By Yousef Bashir

When the Intifada started in 2000, I was only in the 6^th grade. Kids my age did not go to watch movies or travel with their parents for the summer time. Instead, we watched the young men throwing rocks at soldiers who were sitting behind strong, safe walls. Some soldiers used to beg the teenagers to go home and not waste their time. Collecting Israeli bullets was also a very cool thing to do or even waiting for an Israeli tank to get closer and then run away. This is what I used to do for fun when I was a kid. I also loved playing soccer in the street even though the ball was older than me.

My house was very close to the Kfar Darom settlement. All our neighbors had left their houses and Israeli bulldozers destroyed them after that.  It was a very important time for my family. My little sister, Zana, thought that the end of the world was about to start and thought that the timing was not too fair since she was only 5 years old.

My father refused any idea of leaving the house, unlike my mother who wanted to leave as soon as possible. I was the only one who supported her, but then later we all had to stay with my father in our house until a quite large group of soldiers showed up looking for him. They asked him to leave the house but my father refused, saying that he is peaceful and he had never hurt anyone before. This didn’t matter at all to the soldiers who decided to live with us because they didn’t want a Palestinian family living right next to hundreds of Israeli soldiers. They lived with us from 2000 until the Israeli pull out in 2005.

It was miserable and there is no such words that can describe seven kids and their parents’ lives under constant guard. My father was stronger than anything and he never gave any of his kids a reason to hate the Israelis because he believed that we are all the sons of Abraham.

Life went on with our new “guests” who made their own rules and forced them on us. We actually got used to it until one day a group from CNN came to our house telling us that they had permission from the Israeli side and they could make a report about our unique situation. Everything was under control till the CNN camerawomen broke the rules and went upstairs where the soldiers lived and even took pictures. Very soon soldiers came and were very upset with my father who didn’t really know the rules they wanted him to follow. Our house was divided into area “A” where Israelis had control over the (land), area “B” where the Palestinians had permission to be, and finally Area “C” where it was shared by both sides and I guess that was the bathroom!

My father accepted the new agreement and decided to go read a book in his bedroom, which was really close to one of the watchtowers. Because we were used to hearing the crossfire everyday between the Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, we didn’t notice that the shooting was toward our house that time, actually toward the room that my father was in. If my father had not walked around the house looking for the rest of the family with blood dripping everywhere we would not have known that he had been shot. It was a bomb and my father got hit in his neck. On TV my father said, “What happened last night made me believe even more in peace”.

As a Palestinian teenager who had never left Gaza strip, I always thought Israel was a place full of soldiers. I did not know what Israel was all about until the day I got shot by an American gun called M-16.  In 2004 some United Nation officers wanted to visit my family and again they had to ask for permission from the soldiers. Happily they got permission to visit us, but only for 15 minutes.  We were glad, especially my mother who used to complain all the time that we don’t have any friends who could come visit us at home.

After seven minutes the soldier told everyone to leave the house, so my father and I decided to walk them to the car to say goodbye. The moment I raised my hand to wave I heard the sound of a bullet and it didn’t take me too long to realize that this bullet had landed somewhere in my body. I fell on the ground looking at my father who was ahead of me. I said ” father I think I got shot.” Without turning his head he said, ” Get up and get back to your homework”. I tried so hard to get up but I couldn’t because I was not able to move my legs at all.  This was when everyone who was around me realized that I had been shot by one of the soldiers who we were talking to just a few minutes ago.

My father was talking to me about random stuff just to make sure that his son was still alive. I told my father about how well I did on my exams that day and he was very happy with a very sad voice.  Knowing that I could die, I thought how great life is even if you had to live with soldiers guarding you night and day.

Some German friends helped my father get me to a hospital in Israel called Tel Hashomeer in Tel-Aviv where I was reborn again. People were extremely nice to me. In fact some of them were bringing me food and water and others would let their kids play with me. I was paralyzed for about a year living in one department with 11 other kids from Israel who were also paralyzed for different reasons.  I felt really safe with the people in the hospital and they truly loved me.  It was a very new home for me and my life was starting over again. When the doctor told me that I would not be able to walk for a long time but they would help me recover and even walk again, I started crying with a tiny smile on my face.

What happened to me made me realize that one Israeli shot me but many Israelis were there to save my life and this is what made me decide to become a peacemaker. I still have the bullet embedded in me till this moment and I am managing to live with the pain.

Later on I went back to Gaza full of energy to make a difference one day. From the day I got out of the hospital I have dreamed to become a foreign minister of Palestine and become a powerful leader who can help his people live in peace and have a better life.

In 2005 I was lucky enough to come to Maine to be a seed at Seeds of Peace Camp and that was the beginning of my journey. I got the chance to live with Israeli kids who I assumed were my enemies. I became more familiar with the political issues between Israel and Palestine and even more familiar with the Palestinians from the West Bank. I asked the kids at Seeds of Peace Camp to love and respect each other because I believe that enemies can be enemies but can also show respect.

After Seeds of Peace I went back to Gaza. Seeds of Peace Co-founder Bobbie Gottschalk asked my father if he would like to send me to a private school in Ramallah. At first I lived with my aunt and later with a very kind Christian priest, after my aunt kicked me out of her house because she could not trust Seeds of Peace.

After all that, I decided that it was best for me to live in America and be on my own. Again I was lucky enough to attend Wasatch Academy in Utah, which was quite an experience for a Palestinian in the “middle of nowhere” Utah. Now I have been accepted to attend Berea College in Kentucky.

For me this is a success story. For you perhaps it is a story of hope. My dream is to go back to Gaza one day and help the kids have access to good schools. I truly believe that Palestinian kids are badly in need of good education and a life free of violence and destruction.  America has been a safe haven for me. Hope has been my only weapon and I guess if it wasn’t for hope I would have been somewhere else were God doesn’t exist anymore.