Americans in Ramallah share plight of citizens under siege

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Trapped in their homes by shelling and gunfire, they're running short of food and water, soothing their fearful children and -- in at least one case -- dying in a hail of gunfire.

They're American citizens in Ramallah, one of the half-dozen West Bank towns that have come under Israeli military control in the past six days.

About 16,000 Americans live in and around Ramallah, the largest and most important of the Palestinian towns seized by Israel as part of a military offensive that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says is meant to crack down on terrorists.

These are dangerous days for U.S. citizens on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. The State Department advised American residents of Jerusalem to leave after it was hit by a relentless wave of suicide bombings aimed at Israelis.

Thousands of Americans are also among the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who have frequently been targeted by Palestinian gunmen during 18 months of bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Of the U.S. citizens living in Ramallah, nearly all are Palestinian-Americans. Many had an American upbringing or education, but returned because of family ties, or out of a desire to see their children learn Arabic and absorb Palestinian culture.

American flavor

Because so many people have U.S. family connections, Ramallah has long had a strongly American flavor. English is widely spoken, there are burger joints and Internet cafes, and the town is the headquarters for the Palestinian franchise of Coca-Cola.

The fighting of these past months has touched the lives of almost everyone, Israeli or Palestinian, but for those in Ramallah, the Israeli offensive that began when tanks rumbled into town last Friday has been a particularly harsh reminder of the conflict's realities.

Hala Abdallah, a 37-year-old native of Detroit, awoke the next morning to the sound of truck-mounted loudspeakers blaring instructions in Arabic for all boys and men between the ages of 14 and 40 to come outside. As they have elsewhere, Israeli troops were rounding up fighting-age men to try to snare fugitives wanted for attacks against Israelis.

Abdallah and her husband, Fayyad, decided they had better wake up their son Nidal, a gangly 11th-grader. He is an American citizen, born in Cicero, Ill.

"I didn't want to send him out, but neighbors said, 'You should, or soldiers will break in and search the house,"' Hala Abdallah said. "So he walked outside with his father."

Troops instructed Nidal to lift up his shirt -- Palestinian males rounded up in this fashion are obliged to show they are not wearing an explosives belt or carrying a weapon -- and then he was marched away. His father, who is 52, was not allowed to join him.

"The neighbors said, 'Oh, you're Americans, they'll send him right home,"' Hala Abdallah said. "But they didn't."

Nidal, who is 17, was held overnight in a schoolhouse, one of about 70 boys packed into a single classroom. They were given no blankets or bedding, his mother said.

His parents, too, spent a sleepless night, and deflected the questions of Nidal's sisters, 8 and 13, who wanted to know when he was coming back. In the morning, he returned, tired and hungry, and tried to comfort his distraught mother.

"He's at that age where he wants to be a man and handle things, but I hated for him to go through something like that," she said, still tearful days later.

Another U.S. citizen, 21-year-old Suraidah Abu Gharbiah, was among the first fatalities of the Israeli incursion into Ramallah. Doctors said she was shot while riding in a car with her husband and 9-month-old son. Her husband was also wounded, but she shielded the baby with her body, and he was unhurt.

Abu Gharbiah was a native of the Washington, D.C., area and lived there for the first five years of her life, said her husband, Murad Abu Gharbiah. "She was an angel to me," said her husband, who was recovering from two bullet wounds. "She did not die -- she is living in my heart."

Abu Gharbiah said the car was shot at by Israeli soldiers.

The U.S. consulate in Jerusalem confirmed that an American had been killed in Ramallah during the offensive, but did not disclose her name for privacy reasons.

Stephanie Khoury, a 34-year-old Arab-American from Austin, Texas, lives only one street over from Yasser Arafat's compound, which is surrounded by Israeli tanks. She said she found it both heartbreaking and heartening to watch her Palestinian neighbors cope with running low on food because the military curfew had kept them at home.

"It's so sad what's happening, but it's also amazing to see how people pull together and help each other," she said. "If they have something left to eat, they share it with everyone."

Nabil Sami, a Palestinian-American who lived in Jacksonville, Fla., for 10 years, said he sometimes had second thoughts about staying on in Ramallah -- especially when his three children asked when all the shooting would stop. Heavy gunfire echoed through the streets again Wednesday night.

"I didn't know what to tell them about that," said the 42-year-old businessman. "I still don't know."