Our Sacred Land by Kenize Mourad

Author:Kenize Mourad [Mourad, Kenize]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781836430018
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1. Weapons that cause cruel and unnecessary suffering are forbidden under the Hague Convention. These include dum-dum bullets, which explode inside the body because the casings are covered with incisions.

LIVING UNDER CURFEW

The Sambar family live in the lower part of Ramallah, in an old house consisting of one room of 25 square metres, divided by a tall cupboard – one part for the parents and the other for the eight children, who range from Wassim, 15, to little Malak, three. To get to the tiny kitchen, set up in a shared lean-to, you have to go out of the house; the family uses their neighbour’s toilet, a hut some 30 metres away.

On the 28th March, the Israeli army occupied Ramallah and established a military post just opposite the Sambars’ house. To be able to manoeuvre its tanks more easily, it blew up two neighbouring houses. The month of occupation was a nightmare for the Sambars.

“They forbad us to leave our room”, the mother, a woman of 35 with an emaciated face, tells me. “For twenty-seven days, ten of us had to live in one room, without the right to go to the kitchen or the toilet. I couldn’t even go to prepare things to eat. If I opened the door a little, they would point their guns at me and threaten to shoot. The children were hungry and the little ones cried, not understanding why I didn’t give them anything to eat. I begged the soldiers to let me go to the kitchen but their only answer was to point their guns at me.”

The eldest child, Wassim, a teenager with a fearful air, leans forward on his chair.

“Because the toilets are outside the house”, he said, “they refused to let us go to them. My sisters used an empty rubbish bin that we put in a corner of the room. The smell soon became terrible – and we were forced to stay here. I refused to use the bin and I wanted to go to the toilets. My parents said that it was too dangerous but I insisted so much that in the end they agreed. I slipped out at night and ran the 35 metres, very quietly. But when I came out, the soldiers were there. They surrounded me, made me put my hands in the air and threw questions at me, threatening me with their guns: ‘What are you doing?’‘What’s your name?’ ‘How old are you?’, all the time hitting me with their rifle butts.

“When my father saw them hitting me, he ran out shouting, ‘Stop! Stop! He’s a child, he just went out to go to the toilets!’. Finally, they let me go. But I’ve had a lot of pain in my back since then and I can’t walk properly.

“The next day, at dawn, the soldiers burst into the house. There were about fifteen of them, shouting like madmen. They went through all our things, upsetting everything, kicking everyone. They shut us all in the kitchen and started to ransack our room.

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