Nineteen years old. Israeli soldiers came for him in the night at his father’s home on February 12, 2003. 4 men from the Khalili family were taken in 2 days.
Ibrahime, 17 years old, arrested two nights ago (February 14, 2003). I woke to a phone call at 4:20 am and a mother crying, repeating her words in an obvious state of shock “They took him, Ibrahime. They ransacked the house…broke many things..they took him…Ibrahime…” a cracking, broken-hearted voice that echoed in my head for over an hour as I tried to go back to sleep, turning over again and again in whys and hows of this land, of this human-made hell.
I see the Abu Zhour family the next morning in Balata. The youngest daughter, who had two days earlier been gregarious and friendly, is utterly silent. Their rooms have been torn upside down, everything is in complete and utter shambles, clothes are everywhere, covered in a glitter of shards of broken glass from the mirror, crushed tapes, shredded papers, broken toothbrushes and school notebooks.
Israeli soldiers came a little after 3 am and entered the house with force, searching room to room, leaving with a 17 year-old boy: Ibrahime. A boy was hasn’t even finished high school. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw the contents of a small bag that the soldiers had thrown in disarray in the corner of the boys’ room: clothes, coffee, and socks for Mohammed, the mother explained, another son already in prison (Taken in Nov. 2002). I can not tell you how many families have a similar bag prepared in their homes, waiting, because the reality is that the “democratic” State of Israel regularly prohibits even the Red Cross to visit the prisons.
Ibrahime, 17 years old, arrested two nights ago (February 14, 2003). I woke to a phone call at 4:20 am and a mother crying, repeating her words in an obvious state of shock “They took him, Ibrahime. They ransacked the house…broke many things..they took him…Ibrahime…” a cracking, broken-hearted voice that echoed in my head for over an hour as I tried to go back to sleep, turning over again and again in whys and hows of this land, of this human-made hell.
I see the Abu Zhour family the next morning in Balata. The youngest daughter, who had two days earlier been gregarious and friendly, is utterly silent. Their rooms have been torn upside down, everything is in complete and utter shambles, clothes are everywhere, covered in a glitter of shards of broken glass from the mirror, crushed tapes, shredded papers, broken toothbrushes and school notebooks.
Israeli soldiers came a little after 3 am and entered the house with force, searching room to room, leaving with a 17 year-old boy: Ibrahime. A boy was hasn’t even finished high school. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw the contents of a small bag that the soldiers had thrown in disarray in the corner of the boys’ room: clothes, coffee, and socks for Mohammed, the mother explained, another son already in prison (Taken in Nov. 2002). I can not tell you how many families have a similar bag prepared in their homes, waiting, because the reality is that the “democratic” State of Israel regularly prohibits even the Red Cross to visit the prisons.