As the sound of bullets and explosions are heard all through the night in Ramallah, not very many children could get enough sleep listening to shooting from ten in the evening until five in the morning. There is not much left in children’s lives other than going to school and in the last three weeks all schools in Palestine were closed due to the Israeli military reoccupation. The Bethlehem schools continue to be closed into their fourth week due to the siege at the Holy Nativity Church. The land of Christ’s birth has totally been destroyed by apache helicopters, f-16 fighter jets and tanks that constantly shoot rockets into different neighborhoods, all in the name of security for Israel. But who cares about the security of Palestinian children? Who can stop the war that has robbed children from their childhood in this Holy Land? How can Palestinian children receive a basic education under military occupation?
As the sound of bullets and explosions are heard all through the night in Ramallah, not very many children could get enough sleep listening to shooting from ten in the evening until five in the morning. There is not much left in children’s lives other than going to school and in the last three weeks all schools in Palestine were closed due to the Israeli military reoccupation. The Bethlehem schools continue to be closed into their fourth week due to the siege at the Holy Nativity Church. The land of Christ’s birth has totally been destroyed by apache helicopters, f-16 fighter jets and tanks that constantly shoot rockets into different neighborhoods, all in the name of security for Israel. But who cares about the security of Palestinian children? Who can stop the war that has robbed children from their childhood in this Holy Land? How can Palestinian children receive a basic education under military occupation?
Samuel Delou, the seventh grader at the Al-Ahliyyah College in Ramallah, one of the Latin Patriarchate Schools of Jerusalem, says he is not even scared of soldiers anymore because it is such a regular part of his life now to see soldiers and tanks in the streets. The Israeli army has reoccupied Ramallah so many times since the start of the Palestinian Uprising September 28, 2000 that no one keeps count anymore. Yesterday I had to drive several miles myself with the Israeli jeep in front of me having soldiers hanging out from the back pointing their rifles with their fingers right on their triggers in front of our car. These soldiers are so busy getting “terrorists” that it is hard for them to distinguish even a mother and three children. The only words my children kept saying: “Mom, they’re going to shoot us…mom stop the car…mom don’t pass them up, they will think we are suicide bombers.” I kept wondering the whole day what type of school day will my children have when their day begins with soldiers, guns, and armored jeeps. Is it possible for children in Palestine to concentrate and learn any academic subjects when their lives are constantly at risk?
“I’m not scared of the soldiers…it is usual,” says Samuel. His little brother David, eight years of age feels totally different. David is so terrified and frightened that he always stands next to his mother and holds on to her. The psychological affects of war may take time to show up in some children but it is evident that all will be affected by the awful cycle of violence that has terrorized both sides of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. At the Al-Ahliyyah College, a western catholic school educating children from kindergarten to 12th grade, many children show immediate reactions to the military occupation by their lack of concentration in the classroom, lack of interest to complete work at home, constant fear and discussion of tanks and soldiers and many children report nightmares and seeing blood in their dreams.
Samuel loves his school so much that the only thing that scared him during the three weeks of total occupation and severe curfew is the thought that school would be canceled for rest of the academic year. “They stayed a long time, I thought there will be no more school…I just saw tanks and soldiers every day,” says Samuel who insists he is not scared of soldiers but he thought they would permanently stay in his city. Samuel is actually the oldest boy out of six children. Three sisters are older than him, Nellie, Sana and Noora. His two younger brothers are David, the youngest in the family who is always frightened and Awad who is ten years of age. The children usually stay home after school every day. There are no activities to participate as in the past. Samuel helps his father very often at the vegetable shop. “I go to help my father…if I don’t have homework, if I have homework, I do it, after this I help my father because my father is selling fruits and vegetable.”
After talking to Samuel that day, I actually noticed him taking boxes of vegetables out of a small truck next to the Ramallah Latin Church and handing them to another young boy to carry in the vegetable shop. I perceived that he was polite, kind and hardworking. When I asked his science teacher Ms. Ghada how Samuel behaved in school she mentioned: “Academically speaking he is weak, as his personality goes, he likes being a comic all the time, making fun of people. He doesn’t concentrate when he studies, he comes from a non-educated family but his mother cares about him, she comes often to school.” The science teacher’s comments were consistent with the math teacher Ms. Randa who said: “Samuel is good in math but moves too much, jokes in class, he is not serious… He is smart but he is not using his smartness… he is loud, his style is to be loud.”
Samuel did not think the above teachers were his favorite anyway. He said he liked Mr. Nicola, the history teacher because he was a good teacher and explained many things. “I am going to the Al-Ahliyyah for two years now before I was at the Evangelical school…this is a good school, the teachers are very good when they explain and I like gym and art and English…my house is near the school,” explains Samuel.
Ms. Ghada, as a teacher and mother of two boys, strongly feels here in the Holy Land it is different than any part of the world for children. “They don’t live their childhood like any other children in the world. They are deprived from the basic requirements. We can’t create social activities for students in Palestine because you don’t feel safe keeping students late. I don’t see that students have good choices to spend their afternoons or weekends. It’s not safe to send your child anywhere,” she admits. She feels most children like school and this is the only activity left to do in our country. Students, however, do not like the large overloads of homework and sometimes they don’t even like the actual lessons. But, they love coming to school. Her children have nothing to do after school either. They stopped going to the theater, playing basketball at the local playground or visiting their grandmother in Jerusalem. There is absolutely nothing to do, thus attending school is more important than ever.
Fadi Theodory, another seventh grader in the Al-Ahliyyah also admits that everyday after school he only does his homework. The last month he had to evacuate his home with his family and go and live with his grandfather until the soldiers go away from Arafat’s compound right next to his house. There were too many explosions and the neighborhood was the worst in Ramallah in terms of danger so many families left their homes including the vice-principal of the school, Ms. Rana.
Fadi said: “I didn’t want to go to my grandfather’s house, I feel so bored there, all my things are in my house but my father and mother made me go.” Fadi is described as a highly intelligent student by all of his teachers and he has won several certificates in the past for his excellent writing in English. Ms. Ghada says: “He has straight A’s, very serious, studies well and is one of the best in the class.”
About the current situation Fadi says: “I don’t like them (the Israelis)…I hate them because they say that we are all terrorists and they kills us.” Fadi was particularly sad the day I spoke to him because it was the day after Palm Sunday according to the Orthodox Calendar and his mother had not colored red eggs, nor made sweets, nor did they visit family and friends, as is typical tradition in the parish. “Every year the Palm Sunday is better but his year we did nothing,” confesses Fadi.
Fadi has three sisters at the school as well: Laura, ten years old, Maram, eight years old and Raneen, five years old. He has been attending the Latin School since kindergarten. The principal of the school, Fr. Ibrahim Hijazin says that many families that have kept their children at the school for many years are facing difficulties with the tuition this year: “Most of the families are not paying the tuition and I understand why because most of them can not carry on this responsibility because of the very bad economic situation. They come here because they believe in the school. I think because they know our philosophy, which is to educate the whole child. We have to love the child and they know also we try to build the human personality and Christian personality.”
Editor’s Note: Dr. Maria C. Khoury has been working with English teachers in the Latin Patriarchate Schools to enrich English language learning. She has been living in the Holy Land for six years following the Oslo Peace Agreement when her husband invested in the Palestinian economy establishing the first microbrewery in the Middle East. She is a graduate of Hellenic College, Harvard University, and Boston University. The above article was prepared the week of May 1, 2002.
