Far to Reach but Close to See

في

Image1: The Dome of the Rock Mosque in Al-Aqsa Mosque


It was one of August's hot nights when I was laying down on the balcony floor staring at the sky and thinking of the moment of seeing Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Palestine, and praying in it. I couldn’t sleep that night because of excitement especially since I am going there with my best friends Zubaida and Aseel for the first time in our lives. For the past few months, I - a 21-year-old Palestinian girl who never tried to cross the borders to enter the occupied lands of 1948 - have been feeling the urge to do it as soon as possible. We had our plans for the big day, but the israeli occupation had its plans too.


The bus had to move in the early morning - 06:00 am - because we will enter the occupied lands through a border fence hole near Zeita Village, Tulkarem. The road to Jerusalem takes usually one and a half hours or less but with the road we had to take and the occupation complications it took us three hours because we were walking by the West bank borders from the north to the middle of Palestine. We were enjoying going through highway 6 and seeing highway bridges, fancy cars, wide organized paths, companies buildings, and skyscrapers since we don’t have any of these neither in West Bank nor in Gaza Strip. I listened carefully to our tour guide telling us about ethnically cleansed villages' stories and what the occupation is planning to replace them with. He did not stop talking all the way about how smart is the occupation in taking advantage of all its resources to develop and provide settlers with wealthy life while we live under the apartheid system in the West Bank. The more we get closer the more my heartbeats.

Image 2: the road we had to take to reach Jerusalem


The moment has arrived and we are finally there - 09:00 am -! We stopped near Damascus Gate and got up to leave the bus and start our journey. Once we opened the bus door an israeli policewoman wearing civilian clothes entered the bus and started shouting and asking for IDs. We were shocked because we thought they did not know about us. Turns out that they have been following us since we passed the border fence hole “illegally” and that we neither have an israeli ID nor what we call a blue ID - referring to the IDs cover color- nor permits to pass through checkpoints “legally”. We knew then that it is almost impossible to get out of the bus and visit our capital or pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque only because we are Palestinians. The policewoman called another 3 police patrols to prevent us from going anywhere. The tour guide started negotiating with other police officers to convince them to allow us to get off the bus. They responded by saying only those who show their IDs will get off the bus freely. We knew immediately that this option will not allow us to issue permits in the future in case we needed to visit a western embassy in the occupied lands for visa or therapy purposes. Then they started changing their minds every few minutes. They asked ladies older than 40 and younger than 14 to step out of the bus and kept changing ages now and then. The situation was stressful. Kids started crying, old ladies started getting mad at the police saying “please just let us go and pray Duhur there and we will get back; we do not want anything from you and will not hurt you!” I tried to sneak out with my 2 friends; Zubaida could get out but I and Aseel could not. The israeli police decided eventually to drive us to the nearest checkpoint, Zaytona checkpoint in Al-Ayzariyah City, with a fully armed policeman on the bus to make sure that we get back to the West Bank.


The two hours I spent at the checkpoint waiting with the other mates of the trip were the longest and the hardest. It was boiling there and being under aluminum bars made it worse. I stood alone in the corner and observed the place. The waiting area smelled nasty and the chairs were dirty. Some kids had just come back from school playing and running after each other. I wondered how could a human being get used to these harsh conditions?! The surrounding area was a wrecked cars area and the separation wall was near to us too! At the end of the day, I believe that we could have been arrested or beaten by the israeli police but Alhamdulillah non of this happened. I slept all the way back to Nablus on the bus because I was exhausted and disappointed. I have read many articles and books about refugees, nakba, apartheid but never thought that I would have that feeling of oppression that Palestinians have been feeling a long time ago and still feeling in the present. Jerusalem is a few steps far from me and I can not enter it anyway! How do refugees feel every time they think of how close they are to Palestine yet it is almost impossible to enter it! Every time I think of that day I feel how brutal is the occupier and how long will be our road to reach freedom.




Video 1: the Palestinian side in Az-Zaytona Checkpoint - Al-Ayzariyah City


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