A Street Divided by Dion Nissenbaum

averted—if the United Nations had done more to bring the two sides together before things got out of hand.
    â€œIt is difficult to dismiss the thought that, had the MAC acted immediately after the Israeli complaint of 16 December 1950 [about the killing of an Israeli civilian by a shot from the Old City walls inside Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem], the ensuing unfortunate chain of events might have been avoided,” Israeli wrote. 16
    But the problems were so serious that the two countries couldn’t keep bickering over points of procedure. The killings along the border kept happening with regularity. And the No Man’s Land seemed especially problematic.
    By that summer, Israel and Jordan came up with a new plan meant to make sure people like Hijazi Bazlamit weren’t shot dead along the border.
    In July 1951, Israel and Jordan sat down with a detailed map of Jerusalem that showed which houses fell within the No Man’s Land borders.
    Israel and Jordan went house by house and marked about 70 homes in the city’s No Man’s Land in which Israeli or Jordanian families would be allowed to live. Israel marked the houses it wanted to protect in red; Jordan marked its homes in blue. For the people living there, it cleared the way for “normal civilian life” in No Man’s Land. Israel agreed to provide city services to those on the Israeli side. Jordan agreed to do the same for those to be connected to the Jordanian side. The agreement cemented the stubbornness of the families living along the borders who refused to budge.
    Now a widow, Wajeeh Bazlamit was even more determined to stay in her home. She made a vow she would ultimately keep: to die living on her land, just as her husband did. Abdullah remembers something his mom said again and again: “I will leave this land the same way my husband did.”
    The UN agreement had another significant provision: Any other families were barred from moving into No Man’s Land. People already living there could come and go for things like work and family visits. But both sides had to retain the “status quo” in No Man’s Land: Neither side could build or repair any homes there—suspicious acts both sides often viewed as aggressive attempts to gain new advantages.
    Jordan created a small entrance through the barbed wire right below the Bazlamits’ house so the family could get in and out of No Man’s Land.
    Life between the lines was supposed to be a little bit safer, even though everyone in the family knew that going out to their courtyard could be fatal. But it seemed like the trips to get water from the well or to pick lemons, olives and figs might be a little less dangerous.
    On searing summer nights, when it was quiet along the border, Abdullah, Zakaria and their other brothers would sit in the courtyard where their father had been shot dead and look out at the darkened horizon. They could hear the clank of rifles and coffee pots coming from the Jordanian soldiers in their nearby outpost. And they could hear the occasional shouts and laughter of the Israelis up above. When the moon was full, they could see the silhouettes of the Old City walls and the Dome of the Rock through the haze of campfire smoke drifting across the valley. When the winter storms pelted the city with hail, and rolling thunder spilled over Abu Tor with flashes of lightning, it did sometimes feel like they were looking down on the Gates of Hell.
    Cross-Border Bread Smuggling
    As things settled into more of a routine, the Bazlamits went up into their gardens more and more. The more time they spent out back, the more often they caught sight of the Israelis on the other side, living in the homes of the Bazlamits’ former Palestinian neighbors. Every now and again a kid’s ball would come sailing over the fence and roll down the hillside. The balls were rarely returned. Dawlat, Abdullah’s wife, was one of the women who thought of