Hearing stories

Majd tells me, “Here in Palestine, we have everything. We have nightclubs and checkpoints, we have dreams and shoe stores, schools and occupation.”

For the most part, daily life carries on like anywhere else. Taxis take people to work, we sit at cafes, we cook dinner. But buried just beneath the surface of the comings and goings of daily life—and constantly bursting out—are traces of tragedy.

Majd believes that no Palestinian is untouched. Everyone has a story. As I spend time with Majd, I hear more of her story.

My perception of the story begins a few days after my arrival while riding in the car in Jenin. The family drove me to the top of one of the hills surrounding the city to see the view. In the valley below and on the surrounding hills, windows and streetlights mapped out the shape of the city. Someone pointed out a section just below us on the hillside, to me indistinguishable from any other section. They wanted me to know that it was the refugee camp that was flattened by Israeli bulldozers and then rebuilt by its occupants. I was taken to that hilltop several more times, and each time, I was told about the camp.

The story begins to materialize as just that—traces. Though the stories of the camp, the stories of those who came to live there, their former homes and new lives could fill many books, at first, I learned only where it was, and that it had been destroyed and rebuilt.

The importance of this sight to those showing it elicits a story that lies just beneath the surface—a story rooted in the Second Intifada, in which Majd's hometown, Jenin, became a flashpoint of violence as the Israeli army endeavored to root out Palestinian militants in the refugee camp next to the city.

It is later, sitting at the dinner table, more than a week later, that the story continues to emerge. A conversation about highways turns again to Jenin and the intifada. That night, I heard many shocking fragments of a story of a person, a family, a city and a nation.

It is a story in which Majd, at 12 years old, got to know her neighborhood with one Israeli tank on the corner and another down the street. The military classified the city as a closed military zone, cutting it off to the outside. They went without water or electricity for 22 days. There was no food—only what the family, or other families, had saved.

Israeli soldiers entered homes. Majd describes that they “made a mess.” They forced everyone into one room—not just the family, but multiple families. A soldier stood guard at the door.

It is a story that turns into nightmares haunting the population. “I can still smell dead bodies.” She cringes. “They wouldn't let the ambulances though. They would blow them up because they said we used them to transport terrorists.” It is a story of a generation of children without a childhood. “The children don't play innocent games. Only Arab soldiers, guns, shooting, bombs.”

Majd says few were left unscarred, both figuratively (“I think all Palestinians have psychological problems.”) and literally. She tells me her boyfriend has a bullet scar on his leg, and her brother one on his forehead. “He was very lucky.”

“Khalas,” she says, picking up the bowls from the table. “Life goes on.”