Maha Abu Shusheh
General Manager of Abu Shusheh Trading Company
We are a nation that deserves to live, and to live in peace. What is happening to us now leaves us hopeless, and no one can live without hope. We have been neglected for a long time, and we are not going to be the only nation that will pay the price. The whole neighborhood of nations will pay because we have been left without hope. [...]
Hekmat Bessiso Naji
Project Assistant with Medico International for health services
The world hides its ears and eyes from the miserable life of the refugees in the camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The issue is not just living here, but who’s responsible for this and when will this change. For refugees, all our lives have been under a question mark. [...]
Amal Elsana Alh’jooj
Bedouin spokeswoman and Founder-Director of AJEEC
Now they are teaching adults how to listen. As a shepherd, I listened to everything and developed my senses from the air, earth, moon, and stars. Even though I was often without shoes and it was cold, I still want to send my kids to the field with three sheep and one cow and say, “This is the best school in your life.” [..]
Bushra Mukbil
Consultant with Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator
I was having lunch with a friend and her young son in Ramallah when Israeli soldiers attacked a café across the street. They had guns, shattered windows, threw gas bombs and sound bombs. The kid asked his mom, “What’s happening?” She told him, “It’s a Hollywood movie.” I said, “You have to tell him the reality.” She said, “No, I don’t want my kid to live in fear. At one point he will know it himself.” [...]
Vivian Silver
Executive Director of Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development
For Israel, the critical issue internally is how the Jewish majority treats its Arab minority. We have a lot of answering to do. Once your eyes get opened, they can never be closed again. I have had the privilege of being exposed to life as Arabs and Palestinians live it, so I can never go back. For me as a Jew, it’s an existential moral question. All citizens have to be treated equally, with dignity and respect. [...]
Huda Naim Naim
Member of Palestinian Legislative Council (Hamas party), Gaza
I live like one and a half million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza Strip. We suffer poverty, hunger, killing, destruction, darkness, and a lack of medicine and fuel. We wake to the sounds of artillery and bombing from fighter jets. Our children are killed and deprived of their basic needs. Their fathers cannot provide food, their mothers die from lack of medicine. The occupation has destroyed the basis of our life. [...]
Amoun Sleem
Founder-Director of Domari Society of Gypsies
You don’t see gypsies fighting around the world. They look for the simple life and they look with beautiful eyes. Our flag means green for the land, blue for the sky, and wheels for traveling. People should learn from the gypsies: be open, make your hearts green for everybody. [...]
Aisheh Awajneh
Director of Department of Labor for Jericho and Jordan Valley
Laborers constitute 80 percent of the Palestinian adult society and unemployment is also at 80 percent. This is dangerous. It produces social, economic, health, and psychological diseases as well as poverty. It is like a ghost that threatens us.
Unemployment is the most difficult issue facing the Ministry of Labor, and the occupation, roadblocks, and closures increase unemployment. [...]
