Palestinian interior: Life in Gaza and Hebron,
November 2000-October 2001
Cut in half - Beit Hanoun, April 2001
Beit Hanoun is a region in the northern Gaza Strip at the Israeli frontier. Last night, bombings followed mortar fire. The hajj, the leader of the family, comes to meet us. His hands tremble and his voice catches. He tells us about the night he's just experienced. With each explosion, the house seemed to leap from its foundations and then fall back down. He hasn't slept. This morning, he learned that a youth from the district was literally cut in half by a missile. He keeps repeating, "Cut in half."
Thinking about bullets - Tufah, March 2001
Hania, 14, had been in front of her house when she was suddenly racked by pain. Her sister asked what happened and saw Hania bleeding. The two girls ran to an ambulance nearby. Hania still has a bullet in her back. She thinks the Israeli soldiers might be able to find her, wherever she is.
What about the children? - Netzarim,
November 2000
We returned to Al Muragah and met a woman in her forties who was visibly exhausted and troubled by persistent anxiety. She no longer sleeps and eats very little. Her expression is sorrowful and her exhaustion shows. "What will happen to the children if I die?"
Like an enormous earthquake - Tufah, April 2001
A man is erecting a tent on a pile of rubble. He explains how the bulldozers came to his house. The tanks were firing constantly. Hidden in a bedroom with his children, he saw the engine attack the front rooms. He tells us that the children were crying as the machine headed towards the neighbor's house. I ask him why he is raising his tent on the ruins, exposed to the gunfire. "Where will I go?" he answers.
Netzarim, November 2000
[There is a] sentence that people, especially the elderly, repeat often: "They are going to kill us, we are all going to die."
Patients also voice the hope that we will bear witness to what we see and hear: "Do people where you live really know what we're going through?"
Hebron, March 2001
I visit the home of a nine-year-old child who is unable to sleep, cries out for his mother at night and has become agitated. His mother doesn't know how to calm him. Her house is occupied and Israeli soldiers are stationed on her roof.
"In the beginning we were terrorized and we couldn't sleep. The soldiers leave their mess behind, they urinate in front of our windows. It was never like this before, even during the [first] intifada [1987-93]. They fire heavily now, whenever they want, just like that, to play games, for nothing. We don't know what's going to happen."
Hebron, March 2001
We conduct a visit in Abu Sneina district, located on a hillside facing the Qiryat Arb'a settlement, which was rocked several days ago by violent bombing and strafing. Bullets and missiles woke the family in the middle of the night, breaking windows, tearing through walls. They were all pinned to the bedroom floor, terrorized and waiting to die. A 12-year-old was wounded in the head and lost a lot of blood. The child himself removed the metal fragment from the wound. They couldn't call an ambulance. Crying, her legs shaking, the mother had to give first aid. The other children sobbed next to her, clinging tightly to her.
Gaza Strip, July 2001
We meet with a family whose roof has become a permanent base for Israeli soldiers.
"The soldiers have done everything to make us leave but I'm still here," the father says, proudly. "This is my home. But they've stolen my life and my dignity."
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