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'They confiscated happiness from us.'
The olive branch symbolises peace but here in Al Arm in the West Bank it has come to symbolise something else. When Israeli settlers started clearing the Palestinian farmers and villagers from their homes the olives were abandoned, were left unharvested, or the settlers simply burnt the trees that the farmers had relied on and lived next to for centuries. Olives are part of every meal, either served in a small bowl or in the rich green oil that flavour the salads or the silky-smooth hummus. A single olive contains so much history.
Israeli settlers armed by the government began ethnically cleansing the more desirable areas; houses were burned, animals killed, crops destroyed, more villagers were pushed out.
‘They have confiscated everything,’ says Fadwa whilst driving through the chaotic pot-holed streets. She runs The Sunflower Association for Human and Environment Protection that supports Palestinian girls and young women. There are few public services and little infrastructure, so uncollected bags of rubbish are everywhere, piled up in the middle of the street, on the pavement when there is one, or burning in skips. As she winds the windows up to avoid the toxic smoke, she says, ‘they even confiscate the air.’
After the Oslo Accords in 1994, the West Bank in Jerusalem was divided into three sections, originally for five years. Area A was run by the Palestinian Authority (PA); Area B was under PA civil control, but Israel controlled security; and Area C, which was 63% Palestinian, was totally under Israeli control. Al Ram is in Section A, enclosed by an eight-metre-high concrete wall with snipers and inscrutable watch towers. In this wall are large gates controlled by the Israeli military so anyone who needs to go to work in Jerusalem must pass through them which leads to long queues of traffic where people in cars burn out their horns from frustration during the inevitable delays. Workers also have to apply for permits to cross from Al Arm into Jerusalem and some start queueing at 5am to get to work on time. It is quicker to walk. The whole process is to intimidate and impede the Palestinians from living their lives, so workers have tried to avoid the time wasting and petty discrimination by scaling the wall with ladders and ropes to get to work.
‘It is a wall of hatred,’ says Fadwa. It was deliberately planned to cut off the Palestinians from their land, so farmers live on one side of the wall and their farms are on the other.
The wall has also prevented children getting to school, pregnant women from accessing clinics and older people from getting vital medication. It impacts on all aspects of Palestinian life and there have been violent demonstrations when the armed forces have shot at Palestinians, as in February 2026, when two young men were killed by Israelis.
The Qalandiya Check Point is a giant concrete construction in the wall, where pedestrians climb several flights of stairs to cross over a bridge and exit through large lockable turnstiles. Pedestrians are not searched on the way in, only on the way out.
Getting into Al Ram means walking uphill from the check point, past shabby mechanics, shoe shops, and street vendors and kids sell bottled water, trying to squeeze a few coins from the drivers stuck in traffic. Many of the cars are coated in thick dust, the air is full of petrol fumes and grit and old tyres pile up in the side streets where stray dogs lurk near the bin bags.
The Qalandiya Refugee Camp has been there since 1949, and it was recently raided by the Israeli army.
Where did the refugees come from?
Fadwa says that their villages were destroyed by the paramilitary Haganah in 1948, and Palestinians were pushed out across Israel and some went to Lebanon, Gaza, Hebron, and some went to Jordan, Syria, Egypt… The refugees lost everything, farms, houses, assets. They have now had nothing for three generations.
There is very little education available here for the children as there is very little funding; teachers can only work one or two days a week. The technical college has also been shut down. Some of the children can access classes online but if a family only has one laptop or smart phone, then the other kids will miss out. Illiteracy is being used as a political tactic to keep the population uninformed.
The children also grow up with violence and intimidation.
There are many teenagers and young men just hanging around the streets. There is nothing for them to do. In the shawarma shop, there are four young guys and hardly any customers: they are under-employed. There is a serious issue with youth poverty: they have no work experience, few qualifications or skills and they have watched their parents or relatives grow up in the same way, so they have limited expectations with no way of escaping a dismal future.
At The Sunflower Association for Human and Environment Protection young Palestinian women and girls in traditional dress get support for mental health, learn handcrafts and develop skills in producing environmentally safe food: they are taught how to grow things wherever they can, on flat rooves, on balconies, in tubs in the backyard, but like everywhere in Palestine there is very little money to support their work even though the situation is desperate. The centre is a vital community resource and when Fadwa arrives everyone greets her, happy for her to be there, for her energy and commitment. Upstairs, ‘mothers and teenagers are coping with the psycho-social difficulties at home, on the street, at school, in the community,’ while outside, laughing children play in the yard where two days ago soldiers had fired tear gas forcing everyone inside. These soldiers also raid houses. They come at night which traumatises the women and girls. They are afraid of the soldiers who carry their guns provocatively, pointing their barrels at those they question or arrest.
The difference between Israeli and Palestinian towns is immense: the young Israelis are well educated, they wear expensive trainers and brand name clothing, far removed from the poverty and lack of infrastructure that the Palestinians have to deal with; where young women and girls have had their education damaged.
Last night, a wedding in Al Arm. Outside, men in black shirts and trousers were trying to get drivers to park their cars in some kind of order but it wouldn’t be Palestinian without a little chaos. For the young man and woman, their wedding will be the biggest event in their lives so far, certainly until their children are born, but then these new mothers will have more to worry about: little money, their own healthcare, welfare for the children, poor housing, their husbands or sons …
The day before Fadwa had been to see a 16-year-old boy who had just done two years in prison: his education is ruined, she says. There are thousands of Palestinian men in prison serving long sentences for opposing the occupation, for protesting about the quality of their lives, which makes it difficult for the wives and mothers who rely on them working to keep the family together. Who is going to support them?
Fadwa says ‘Why is this being ignored? Why is the state of Israel recognised but not the Palestinians?’
But there have been major demonstrations around the world: thousands have marched through London in solidarity with the Palestinians and it does make a difference as it gets covered by the media and younger activists have been energised and recognise the urgency for Palestinian self-determination.
Please support The Sunflower Association for Human and Environment Protection.
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