Iman’s Story
The pain of being a mother under Israel’s military occupation
Editor’s Note: This is a piece by one of Holy Land Trust’s past Travel & Encounter participants.
Iman’s name means ‘faith’. Sometimes she feels she has too much faith. At just twenty-four years of age, Iman has experienced more hardship and heartbreak than most people do in a lifetime. The impact of having her home destroyed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as well as the omnipresent threat of further demolitions and Israeli settler violence from the adjacent Carmel settlement have resulted in both an entrenched sense of weariness as well a resilience to remain strong and steadfast. This is Iman’s story.
“I have been here in Um al-Khair all my life. I was born here. I married here and live now with my husband and two children. My life is in Um al-Khair. It is not an easy life and many times I want to leave here for my children’s sake, for their future. Inshallah (Lord willing),” said Iman when talking about her space in this conflict.
It is September, just a month short of when the cold Autumnal winds begin to blow through the South Hebron hills signaling the icy winter that is imminently approaching. It also a time when Iman revisits the trauma of having her own home demolished at the onset of winter in October 2014.
“They always come in Winter. The weather is icy cold here. The wind blows through and cuts like ice. It’s too much cold. They [the army] know how difficult it is for us in winter,” she said, recounting the times the homes in Um al-Khair have been demolished.
It was September 2013 when twenty-year-old Iman married Bilal Hathaleen, also from Um al-Khair. Bilal had spent many years taking the early morning trek into Israel as one of many Palestinian construction workers in order to acquire the funds to finance building a home for himself and Iman. Just weeks after marrying Bilal, Iman fell pregnant with their first child. Her pregnancy was wrought with complications and eight months into her pregnancy Iman was rushed to the hospital where she was induced into labor and gave birth prematurely to her son. Mohamed was born weak and with health issues that required hospitalization for eleven days in an expensive private hospital. He recovered sufficiently, however, to be reunited with his parents at home. When Mohamed was just five months old, Iman received a phone call telling her the IDF were on their way to destroy her home. She had just enough time to take her family’s personal belongings before they too were destroyed.
Faced with the demolition of her home and a weak baby who needed dedicated care, Iman felt paralyzed with a sense of fear and disillusionment she still carries with her today.
“When they demolished my house, my husband lost his job just after. They made a problem and prevented him from going to Israel to work. Now he has no job and we live there [she points to the two-room tin shed built with donor funding]. Alhamdulillah (Thank God),” she said, reliving the trauma of that day.
Compounding her family’s constant threat of homelessness is the onslaught of violence they face from the Israeli Settlement Carmel which borders their property by meters.
For the past three weeks, Jewish settlers have consistently thrown rocks at Um al-Khair each night as well as severely injuring an activist resulting in his hospitalization. They have also cut fencing which housing their animals, causing them to lose their livestock and a vital part of their ability to survive.
“It’s hard for them [the settlers] to kick us out so they make our life difficult. We have no electricity. We have no water, no road. We cannot build anything because they tell us it is illegal. It makes our life like a hell. It exhausts me too much. I think about my children’s future,” Iman explains. “I want a good and healthy place for them. I fear from the violence [of the settlers] for my children. I don’t want them to see that, to grow up with that. I don’t want my children to live the same experience I did.”
Now with a nine-month-old daughter, Malek, and Mohamed, who is now four years old, the future of her family is very uncertain. She cannot allow herself the luxury of being lulled into false sense of security especially with winter approaching and the entire village under threat of demolition. Iman doesn’t what the future holds.
“I cannot just leave from here. I don’t know what God holds for us. I have too much faith in God to change the situation here. I’m living day by day. I’m not thinking to plan for our future. When I go to sleep and I am thinking too much, I close my eyes and hope to wake up and find that nothing has happened,” she continues on, exhausted. “Sometimes I feel like I am having a heart attack because I see my dream broken. I don’t want this to be my children’s future.”
The trauma, the sense of hopelessness is almost palpable. Yet, at the same time, not unique. This is the story of tens of thousands of Palestinians across East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
Join Holy Land Trust in resisting not only the violence here, but in all systems of oppressions. Join us this winter, Dec 21 through Jan 3, on the Sumud Freedom Tour as we partner with the village of Um al-Khair to re-create a world altogether different than this one, one based in equality and restorative justice. Stand with us in vulnerable co-resistance as we build the sacred community.
