“I can’t let even a little bit of hate get in”: Issa Amro, the Palestinian who remains a pacifist in the West Bank, occupied by Israel

Issa Amro lives among those who live illegally in her city. He is not in the minority, there are around 250,000 Palestinians in Hebron for 800 Israelis, but Amro does not have an army at his service. Your neighbors, yes. Several.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) patrol the streets around Israeli neighborhoods in Hebron, a kind of private security service paid for by Israeli taxpayers to ensure that those who came to occupy land that does not belong to them can build their lives. oblivious to that fact. Outside the official army, there are several small civilian militiaslegally armed.

The reality of the occupation is the only one Amro knows. He was born in 1981, long after the first settlers began to occupy land in Hebron, a city that already existed in the Bronze Age.

I never knew what it was like to move freely in the city where I was born. “You have a datebut they don’t let you pass through checkpointthat day the Israeli soldier is not in a good mood, there goes your romantic night. Another day you have a job interview or you have to go buy something urgent, in short, it is almost impossible to have a normal life”, says Amro, sitting on the terrace of his house, on a purple morning that rises behind the olive trees on the hill of Tel Rumeida. Palestinians have a very high level of tolerance for stragglers.

“I had a fence here, but the army said they had to remove it. I pushed it further to the side, but it was destroyed. One day they broke my window with stones. I was here, I was sleeping and now look how I have the window”