“Women can do anything” – those are the words embroidered on the little hand-made purses tourists can buy in the Old Souq of Hebron – if there were any tourists… Nawwal, who collects the items from women living in little villages around Hebron, is the only woman running a shop in the Old Souq. If there is a settlers´ attack, for example, all the shop-owners quickly, quickly close the heavy door of their shop, lock it and get out of the Souq. Not so Nawwal – she stays in the shop and keeps it open…
“We have learned from the occupation how to be strong, how to be patient. We don´t care about what women usually do, we care about the necessary.”
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Reem is the Principal of Qurtuba mixed school in the H2 area of Hebron (since the 1997 Hebron Protocol divided the city, H2 has become an Israeli-administered zone).
Those children who live in H1 have to pass a checkpoint and then walk through Shuhada street, which has often been the scene of violent confrontations between settlers and schoolchildren – under the watchful eyes of Israeli soldiers. Also, settler schoolchildren, who attend the Yeshiva just opposite Qurtuba school, routinely verbally harass, chase, hit and throw stones at the students (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAuKMoEQkCI).
Reem works tirelessly to ensure a safe learning environment for the Qurtuba students and her staff. In response to the daily harassment and violence, she took matters into her own hands and successfully petitioned the Palestinian Ministry of Education to change the start of the school day as well as to shorten the breaks so the students could end the school before the settler schoolchildren leave their school. Reem has also built a coalition that includes aid from the ICRC since the government does not really support the school, since everything having something to do with H2 is considered “a plague”. – To run a school with 4000-5000 NIS a year for 129 students requires a lot of idealism. In addition, international monitors (us EAPPI, ISM, TIPH) who walk – or used to walk, since the area is declared a closed military zone for internationals until 31. December 2009… – the children to and from school through the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida (within H2, along the Shuhada Street, there are 4 of the 6 settlements in and around Hebron City, housing some of the West Bank´s most extremist settlers, such as Baruch Marzel, who lives in Tel Rumeida).
By the way, Reem, a graduate of College of Arts for Women in Jerusalem with a BA in English Literature, is also a mother of four children and has just taken up a second job as a PR person.
“When I took the students to a trip, not far away, on foot, just through the checkpoint into H1, to Jungle Land, the same children, when we came back, asked me: “Why don´t we live like our brothers and cousins, why can´t we just have fun, why don´t we have gardens, supermarkets? Why is the life on the other side so different? Why us?” I am not going to take them to H1 of Hebron anymore – it is only some hundred metres and it is another life. I will only take them to Bethlehem…”
(pictures by courtesy of Gosia Juszczak)
