knitted little jumpers and everyone made sure she ate what she wanted. Nahed was radiant with health and happiness.

At midday on November 27, Nahed went into labour. She had already prepared a bag and she set off with her husband in the taxi for Bethlehem. They went on the only road that isn't dug-up and blocked-off with piles of earth and rubble by Israeli bulldozers. But only certain people are allowed on this road: Jewish people who live in heavily guarded settlements on the West Bank. (The term "settlements" doesn't accurately describe the expanding colonies, towns and cities that are built on high ground taken by military force and inhabited by some 400,000 people, many of them new arrivals in Israel from Eastern Europe and Russia. Local Palestinians are left with the ever-diminishing gaps between the colonies and the network of highways linking them up.)

The Fawareghs knew they were forbidden to travel on the Jewish-only, settlers road, but it was an emergency. They prayed that they wouldn't run into an Israeli patrol, but they did.

A jeep with four soldiers of the Israeli occupation forces caught them and held them at gunpoint. The soldiers said nothing even though it was obvious that Nahed was in pain. Her water broke and her husband pleaded with the soldiers. They told him to shut up. Nahed began to bleed but the soldiers still did nothing; they just kept them waiting. Finally, after two hours, the soldiers let them go.

Bethlehem is under curfew, its streets patrolled by tanks. "This is a prison," explains Rev. Mitri Raheb, the Lutheran pastor who with his family and other Bethlehem residents has spent months trapped in their homes this year.

"If you leave your house you will be shot," Raheb says. Tank crews shout through loudhailers as they roar past the houses: "Don't come out, you animals." The afternoon that Nahed arrived in Bethlehem a man named Rabayia, who had gone to get some bread for his family, was shot dead by occupation troops. He was shot in the back of the head with an explosive bullet. Often such murders are reported as crossfire, people here explain in despair: "Crossfire means that we cross and they fire." Helplessly, I watched Rabayia’s mother and wife gnashing their teeth and tearing at their hair and clothes with grief.

In Bethlehem, a statue of the Virgin Mary stands above the entrance of the Holy Family maternity hospital. She is riddled with Israeli bullets. When Nahed finally arrived at the hospital it was clear that the delay had been too long. Her baby boy was dead.

Nahed tells me her story quietly; she is full of grace. "I offer up my suffering to God," she says. As I look at her I can't help thinking that her whole story is in her face, not just her own story but Palestine's story. (To see Nahed’s photo, visit www.lwr.org/news.)

* Hawkey is editor for the World Association for Christian Communication, a London-based development organization and professional association. He met Fawaregh during a visit to the International Center in Bethlehem, a Lutheran outreach ministry which hosts LWR and other church-related travel groups.