Bethlehem 8 July 2004
It was 2am Thursday morning, when I went to sleep, After following the news as usual, I was having a very tough migraine. I have experienced these tough migraines for a while because of the stress I have working as a journalist.
I keep the walky-talky next to my head when I go to sleep, so that I can hear anyone calling me with urgent news, even while I’m having this migraine and at this time in the morning.
I fell asleep, before someone began shouting on the walky-talky at 6am, and I jumped from bed to answer.
His voice was deeply sad, and he was hardly able to talk, and he said “Fadi… Fadi… Ten Palestinians were just killed in Beit Hanoun village”. While he was still talking, I jumped out of bed and turned on my computer to work.
A Palestinian apartment building demolished by Israel in Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions on earth. (Ronald de Hommel)
Beit Hanoun was invaded by the Israeli army ten days ago, and their excuse was to prevent the Palestinians from shooting rockets to Israeli cities, so they begin demolishing houses, and bulldozing land, and nobody could prevent them.
What a morning I have… as a human being I am the same as everyone. A lot of people think that the journalists working in this part of the world have lost their humanity, but the truth is not at all.
It’s really hard to keep covering such news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — as by the end of each single day I feel really sick and need real psychological treatment.
I continue updating the site with this news, getting stressed out more and more — especially when hearing more information about the situation in the village.
The worst was when I got the news that Israeli soldiers opened fire on one of the ambulances that was trying to take a 6-year-old boy hit by a live bullet in his head and a pregnant woman that needed surgery to a local hospital.
I thought, This is it. They killed 10 Palestinians so they will withdraw out of the village center but I was wrong, as the Israelis invaded Khan Younis city, in the southern Gaza Strip, without any warning. They called people using loudspeakers to leave their houses and then demolished them.
Since the time I wrote this article, Israel has demolished more than 25 houses and the bulldozers are still working in the city, which means more than 200 Palestinians are homeless now.
Its still 11:30am, and I really feel overloaded from this situation. I always ask myself, Where will I will keep having hope for one morning of peace?
Can anyone tell me?
Fadi Abu Sa’da is a journalist from Bethlehem and the editor of the Palestine News Network.
