A tragedy in every home
The last time Yasser's mother saw her 11-year-old son, he had an Israeli bullet in his head. One year on, she spoke to Annika Hampson about childhood under occupation
Um Yasser welcomed us into the living room of her home in Kalandia refugee camp. A small room dominated by a large framed picture of Yasser -- a picture that was presented to the family by the local members of the Tanzim, the armed wing of Fatah. Yasser Kousba, who was only 11-years-old, was shot dead by an Israeli soldier at Kalandia checkpoint just over a year ago.
Lying next to the Kalandia checkpoint, the refugee camp sprawls on either side of the main road linking Ramallah with Jerusalem. At the outset of the Intifada the checkpoint was a simple roadblock where a few Israeli soldiers randomly stopped cars as they drove from the West Bank to Jerusalem. More than two years into the uprising, the checkpoint, with its barbed wire, high fences, tanks, grey metal watchtowers that conceal snipers and presiding over endless queues, resembles a border crossing separating two countries at war. The refugees who call Kalandia camp home have found themselves at one of the many frontlines of the Intifada.
She was preparing the evening meal and spoke as she chopped the vegetables for the salad. "It happened over a year ago, on the last day of Ramadan; I had spent the day in Ramallah buying clothes for my children so they would have something nice to wear for the eid [the holiday at the end of the holy fasting month]. I had bought Yasser new trousers and new shoes." She looks up, as if trying to stop the tears welling up in her eyes, adding that her son never saw his presents, that he didn't live to celebrate eid.
"Since the Intifada began, I was always so worried about my children. The boys from the camp would go to the checkpoint to throw stones at the soldiers there. What kind of life is it that little boys' games are throwing stones at soldiers with guns?" She continues, "Each evening I would watch the news and hear of people being shot at checkpoints across the West Bank, and in Gaza. It was torture for me, not knowing where my children were. But what can you do? I can't lock them in the house."
Then one evening last autumn, she came home and Yasser wasn't there. "I knew he would be at the checkpoint, and when his father came back from work I sent him to fetch Yasser and bring him home. But Yasser wanted to go back, to continue his game with the other children. He changed into his slippers and then said he was going to the shop." She pointed to the door, "he walked out and said he would be back in a minute. The next time I saw my son he had a rubber bullet in his head."
Having finished the salad she was preparing, Yasser's mother went through the kitchen and returned with a schoolbook. "This was Yasser's Arabic language textbook," she said, opening it. On one of the inside pages, in childish handwriting, was written, "I want to be a martyr, I want to die for Palestine!" With tears now rolling down her cheeks, she asks, "What makes a child think like this? What kind of world is it that would make him write this?"
Yasser is a martyr for Palestine, and he did die for Palestine. The walls lining the entrance to the camp are still plastered with his picture: a photograph of a young boy's face superimposed on a background of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock. Every town, village and refugee camp throughout Palestine has these posters: hundreds of faces, hundreds of victims. The martyr posters are one of the most poignant images of the Intifada. But as more and more people die for their country, the prospects for a viable Palestinian state seem to be receding.
In the living room in Kalandia camp, the television set is tuned to Al-Jazeera, and distractedly Yasser's mother points at the images of more violence in the West Bank. "All we do is watch what's happening to our country, to our people. In every house there is a personal tragedy. I am not alone. Increasingly, however, I feel that the situation is just growing worse and worse. Just 12 months ago, who would have believed that the West Bank would be permanently occupied? Now Israeli tanks are in every Palestinian town and it is unquestioned. I feel that things are moving backwards; there are more invasions, more tanks, more curfews, more blood and tears. I gave the most precious thing I had: the blood of my child. The only thought that kept me sane was that he did not die in vain -- that he died for a better future."
At the checkpoint outside, however, the dust is turning to mud and the queues grow longer. A taxi driver pulls up and tells us the checkpoint is closed, that it has been closed for the last four hours. Down the road, a group of schoolboys loiter on the pavement outside a falafel shop. People wrap their coats tight around themselves to keep out the biting wind and rain, and the future looks bleaker than ever before.
