"In the memory of all
those people who have
lost his life in
the Palestinian cause.”
Dulce Bellum Inexpertis
The day that I have been waiting for so long has finally arrived, my sentence is the same as for others in this prison for Palestinian politicians. I am Layla Vashem, I feel that life is passing me at every step and the wounds hurt less than the suffering that overwhelms my heart. The screams around me begin to be very distant and I can't distinguish the color of each voice. Perpetual suffering adheres to my chest, but I will not find redemption. I feel a familiar moisture flow through my wrists on. The arid desert gives off a heat with the flavor of death. The sun still burns me, despite the drawn rags that have kept me from the dry cold of the nights. My stomach growls and I feel that it is not because of fasting, but because of the feeling that is usually confused with fear, but at this point, I have lost the same fear after losing hope. My head is playing tricks on me and I can't get rid of the memory, I don't know if it comes back to my mind to torture me or is some kind of consolation. However, it is killing me, even more than the butts of the rifles in my face. The tears shed will not be enough to mourn the dead of the people we love. «There are men who say: We believe in God and in the final day, and yet, they are not of the number of believers.» These people have betrayed us.
I remember that my grandmother told me that it was in the spring of 1947, when the United Nations Organization agreed to the participation of Palestine (which was under the British government), in two Arab states, the Jewish and the Arab. In this way, the independence of the one like Israel and the opposition of the Arab peoples were given. He also said that only twenty percent were Jewish. As a result of the border lines, no one doubted that a war would be inevitable. Currently, we Palestinians continue to claim the occupied territory and they (the Israelis) defend the land that was granted to them.
A Zionist paramilitary organization, which operated during the British Mandate for Palestine, seized power after the withdrawal of the British government. Since then we Palestinians have had no luck in this life, as if God prepared us for something worse. The Zionist State of Israel maintains an economic siege based on the harassment of some exalted Palestinians against the Jewish inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Terrorism has spilled the blood of millions of people. The Promised Land today is a bloodbath. There are those who blame the children of Abraham, Isaac was the ancestor of the Jews and Ishmael of the Arabs. I think blaspheming them is blasphemy. May God have mercy on their souls!
It was during World War II, when there were millions of Jews in no man's land around the world. Without homes, without belongings and looking for hope, they took refuge in areas controlled by Israel. Of the estimated 711,000, only a third were “refugees”, those who found a welcome in neighboring Arab countries; the rest, those who settled in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, were displaced within the country itself.With the arrival of Holocaust survivors, the Jewish population in Israel doubled a year after the country's independence was declared. Five of the Arab states declared war on the newly created State of Israel. This war caused displacements in both directions: Arabs in Israeli territory, which without further ado forced them to leave for Gaza and the West Bank, and other more distant Arab countries, which gave rise to the problem of Palestinian refugees. It was thus, under these harsh circumstances, that the Arab Exodus took place. The vast majority took refuge in the State of Israel.
Hostilities continued between the Arab countries and the State of Israel, mostly due to the continued sieges by Egypt. The UN did not provide help to Palestinian refugees or Jews, both peoples went through precarious situations. The Arabs founded associations for resistance. The most important was the PLO (Organization for the Liberation of Palestine), in May 1964 in Jerusalem with the support of the Arab League and at the request of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, as a unified Palestinian organization.
This event Israel launched Operation Focus, which consisted of aerial bombardments of Egyptian air bases. A war conflict developed that lasted six days. Israel conquered the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights (Syria). With the defeat, the Palestinian wave of refugees was about 300,000 people, of whom almost a third were refugees for the second time. Most went into exile in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Persian Gulf states. After the Six-Day War, the United Nations (UN) carried out a series of resolutions which in part favored us Palestinians. The most important was Resolution 242, however it was quite an ambiguous text in view of all. The Israelis only withdrew from the Gaza Strip. This would begin a rather terrorist stage and a broad declaration of war between the State of Egypt and that of Israel. In 1967 they went to a hidden war known as the War of Attrition. Israel annexed the Jerusalem municipality and encouraged Jewish settlement in the occupied territories. Egypt multiplied its military harassment against Israel, which would culminate in the Yom Kippur War, however it then began providing weapons to the Palestinians and led to a wave of terrorist events against the State of Israel. An event that caused great impact worldwide was the massacre in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany, when eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and killed by a commando of the Black September terrorist group, which at that time was led by Yasir Arafat, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Unfortunately, a sea of blood gushed out at the foot of the Mediterranean. As much as nations try to proclaim peace, my people are at war to the death. There will be no ceasefire until we achieve our absolute independence. The State of Israel is aware, and tries to destroy us to the same extent. Since I was born, I have seen kidnapped children, decapitated bodies in the middle of bloody streets, I lived through the disappearance of my father, the night that Israeli officials entered my home and destroyed everything. I have been raped and beaten to the point of death, my mother died when I was six years old as a result of a car bomb, no one removes the image of a girl when seeing her mother in those conditions. His eyes are still dust that travels from one corner to another in the streets of Gaza. I am guilty of my destiny, because I have done what I had to do. Yeah! I killed the man who put a gun to my son's head and pulled the trigger without remorse. We Palestinians live in a constant encounter with death, which is even familiar when we see it pass by. The light at night in the sky does not come from the stars, poisoned lead knows its fate when hitting the pavement. I've already said goodbye to a lot of people, but I can't get them out of my head. In each sigh life goes away more than in a puff. I know well that gesture and that absent look, that life dying every hour. Life was merciful, but before us he does not feel guilty at all.
This is my moment after my capture. All hope of life has been lost. The three months in this prison for Palestinian political prisoners subjected to physical and psychological torture, this is the only way out. As soon as my body crosses this infernal corridor, I kneel in the burning sand and the black bag on my head does not allow me to look my executioner in the eye, I will know that after the deafening sound of a weapon it will be the end. I hope and God willing, that I never feel any pain again.
Walter Alan Nielf
