Tear gas over the soccer field
“You’re welcome to take it back home with you,” my Palestinian friend said as I looked at the US-made canister in my hand. “Actually, take all of them.”
(Illustration by Laura Carlin)
I have a tear gas canister on my shelf. Already detonated, of course. A friend from the Lajee Center at Aida Camp, a refugee camp just outside Bethlehem, gave it to me during a 2016 visit. We were walking back to the center after lunch. Kids were playing soccer in the quiet road that runs alongside the wall separating olive groves on the other side from cramped housing units on this side, the wall that segregates the state of Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories.
They passed us the ball, which I kicked up to my head, then bounced off my chest and juggled from foot to foot. I soon lost control but managed to pass the ball back before I completely embarrassed myself. We laughed. Then my friend reached to the ground and picked up a cylinder. “Let’s just say you tripped on this,” he joked. I cocked my head, curious about the object. “I assumed you’d know what this is, since it’s from your country,” he said, handing the chunk of metal to me. Despite the gashes and scratches, I could read the blue script circling the canister: 73/38 Riot CS Smoke Multi-Projectile (3) Range – 80 YD (73 Meter).
“This is how they shoot the tear gas at us from up there,” my friend said, pointing to the watchtowers on the massive wall curving around our corner of the refugee neighborhoods—residents call it the apartheid wall. I could see the outline of a man with a gun slung over his shoulder. Israeli soldiers monitor the Palestinian population and sometimes stage incursions into the outskirts of Bethlehem.
