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Sarra

Soldiers in Sarra

BY: NISREEN GHANEM

On one winter night, Israeli soldiers came to our village with dogs.  They began searching for something but we didn’t know what.

They reached our house at 2:30 in the morning.  They jumped over the gate, then they knocked on the door loudly.  We were not sleeping because we had heard bombs in the village.

My father opened the door and the soldiers told us to sit in one of the rooms downstairs.  Some of the soldiers watched us and others searched the house.  They asked about my brother’s room and checked it carefully.  My little brother, only seven years old, was shivering from the cold.  The soldiers didn’t find anything.

The next day, we were told that they arrested 18 boys.

A few days later, the boys were released.  We were told that all of this was only a training activity for the soldiers.

Olive trees and Iftar

Nasreen and her siblings

One of my Advanced English students, Nasreen (she’s wearing the white headscarf in this photo), invited me for Ramadan iftar (dinner) with her family on September 5th.  She lives in a village near Nablus, called Sarra.  We ate on their second floor porch with a beautiful view of the magnificent sunset and the hilly, desert countryside spottedwith olive trees and villages.

This view was marred by a huge fire in the distance.  Olive trees belonging to Sarra farmers and farmers in a neighboring village were enveloped in huge flames.

Her family looked at the fire, and looked at each other.  It was nothing new or surprising.  Imagine watching your neighbor’s garage go up in flames and think, “Well, this happens all the time.”  We continued to eat dinner.  There is nothing they can do to prevent it.  Nothing they can do to stop it.  They can only watch.

Fire in Sarra

Israeli Army jeeps drove by the fire and did nothing. This happens all over the West Bank all the time, especially in villages like Sarra, that are surrounded in all directions by Israeli settlements.  Did this make the news?

No.

Fire in Sarra