Maha Saca
Founder-Director of Palestinian Heritage Center
The past 18 years I’ve worn black. I’ve been with martyrs and refugees. I’ve attended demonstrations and visited people in hospitals. I used to wear black to these occasions and when I returned, I’d change into the colors I love—red and yellow. But I wasn’t taking a stand if I dressed in black for a martyr and then changed. I vowed that after Jerusalem is our capital, I’d wear color again. For now, I add embroidery to connect to my heritage through fashion. [..]
Ghada Issa Ghabboun
Co-Director of Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem
My father worked ten years before he managed a room for us outside the refugee camp. Even the walls and windows weren’t complete, but it was a palace because it was outside the camp. Father used to say, “We are the victims of the victims.” He meant the Holocaust victims, but my Israeli friends try to build bridges. We have a painful history, and it has to stop. We can’t keep killing each other. [..]
Ihsan Mohammed Turkieh
Comedy writer and actress
A checkpoint is a horrible scene, but as a comedian, I like to play the simple Palestinian lady. She says to the soldier, “Please, my daughter, she is in the hospital, let me go to see my daughter.” He barks, “Do you have a permit? If you don’t have a permit, you will not pass.” She pleads, “Let me go, let me go.” He yells, “Yallah, get away from here!” She curses the Wall and yells back, “I wish a tsunami takes the Wall, takes you. Then both of us will be at rest at the end!” The Israelis laugh, but it is very black comedy. [..]
Jihad Abu Zneid
Member of Palestinian Legislative Council (Fatah party), Jerusalem
My name means “holy war” or “struggle.” I was born in 1967 after Israel occupied the West Bank. My father named me Jihad because he felt I would be a jihad. To me, it means a struggle for a just peace, women’s issues, for all Jerusalem issues. [..]
Hadeel Rizq-Qazzaz
Program Coordinator for Heinrich Böll Foundation
The people in Gaza are human beings with families. They love, they hate, they want to get married, they want to go to hospitals, and they want food. You can’t ignore them, they are humans.
The international community thinks it’s boycotting Hamas—they’re boycotting 1.5 million human beings, more than 60 percent of them children below 18 years of age. It’s collective punishment in all senses, by all definitions.[..]
Fatima Shehada Ja’fari
Political activist, women’s organizer, and former political detainee
No institution has given Palestinian women anything. Women have to grab their rights from men. I was the only woman invited to the anniversary celebration of the Fatah movement. I asked the men, “Was the revolution launched by men only? No, it was launched by men and women. Women have always struggled. Have any of you brought your wives, sisters, or mothers to the struggle? You only get us involved when you want us involved. Then you put us aside. You vote for women because you have to, not because you choose to.” [...]
Khawla Dawoud Ahmad Alazraq
Director of Psycho-Social Counseling Women’s Center
The occupation puts immense pressure on women. The men used to earn incomes by working in Israel, now they cannot go to Israel. They are frustrated, cannot feed their kids, and do not feel like real fathers who can support their families. This expresses itself in violence against women and children. [...]
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. [...]
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.” [...]
Jumana Odeh
Founder-Director of Happy Child Center
I argue with Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints. I say “I am human,” but they don’t want to see me as human. They are in denial. They are there to defend and protect their country. When they pass by hundreds of Palestinians, they don’t want to see the suffering children.
