But the army’s game is not just about arrests. Its about breaking the determined resistance that has persisted here for more than 4 yrs. And that means raids for the sake of raids. A tactic to ensure that noone sleeps, that anxiety runs high, that normality is interrupted. Often the soldiers enter the village, cause a ruckus and leave with no arrests. Perhaps a training exercise for new draftees combined with maintenance of a consistent yet unpredictable threat in the dead of night. Abdulla’s 7 yr old daughter is on the roof with us, he tries to get her to go downstairs to sleep, she refuses saying she loves her dad and doesnt want him to go away tonight. He explains that he had to tell her about what was happening, in a way she could understand, better than her unknowingly waking in the dark to fully armed soldiers in her house arresting her father.

After some time talking Abdulla calls out to the next rooftop, two men reply. Only then do I realise that someone is keeping watch on almost every house – peering into the moonlit night, trying to spot the soldiers before they’re at the door, atleast to give their families a few minutes warning time. But rarely are the soldiers seen before they’re in the village streets, meters from someones front door. They are well-trained in moving with the night, and these village raids are an exercise in exactly that. The informal community nightwatch does what it can though – and soon we get a phone call from the north-eastern edge of the village, soldiers have been spotted, they’re moving in on foot. We get up and head out, running in the direction of the phone call. We split into 2 groups. 1 villager and 3 Israelis in each. We shout ahead in Hebrew, hoping to begin cracks in their emotional armour before we’re face to face, “Soldiers! Go away from here! What are you doing here in the middle of the night? There are children sleeping in these houses.”

Within moments we are face to face – or face to masked solider – at the entrance to a family home. There are already soldiers inside, they’ve arrested another teenager. At least 10 fully armed and masked soldiers are at the doorway, preventing activists from entering, and maintaining a path out for those inside. They arrest an American determined to enter the house, he is thrown to the ground, four soldiers hold him down, kneeling into his back, arms twisted behind, he screams in pain. They are shouting at us to move back. We try to talk to them,

“Get off him, why are you beating him up. He is in pain. Leave him alone! There are journalists here, you are being filmed, so think before you act.”

“Why are you pointing your gun at me? Your really scaring me, please put it down.”

“Do you know why there are demonstrations in this village every friday? You are not given the full story. Do you know why you are sent to arrest teenagers from their beds in the middle of the night? Do you know that the Israeli courts have said the wall here is illegal, that it stole land from these people. And yet nothing has been done about it. And now, this.”

Jeeps arrive, more soldiers pile out and form lines in the village streets. 2 start half-heartedly throwing stones at our feet – those of us still trying to get through to soldiers.

“Imagine for just a moment that this was your town, your kibbutz, that soldiers with guns came into your house, masked at midnight, and arrested your little brother or your father. Imagine how that would be. Will you tell your mothers what you were doing here tonight? This is not the road to peace.”

Most ignore, some look a little ashamed, a few try to think of things to say back. The soldiers throw stun grenades at us, the boom is ear-throbbing but nothing more.

About 15 soldiers form a line alongside the front of another house, the commander stands in front of the door preparing to enter. We are filming, in a moment of quiet he has an instant of reflection, you can see it in his eyes, he tells his soldiers to turn away from the camera, not to let their faces be seen. The soldiers suddenly feel smaller, less confident, less sure of what they are about to do. They cower into the wall of the house, shielding their covered faces from us. The commander tells the soldiers to walk away. Tonight at least, this house is safe.

Another group of soldiers are on the other side of the village, they raid a house but cannot find the wanted child. Youth try to block the soldiers’ passage through the village by moving boulders onto the street and burning tyres. After a stand off with the soldiers for about half and hour in the street, several more stun grenades are thrown at the youth and solidarity activists, and the soliders leave with no more arrests.

Over the last 3 months 11 Bilin teenagers have been arrested, most in night raids like this one. Several are currently being held in military prison. A few nights ago the head of Bilin’s popular committee was badly beaten by soldiers. The raids continue almost nightly.

www.bilin-ffj.org

The morning comes, I ride to meet the 10 or so Israelis going to Ni’lin today. We sit in a haphazard circle on the street waiting for everyone to show up. People don’t talk much, aside from brief niceties and introductions. I cant tell whether its group awkwardness, my fear, our minds not really present – already thinking ahead to the guns we are about to stand in front of – or just a friday morning not quite awake yet. Its probably all of this. Anyway it doesn’t help calm my nerves, and maybe thats a good thing. Naïve bravery or a false sense of security are more dangerous than my nerves.

Ni’ilin. I follow cautiously out of the village through the olive groves along the dirt path that leads to the route of the wall. Under my feet the ground is littered with military mementos – rubber bullets, ammunition shells, stun grenades, cardboard bullet-boxes, and teargas cannisters ranging in variety. Every few seconds another cannister is launched. We watch the sky ahead, tracing the line of gas to try and avoid being hit but its almost impossible to see the cannister itself. Today they mostly follow the court ruling and launch the gas-grenades in an arc rather than aimed straight at the crowd. I say mostly because a teenager was just shot in the head, again, with a gas cannister. Blood everywhere, he was rushed away in an ambulance. Every half hour or so the soldiers push forward toward the village guns blazing, then they pull back and we move forward toward the path of the wall, then they push forward again and we run back, and so on for several hours. Its a strange feeling running in fear. Thinking the only thing that will determine whether you are shot or not is luck. And maybe if you can get to the front of the pack, pushing past others. It feels really instinctive, in the sense of survival instinct devoid of empathy, seeking only to save yourself. I feel guilt the moment I realise this is what i’m acting on, I try to stop myself but i’m sure i’m running faster than I ever have before. Every step I wonder if I will fall at the next. In a moment of calm I discuss these feelings with my demo-buddy, she echoes my thoughts, its relieving. Most shockingly, we are the ones running while the 14 yr olds stand still in defiance, arms up at the soldiers. They are asking that perverse question posed too often between teenagers in the West Bank. The 14yr old Palestinian asks the 18 yr old Israeli – its your choice, will you shoot dead a clearly unarmed child in full view? They shouldn’t be so brave I think to myself. But I watch some kids, maybe 10, explain to eachother where the guy was shot just moments ago, and I see the fear not so far below the surface. Its in that straight line formed by pursed lips, its in the brief moment of rapid blinks as the information is conveyed, its in the hyper-alertness of kids in these villages resisting the wall.

The ‘demonstration’ was chaos, more a mass cat and mouse exercise with live ammunition and peoples freedom and livelihoods at stake. It was broken up before it started. We gathered as several hundred village men did their Friday prayer outside under an old redgum on the outskirts of the village, encircled by soldiers – 2 armoured vehicles, a line of soldiers on foot in full battle gear, and snipers positioned on rooftops. The instant the prayer had finished – before people had even stood up – a rain of teargas cannisters fell on the crowd. Everyone ran, in every direction, but eventually we found ourselves shepherded back into the village streets. Small groups of shabab (youth) with Kafias covering their faces ran to collect the gas cannisters and throw them back at the soldiers. The crowd dispersed in groups down different streets, some trying to get back out of the village to the path of the wall via different alleys. Many, like me, confused and following whichever group we ended up closest to. I would stop in caution as we approached the source of the gunshots echoing through the streets. Watching from just a little further away than most, standing behind walls to take cover, slowly building the courage to keep going toward the path of the wall, and the 18 year olds with machine guns. By the end 3 people were shot – two with gas cannisters and one with live .22 ammunition. Actually, I don’t know if it really ‘ended’, eventually the group I came with decided they’d had enough of running back and forth from the soldiers, and we left while the kids kept at it. I guess resistance here doesn’t finish, it slowly subsides for some time and reignites again. Maybe because there was never a demonstration it couldn’t really finish. Maybe those kids were there till dusk, persisting in defiance while I ate hummus in Tel Aviv, went to the beach to wash away the afternoons gas-residue, and packed my bag for Gaza.

“Welcome to Tel Aviv” I say sarcastically as we hug. She’s smiling, seemingly unaffected by the morning stress, stoked to be in this sun-drenched city by the sea for the first time in her life. I dink her the last 5 blocks to the meeting, she’s two hours late. It was only supposed to go for 2 hours. They talk for another hour then we go for lunch and walk down to the beach. “So whats the story in the end, is the permit just till 7 or are you staying and we’re going out tonight?” “I think i’m staying, the permit doesn’t say anything on it about being back by 7” “Ace! It’ll be such a great night. Only thing is i’m going to dinner at my cousins later, would you wanna come with or should we just meet up after?” I’m actually really happy to be able to offer dinner with my family after I ate, laughed and drank coffee with hers in Nablus a few wks back, but I also know its not the most carefree dinner invitation and don’t wanna pressure. “Hey yeah that could be nice, but umm are you sure, aren’t your family kinda crazy?” i’ve told her about a few conversations I had with some of them “yeah I reckon it’ll be fine tho, these cousins are lovely, totally relaxed and open-minded, some others are coming but I reckon they’ll behave around them. Maybe just think about it and i’ll call them later if you wanna come”.

After just 20 minutes on the beach she’s called back to the office to talk shop again. An hour later I poke my head in to ask whats up, “the permits only till 7 I have to start heading back in half an hour.” “What?!” I promise to come back and walk her to the bus stop. She’s leaning against the front of the building, almost in tears. “I hate them. I want to cry but I don’t want to. Why are they doing this? I just want to live and have fun, do they have a problem with that? … I just spent the whole stupid day in meetings and just 20 minutes on the beach, I didn’t even get to swim. Do you think theres time to go back quickly? Maybe we should just drop by the beach then i’ll leave.” “Umm, I really don’t know, if you want to be back at the checkpoint by 7 then theres not really time, I’m not saying no, its not my call, but.. I don’t know I just don’t want this to screw your chances of getting a permanent permit, its your call i’ll dink you if you wanna go” “Oh I should just go. Why won’t they leave me alone, why me, why am I so different to you?” I dont know what to say, “its fucked”. We walk back to the bus stop, say bye and make plans to go out on the weekend in Bet Lehem.

I get on a bus to go for dinner with my fam, my aunt and uncle pick me up from the station, “How was your day?” “ok I guess” I tell them about my day “why did she have a permit?” they say accusingly “ah, I already said – because she had meetings for work” “Ha! they should just give every one of them a permit then” “Yeah its a big problem, their freedom of movement is really restricted” i’m kind of playing them “thats not what I mean, none of them should be allowed to come here. Ever. They can’t be trusted, they come here to blow themselves up and kill us” “all of them? are you saying you think my friend secretly wants to blow me up?” “oh its not about the individuals.” I’m relieved she couldn’t come to dinner.

I ask my host mother if its ok to take a photo. Reluctantly she agrees but no flash. “They are watching, they see everything at night”. She looks nervous as i get my camera out and fiddle around. She starts explaining that during the last attacks her relative, a photographer, was doing exactly this – he was taking photos out his apartment window and was targetted by a sniper, killing him and his mother-in-law. Shocked, I gasp and cover my mouth. My camera goes back in its bag.

I decide to stay a few days longer than planned, in part because a friend is hosting a hip hop show with live video link-up to Ramallah. 15 palestinian hiphop crews will rap 1 song each and 2 breakdancing crews will compete for the gig. We arrive and 2 laydees are on-screen rapping live from Ramallah. They are awesome, and the rest of the shows are too, i wished i understood the lyrics! The crowd’s pumped and as Gaza takes over, city-pride erupts in chants with the MC at the lead. The shows kick-off on stage with a 4-man crew, arms go up, applauds, whistles. Some technical difficulties interrupt the second show, and half-way through the third people start exiting in droves. A photographer pretends to take a photo of the rapper up close and then swiftly shifts his camera to the crowd, taking quick snaps of those in attendance. Noone around me really knows whats going on, the rapper keeps rhyming, people keep leaving, quickly, quietly, eventually only our side of the stage is still seated. Before the rapper can finish the sound is cut, video out, we get up and move out. 9 people have been killed in the last few days from infighting in the West Bank and we’re not sure if its about to start here, or if the show is somehow politically aligned or what. My 12 year old host sister is scared. We stand out front waiting for the taxi, Hamas men on the edges, watching. A uni student who’s friends with my host family tells us in hushed voice that Hamas don’t like rap shows, they regularly shut them down. I tell my host sister not to worry, its fine, theres no problem, we’re just going to go home now. She smiles, unconvinced. My heart is racing. We make it home. The next night we go to visit Black Unit Band – one of the crews that rapped along with Aiman who hosted, he’s a member of PR – the most famous Gazan rap crew. We talk politics for several hours. They explain how they’ve been invited to rap overseas but can’t get out, how one of them was arrested and badly beaten after a show, accused of touching a girl’s shirt. How the seige has meant that PR make songs now via the internet – 1 member in the US unable to get in, 2 stuck in Gaza unable to get out, and another in Egypt. How Aiman lost his father in the last attacks – their apartment targetted and completely burned out. But how despite all this, even if he had the choice theres no way he would live anywhere but Gaza. Asked why Hamas don’t like hiphop he replies “because they see it as an intrusion of  American culture, they dont understand. But we don’t rap about ‘bitches’, we rap about our country and whats happening here. I bet if i could sit down and explain it to them, then they’d probably like it.” And Khaled from Black Unit, less certain that they would come around, tells me “words can destroy more than bullets or rockets, words are our nuclear weapon”.

I wake up late. As i walk into the kitchen sleepy-eyed, i see my host father on the phn worried, trying to get information while the family stand around tense – listening in and watching nervously. They tell me their sister’s father-in-law was shot while working his land close to the border. The father rushes off to hospital. When he gets back a few hrs later he explains how lucky he was – the exit wound was millimeters from the spine. He says the hospital is terrible – lack of nursing care, no pillows, no aircon in Gaza’s 35 degree sticky summer-heat. He dressed the wounds himself. Israel dropped flyers a few wks back stating that anyone within 300m of the border was within firing range. That 300m zone comprises about half of Gaza’s most arable farmland. Now farmers and landless labourers working for as little as $5 a day are forced to chose – abandon your livelihood and relinquish your land or risk being shot. A group of internationals doing farmer accompaniment work tell us 3 farmers have been killed and 15 injured just since the “ceasefire”.

The time comes for me to leave despite ongoing protests from my host mother convinced i should marry and stay in Gaza : ) I am eager to join the push of Israeli and American peace activists who will try to get through the Israeli crossing and the ’10 Days Against the Seige’ convergence near the border that will follow. Its funny, untill a couple of months ago i never imagined i would ever go to gaza and now i’m definate that i’ll come back. With that in mind goodbyes aren’t so hard. But i still have to get out and thats not as easy as i naively thought. I arrive at the border at 12.30pm after a Gazan freind who does youth peace organising arranged my crossing from the Palestinian side. There are 2 french people also trying to exit. Our passports are stamped immediately and we sit on the surprisingly plush couches in the palestinian terminal with 5 Hamas security for several hours waiting for the other side. They keep assuring us that the egyptians have agreed that we can cross, they just told us to wait. The clock ticks over. One security guy begins telling us how he thinks many people misunderstand islam, so he explains in a somewhat perverse tone about how having boyfriends or girlfriends is not permitted, “you know what i’m talking about” over and over with much eyebrow-raising, “they should be killed if there are enough witnesses, but here in Gaza we just put them in prison”. I think he’s on the wrong path to alleviating misconceptions. More hours pass. He keeps reassuring me personally not to worry, asking if i’m ok, telling me i look nervous. yes he is making me a little nervous. he wants my email address, i refuse. more nervous, very releived by the presence of the frenchies. Its very strange, there is no phone calling happening, they all just sit around and (thankfully) give us tea for hours. At 6 they get out some phn numbers and tell us to call them – some egyptian beuraucrats, too late for them to help. 6.30pm the borders will not open, we return to Gaza city hungry, frustrated and enraged by the egyptians abuse of power & process. Perhaps a very minute taste of what its like for a Gazan. My host mother laughs and tells me again that i shouldn’t leave. She says she did the same for 4 days before she could go to egypt to see a specialist, forced to wait for the entire day at the terminal with no gurantee of passage, no food, while the egyptians know in advance full-well who you are and whether they will let you pass.

The next day i have more luck. The french embassy in egypt applies pressure, we all pass in less than 3 hours despite a cpl of hiccups by way of my non-french presence. The australian embassy does nothing despite my repeated requests – “the process for us to intervene generally takes 2 weeks… don’t hold your breath”. They report me to the emabassy in israel who call after i’m thru and tell me i shouldn’t have gone to Gaza, never to go back “because, because, [thinking of PC reason] because you might get stuck there for a very long time. And I suggest you read the Australian government travel guidelines”. thanks mate.

I arrive at the camp 2 days late – about 60 American and Israeli peace activists in large meetings & eating vegan food amoungst rammed-earth shacks and composting-toilets. It reminds me of home. They have already been refused entry for the last 2 days but the morning will see joint demos on both sides of the erez crossing calling for the borders to be opened. I dress as a clown and take on my character along with my clown army friend from tel aviv-jaffa, we can’t fly our kites properly and make even the border guards smile. We blow up baloons and give them to the 2 children, really sick, who enter from Gaza today to receive medical treatment. We write letters and tie them to the fence. We imagine our friends on the other side and wish we could see their faces, or atleast their kites flying high over the walls.

I start talking to her amidst the chaos of 40 ppl being assigned to a dozen or so young Gazan’s for homestay over the coming days. “Hi” “Hi” “I like your style, i hope you’re with me”. I’m flattered, thinking my fezza hair – self-chopped in the bathroom mirror a few days ago – would be ridiculous by Gazan standards. But its only the start of preconceptions slowly shifting into seeing pieces of Gaza’s reality. We are in luck, and a few minutes later my 17-yr-old host is shouting arguments at our groups Hamas security entourage at the hotel gates. Stunned, gaping jaw, i look on.

In the taxi she tells us, kind of ashamed, that they have a problem with the electricity at her house – its been cut since the attacks and they rely on a generator which is sometimes unreliable. We reassure her that its fine, taken aback that she is explaining this out of concern for us. As we arrive at her apartment block she points to the empty block on the other side of the (dirt)rd, directly opposite her building, “it was destroyed in the last war”. Peering in the dark i notice the concrete remnants. Her house is nice, normal, if it had a yard and wasnt on the 8th floor it could well be the inside of small Australian suburban home. Except that all the windows on one side of the house are missing, patched up with garbage bags.

Her family are unbeleivably lovely, almost like in the brady bunch. The siblings – a funny one, a shy one, a smart one, and a helpful one. Her mum smiles and laughs at the funny one and our miscommunications, and won’t hear of us going without second dinners. Her father – perhaps a little shocked that we actually showed up – is warm, friendly and clearly excited to have foreigners to talk his perfect english to. He first explains the windows – they have the money to fix them but theres no glass in Gaza to do it with. He is a surgeon, used to work in Jerusalem, but originally from Gaza. Their family has land here – grape vines, olive trees, chickens, tomatoes, he says he’ll bring eggs for us tomorrow. I double-take realising, and commenting that these will be the first free-range eggs i eat in the middle east. I smile, he says they always taste better than eggs from a cage. “Happy chickens” i say, he laughs. Then, naively, the question i need to confirm – can they leave? “mm, if you get permission from Egypt or Israel, have the right papers and a passport, a medical certificate and evidence of the appointment, maybe you can go” Like the question of leaving Gaza for any reason other than medical necessity is irrelevant, doesn’t even enter the realm of possibility. Naively – “what about to visit family in the West Bank?” “No way! No way. Look – my wife had an appointment with an egyptian doctor, a specialist, she tried for 4 days to leave, everyday she went, and eventually she succeeded, she went but it took 4 tries”.

In the morning i look out the window over the stunning Gazan coast line, yellow sand and blue sea, scattered with medium-size apartment blocks amidst unbelievably productive urban farms – rows of olives, vegetables, shade-houses, chickens. It gives me so much hope. And thats something i never expected to wake up to in Gaza. This city-sprawl has so much potential.

We visit Northern Gaza – the areas most devastated by the attacks. A faint smell of burning rubber, later explained as the explosive residue, a donkey and its calf taking cover in the rubble of a flattened international school, a mangled plastic slide, english and math exercises blowing in the wind, wrought iron and electricity wires dangle loose from smashed up concrete barely recognisable as the remains of walls. I think – maybe i sat next to the guy who flew the plane and pulled the trigger on my way to work in January, drank beer next to the officer who ordered it, ate hummus with the intelligence guy that made the decision to destroy it. A flood of memories from life in Tel Aviv during the attacks comes back, flashing against the reality before me, the sunny afternoons at streetside cafes, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice, evenings tipsy by the beach, the jam-packed trains carrying soldiers to and fro. And i see this street how it was then, dust blowing, plane screaming, people running, nowhere to go, earth shaking, building falling.

I snap back and approach the group crowding around the school’s principle “.. absolute lie that the school was ever used for rockets, its completely ridiculous. We teach openness, free expression, the American curriculum the same as you, absolutely unbelievable that it was targeted. I think the reason is that the Israelis want to maintain the image of Palestinians as the militant holding a machine-gun. We have students who study at Harvard, at other US universities. This doesn’t please the Israelis, they want to maintain that image and fear of Palestinians… We haven’t yet received a single dollar, not from the government in Gaza, not from the government in Ramallah, not from USAID… It was intentional not a mistake. The Israeli’s didn’t deny that they bombed it – they said it was targeted because weapons were stored there and rockets launched from there. The $10 million question is why they bombed the school. Its completely insane. This question you should ask the Israelis.”

A family living in the bombed out ruins of their former home offer us tea off their 44 gallon drum fire. It feels ridiculous taking anything from these people who have lost everything. Even the tent city that rose out of the rubble here has succumb to the 3-month continuation of the blockade, now just remnants – wisps of material, barely standing, slowly drowning in the sands of Gaza. And yet, still, nothing has been rebuilt.

We visit a Palestinian Medical Relief Society rehabilitation centre. A father talks with us, his 2 sons on either side, one holds crutches. The father tells that he lost his house and 2 of his four sons in the attacks, the two by side were badly injured. The boy holding the crutches, about 12, gets up – only then do i notice that he’s missing a leg. His brother, maybe 8, rolls up his pants and shows a shrapnel wound gouging a deep hole in his upper thigh. The wounds are healing. But the kids faces tell otherwise. They try to smile at us, we try to smile at them, hoping to give support, solidarity, hoping to give strength and not sympathy.

A friend from Deheisha refugee camp next to Bet Lehem takes me to see the Church of Nativity. Its kind of amusing – a muslim showing a jew one of the christians holiest sites. We are both a little clueless, though my friend knows some of its religious history. We speculate about whether this or that nook is where jesus was born, she explains very matter-of-factly that the images of maryam (mary) are pictures of the christians imaginations. Eventually a tourist from Europe explains – pointing to jesus’ birthplace and where he slept. My friend’s stories about the church are far more recent though. She explains that during the 2nd intifada in 2002 hundreds of palestinians – women, children and fighters – took shelter in the church hoping for safety. They were holed up for 40 days. She points to the trees in the courtyard and tells of how people ate the leaves trying to survive. She also tells of the people killed in the courtyard, right where we stand, shot by snipers as they stepped out of the relative safety of the church walls even for a few seconds. Only as we walk out do i notice all the bullet holes in the walls.

As I leave Nablus city I pass through a checkpoint that feels like leaving prison – two sets of turnstiles, soldiers check Ids and pat-down everyone who passes through. About 60 people stand in the freezing cold in 2 ques waiting to pass the first set of turnstiles only to step into a puddle of icy rain pooling in the middle of the checkpoint. I enter the que, the person in front turns and looks at me, he points to the empty walkway beside us, motioning for me to walk through. I realise whats going on. I’m not Palestinian, I don’t need to stand in any ques. I take the express-lane and am greeted by a smiling soldier in full battle-gear, helmet, bullet-proof vest and holding a machine gun. He asks for my passport, I say I only have my license and hand it over. He peers at the foreign card confused and asks where I am from – “Australia” “Ah Australia!” before I can object he shakes my hand, and steps aside to let me pass. Apartheid.

Cars waiting to get through the checkpoint form a traffic-jam that stretches about half a kilometer back toward Nablus. The public transport system avoids this by shuttling people to and from the checkpoint – taxis ferry people the 2 kilometers between the city and the checkpoint and then minibuses run from the checkpoint to and from Ramallah. On the bus I chat to the guy next to me, he has a sweets shop and asks if ate Knafe in Nablus, apparently famous for the Palestinian sweetcheese delicacy. We talk in broken Hebrew, the only language we have in common, though I try to practice some phrases I have learned in Arabic – really only useful for their amusement value rather than any real communication. He tells me he has a bullet in his leg from the second intifada – he threw some rocks. He used to work in Tel Aviv before the borders closed and we discuss the food at a well-known Arab falafel shop in Jaffa. He says today the checkpoint was quite fast – 40 minutes, he often waits 2 hours just to get out of Nablus. “Chaval al hazman” he says over and over, about everything really – the war in Gaza, the checkpoints, the occupation, the closures. Its an excellent Hebrew saying – roughly translating to “what a waste of time” but also kinda referring to time as life, and similar to ‘fuck’ in its ability to apply both as positive and negative description depending on context. I explain what I am doing here and he asks how I learned Hebrew, remnant fears surface and I look away mumbling that I picked it up from friends in tel aviv. He seems surprised but satisfied with the answer. For all the warm hospitality I received in Nablus i’m not yet at the point of telling strangers on the bus in the West Bank that i’m Jewish and my family are Israelis. I hope i’ll get there soon though.