By Khalida Sarwari
A veteran Bay Area activist is in stable condition today after being critically injured Friday evening during a protest against the building of a separation barrier in the Palestinian village of Naalin on the West Bank, according to his girlfriend.
Tristan Anderson, 38, of Oakland, underwent surgery to have part of his frontal lobe removed. As of today he was on full life support and heavily medicated at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv, his girlfriend Gabrielle Silverman said today in a telephone interview.
“My understanding is that they are trying to let his brain rest as much as possible and do as little work as possible,” Silverman said.
Silverman, who said she has been dating Anderson for about a year now, was with him when he was hit with a high-velocity tear-gas canister fired by Israeli armed forces, which caused him to suffer a fractured skull and major trauma to his face.
Silverman, also an Oakland resident, is in Israel for a three-month-long “Taglit-Birthright” trip with Anderson, who had decided to accompany her on the trip.
“I wanted to come because I was interested in getting a better understanding of the political situation,” Silverman explained.
At the demonstration on Friday, Silverman said she was standing a few feet away from Anderson along with a small group of people nearby the village mosque. It was then, at about 4:30 p.m. local time, with the daylong demonstration having petered out, that Anderson was shot in the head as he was taking pictures, Silverman said.
Silverman reasoned that he was shot, either because he was mistaken for a Palestinian citizen, or that the army was randomly shooting into the crowd.
“The Israeli army does not recognize the Palestinian people’s right to demonstrate,” Silverman said. “There’s always unreasonable and overwhelming force against demonstrators.”
Palestinian medics immediately came to their rescue and attempted to place Anderson onto a stretcher. But even then, Silverman said, “The army began firing tear gas directly at us … again and again and again.”
“Tear gas was falling at our feet as were loading him onto the stretcher,” Silverman said.
When the medics had successfully situated Anderson, an Israeli soldier stood in front of the ambulance and would not allow it to move, Silverman said.
Silverman detailed with clear agitation in her voice the circumstances that followed, as Anderson was “getting worse, vanishing further.”
She said they underwent another 15-minute holdup at the checkpoint, the reason being, she said, that “Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to enter into the state of Israel from the West Bank.”
“Tristan’s life was in serious danger. He was bleeding terribly everywhere from the head,” Silverman recounted. “We had to just sit and wait until eventually an Israeli ambulance from God knows where showed up and we had to change to another ambulance.”
Once they had arrived at the hospital, Anderson immediately underwent surgery, Silverman said. Surgeons removed a portion of the right frontal lobe of his brain and used a tendon from his leg to seal up the area to help prevent leakage. They also “tried to put his face back together,”
Silverman said.
Silverman said that she is very concerned about the possibility of infection and unexpected trauma to Anderson’s brain and intends to stay with him while she waits for his parents to arrive from the U.S.
Friends of Anderson will hold a demonstration on Monday at 4 p.m. at the Israeli Consulate, located at 456 Montgomery St. in San Francisco.