The Town

I’m in the West Bank. It’s hard to take on board what it is like for people who live here. It’s even harder to try to explain the little that I have been able to grasp.

Imagine that in your town, only the private schools are open because the teachers in the state schools haven’t been paid in 6 months and are on permanent strike.

Imagine that when you go to the private hospital to give birth to your baby (the government hospitals are shut as no-one’s been paid) you meet a woman who has just given birth at home but who has come here as she is badly hemorrhaging. Her husband is trying to explain to the hospital staff that they have literally no money to pay for treatment, or even to pay for his wife to stay a single night in the hospital. He is warned that if he leaves with his wife then she is likely to die, but as they won’t allow him to stay without paying and he doesn't have a dollar to his name, he eventually is forced to lead her out the door.

Imagine that 60% of people in your town are unemployed, and that the number of people living in poverty has rocketed in the past few years.

Now imagine that someone has built a wall around your town so that if you drive a mile or two in any direction you reach an impasse. Imagine that if you want to go to the next town to see a friend you have to apply in advance for a permit to cross the wall at a checkpoint. Imagine that for this and almost any other reason, your request for a permit is routinely denied. Imagine that your home town is now your entire world.

Now imagine that the wall wasn’t there a year ago. Imagine that your business is 5 metres away but unreachable, because the wall was built down the middle of a street. Imagine that crossing the street to get to your shop now takes you an hour as you go the long way round, using your permit to cross the military checkpoint, although there’s not much point going as all your customers are back on the wrong side of the wall.

Imagine that it is illegal for people who live on the other side of the wall to come to your town (although they are too scared anyway). The only people who come are foreigners. Imagine you’re isolated and forgotten about.

Imagine that while you are out at work one day, soldiers blast open the door to your house with explosives, so that they can shoot into a neighbouring building where they are trying to arrest someone. Your 4 children are in the home alone, and call you while hiding downstairs. There is no way you can get to them as the whole area around your house is blocked off. Imagine having to wait for over 5 hours not knowing what's going on, before the soldiers leave and you are able to get back to your house and see your children.

How would you feel?

People here don’t have to imagine.