Zayneb Alshalalfeh of Hebron

IT WAS about 3am when the Israeli soldiers invaded my flat in the centre of Ramallah. I woke up with the noise but first thought it was one of my flatmates who had woken up to get a cup of water. I opened my eyes with a flashlight shining on my face after they had pushed the bedroom door violently.

The soldiers had no reason for this invasion in the first place, they just left the flat after. For a few days after, I was waking up scared. I also felt that home was no longer a safe space. The Israeli soldiers had invaded my room with no prior notice so home is not even a private place.

Indeed, I still feel afraid sometimes that this may happen again, though, I am trying to forget it all because it is nothing compared to others’ experiences. In the 61 per cent of the West Bank that falls under full Israeli control, around 297,900 Palestinians live in 532 communities. Eighty-eight of these communities are classified by Israel as closed military zones or firing zones.

Through my work, many residents of these communities told me that families with livestock were given temporary evacuation orders and forced to stay away from their homes — with no alternative shelter — for up to two days while the Israeli military trained. Indeed, remembering all of these stories made me feel that my experience was just not worth mentioning. It’s a feeling that most of the Palestinians are familiar with and which Marsel Khalifa has well expressed in his song “so the misery which I live is just my share of your miseries.”

A permit to visit Gaza was the most important travel document I have got. I was afraid I might never visit Gaza in my life. Indeed, thinking that I have visited Europe and the US made me sad thinking that visiting these countries is easier than visiting Gaza, which is part of my homeland, Palestine.

When I got the permit I felt luckier than the vast majority of the West Bank residents who are unable to get one.

Every single person of the many whom I met in Gaza who has got friends or family in the West Bank who they are unable to visit has experienced this feeling.

I remembered my friend Rawan from Bethlehem, whose father was unable to visit his sister in Gaza until he got a permit to attend her funeral. Only death was a conventional reason for Israel to give him a permit, as if people need conventional reasons to visit family. Kholoud’s mother from Nazareth was even unable to attend the funeral of her sister in Gaza.

The stories which I heard from the people in Gaza about not being able to visit their family and friends in the other parts of Palestine, or not being able to access universities and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza, were many as well.

I was only able to shower every few days since Gazan houses have electricity for just six hours a day. The electricity distribution schedule was random so I had to adapt my life to it.

Gazan tap water, which is unsuitable for human consumption, was also not so good for showering — I could taste how salty it is. Water and electricity were only two problems in the long list of the problems that besieged Gaza.

Despite all of this the people’s main concern was peace. Almost all of the people I met said: “We love Gaza and life in it, and we just hope that there will be no new war.”

Kholoud Al-Ajarma of Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem

TODAY Palestinians are the largest and longest-suffering group of refugees in the world, numbering 10 million worldwide.

For the past 67 years, Israel has denied Palestinians most of their basic rights as human beings, including their right to return to their original towns, villages and homes.

I was born and raised in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem as a third-generation Palestinian refugee. In Aida, as well as other places in Palestine, Palestinians suffer from the ongoing colonisation of our lands and the systematic violations of our rights by the Israeli occupation.

I am incredibly excited to be in England and I was especially delighted by the generosity and solidarity of the Northern Women for Palestine. Being in England, however, reminds me of the differences between England and Palestine. Whereas I can travel freely here after travelling more than 3,000km, I cannot travel to Jerusalem, just 7km from Aida.

I enjoy the green countryside here but I keep thinking of the thousands of Palestinians whose lands are being confiscated by the Israeli occupation. I can drink and use clean water while my people have very limited access to water because of the Israeli control over water resources; some people have no water in their houses for weeks in Aida.

I feel safe in the places I visit in England but I remember that Palestinians are being arrested and imprisoned without charge or trial and that our houses are being invaded and searched. I enjoy fresh air when the people of Aida are being tear-gassed by the Israeli army on a daily basis when the camp is invaded.

I feel thankful that I came to England in 2012 to participate in International Women’s Day events that were arranged by the Northern Women for Palestine, and it was here that I met my best friends: Zayneb from Hebron, Kholood from Nazareth and Sameeha from Gaza. We all live within the borders of historic Palestine but we cannot unite on Palestine’s soil because of the Israeli colonisation.

Despite all the discriminatory actions against them, Palestinians continue to struggle for their basic rights. In Aida, and everywhere I go in Palestine, I witness examples of the true spirit of sumud (steadfastness) and resilience.

Although Aida is invaded almost daily and Israeli army attacks continue, hundreds of children go to schools, play football and learn Palestinian songs and dance.

Despite Aida being very crowded and having no green spaces, refugees make gardens on the roofs of their houses to maintain their attachment to the land, which has never ceased.

Even though young people are being arrested and targeted by Israeli soldiers, they continue to go to their schools and universities believing that education is one of Palestine’s most important assets.

All over historic Palestine and in exile, Palestinians continue to preserve culture and traditions — Palestinian traditional embroidery, traditional dance (dabka), and Palestinian food are all part of our history. Safeguarding them and passing their importance from one generation to the next is an integral part our popular resistance.

Arwa Abu Haikal of Hebron

I GREW up in Tel Rumeida in Hebron, where we always had to fight settlers’ plans for occupying our land. Since September we faced the most difficult time of my life; we faced lots of killing in our area.

On September 22 a young girl was shot at the checkpoint between Tel Rumeida and Shehada Street. Every day after this, on my way to work, I was walking over the bloodstain of that girl. Every time I passed I felt there was something suffocating me.

September 30 was a gloomy day — it looked like it would rain. I looked at the sky, saying a prayer beginning “I wish some heavy rain to wash the bloodstain.” That was the start of this poem:

Blood stain
I wish some heavy rain
to wash the blood stain;
to rest and calm my fears
and Tel Rumeida’s pain.
My dream is peace and justice
and ending that chain
of murdering, killing, shooting.
Can you tell me what we gain?
Hatred breeds more hatred.
Love can end the pain.
I dream of sunshine coming to meet the rain;
to build that love around despite what has remained.
Do you know what has remained ?
Barriers, borders, walls;
killing, shooting and drones.
And that dream again
occupying my brain;
the dream of heavy rain
washing the blood stain;
ending occupation
and feeling life again.

• Northern Women for Palestine comprises a group of activists who work to stage events across the north of England around International Women’s Day. They connect the struggle of Palestinian women to the wider movement for justice and rights for all women. The latest visit involved events in Manchester, Saddleworth, Sheffield, York, Hebden Bridge, Bradford and Halifax. For further information, contact Annie O’Gara at [email protected] and (0114) 438-2351.