And then there is Saed who lost his mother in 2002 when she was assassinated by an Israeli sniper. There is Eslam who twice saw the Israeli army occupying his house and could not go out for days at a time. There is Ala from An Najah University (the biggest university in the West Bank) who cannot sleep at night because of nightmares due to multiple Israeli Army interventions and beatings in the campus during the night. There is Amad who went to jail with his whole family for 3 months in 2005.
And then there is this Palestinian girl, 17 years old, from Balata refugee camp, who tells me, on my last day in Nablus, while sharing a meal people from the camp had prepared for us:
“Tell me. What was the image you had of us before coming here? Did you think we were all killers? Did you think we were all crazy? Because I've got friends in Europe who told me that over there people think we are all crazy and terrorists. You know it hurts me so much when I hear things like this. We're not crazy. We're good people here. I mean not everyone's good. Like everywhere else. But most of us are good. Nice people. Do you see many terrorists in this room? Do we all seem crazy to you? We're just normal people and we want to live a normal life. But life for us is hard here. Can you tell the truth to your people when you go back to Europe? Can you tell them who we really are, please?”
Most of the testimonies I filmed are now available online at http://lifeunderoccupation.wordpress.com/
Do not hesitate to show them around and use them.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).