Qalandiya

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Place: 
Observers: 
Ronן Hammermann, Tamar Fleishman; Translator: Charles K.
Jul-26-2015
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Afternoon

Reports of youths from the Qalandiya refugee camp shot dead by the army arrive so often they grip our heart and stop our breath.

 

They, the murdered children and youths, keep looking right at us, remain ever-young, year after year, child after child.

 

On the walls are photos of Muhammad al-Qasba, who was murdered, aged 18, in the morning of the third Friday of Ramadan, accompanied by photos of his murdered brothers, Yasser and Samer.

 

 

Photos of Muhammad Ziad al-Aghraji, aged 17 ½ , also stare from the walls, murdered the night of Al-Qadr, exactly one year ago, at exactly the same location, for exactly the same reason – for no reason, and no one is guilty and there is no murderer.

 

Only a youth plucked off, and a family and deep sorrow and endless mourning.

 

 

And “While he was yet speaking there came also another…” (Job 1:16)

 

And to the number of those killed was added Muhammad Abu-Latifa - aged 18 when he died -only a few hours after the two who preceded him were photographed.

 

An inquiry into the circumstances of Muhammad Abu-Latifa’s killing that was published in a local conversation: 

http://mekomit.co.il/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99-%D7%93%D7%9D-%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A6%D7%91%D7%90-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%92-%D7%A7%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94/

 

In a corner hidden from view, at the edge of the checkpoint compound, next to razor-wire fences and piles of garbage, in the late afternoon, a large group of women and children who’d left home early in the morning for their weekly visit to relatives imprisoned in Israel boarded buses for their journey home.