-
The following is the account of a difficult day of
Samah Atout including the trashing of her home and her
family being held by soldiers while they occupied the
home. Samah is the Project Hope Palestine Director
and Nablus Coordinator. The account is in her own
words, and details some of the horrendous but everyday
tragedies she and others have gotten used to.
The day before I came back from a very long trip, I expected that I would be in my very comfortable bed and have the nicest rest after a very hard work I have been doing. I came home and it was locked, my brother said in a very exhausted voice that he is tired and he has no desire to see me! I was like wow, I know I face some troubles with my family but not to a point that they will lock my out! So I realized there were something wrong!
One of the neighbors told me that the Israeli soldiers broke into my house. I was shocked, cause in this sort of situation they put all the people in the building in one room, they do humiliate them, they destroy and do the most horrible things in their lives at the occupied houses.
Thousands of horrible things crossed my mind, thousands of ideas crossed my mind in one second, is my family ok, what to do, what not to do, who to call, what will happen, what happened.
Around noon, I was going crazy, Palestinian young kids start throwing stones at my house, nothing could stop them, they want the soldiers out!
Then I start hearing bombing coming from inside the house itself, and smoke came out from the house also, I couldn't imagine anything but the soldiers bomb my house and might kill one or all of my family!!! It was the longest moments I would ever remember.
I stood outside and was trying to get closer, a guy was passing next to me and asking me whats the story, he was around 5-7 meters away from me, he wanted to run away cause obviously he was very scared--then in less than one second, he got shot at his chest and felt down the floor, start screaming and then the blood was all over, I put my hand on his chest to avoid as possible bleeding and screaming to get ambulance, the girl who was with me phoned one, but as we were in a hot spot, ambulance were close to us, luckily they took him to the hospital and he is still alive! I felt that I was waiting there for ever, I felt that the ambulance took years to reach us, I felt something I never felt before, that this bullet came out of my window and I have to pay apology for this man who might die in any moment in my hands!
When I get into my house, I found that the house was badly damaged, burn, all the windows are broken, all the cartoons were burn, all the walls turned to black, all the wires came down from the roof, I just couldn't recognize it at all!!! I was saying OH MY GOD where are they? I founded my mum, my dad, my brother but not his wife, where is the two little baby girls? They told me they went to the hospital cause of smoke and some simply injured! I realized that we can fix the home, but who is going to fix our spirits after all what happened?!
And now, each time I will look through my window, I will see that guy who was shot yesterday and through him I will remember every day my friends who I pray that their souls will rest in peace!
My shirt was dirty cause of the fire and it was full of black, also, it was full of blood, and here I was thinking about the two colors in Palestine's flag!!!
That was another day in Palestine!