IN STEREO

We basically have only one entrance and one exit for Al-Walaja village. Very often, when a slight thing happens at the Beit Jala entrance, they block Al-Walaja. They prevent Al-Walaja people from entering. They don’t let them go to their homes. They stay long hours on buses. Even walking on foot, they don’t let them go. I have a young son who’s struggling; he doesn’t work. He’s 25 years old. They don’t give them permission to work in Israel because [he] isn’t married. He who’s married, if he wants to buy permission, it costs 2400 shekels [~US$690]. My sons told me stories about [border] crossings and the torture they see. I want to tell you about the suffering. When he wants to go to work, a car will be waiting for him at 5.30am outside the crossing. Now, with the crossings’ crisis – people overcrowding, one on top of the other – he misses the car.

He pays again for transport and comes back home without working. Moreover, they die. Their hands get broken. This is the suffering of the workers on the crossing. While I’ve lived here, they demolished two [of our] homes. At the beginning of the ‘90s, my husband built a house on the top of the mountain, up next to my father-in-law’s house. And the Jewish-Israelis demolished it because our home was above the settlement, and it’s forbidden that we build houses. They give you a notice that the home will be demolished [but not when]. When they demolished my husband’s home, it was winter, in December. It was foggy. He came back from work [and] tripped over the stones. I mean, what could be more difficult than this situation? – Um Ala’a