First published 2014
Raja Shehadeh sits in his Ramallah home in March 2002 as Israeli tanks position at his street corner and soldiers move across rooftops. The army has invaded the city. Four soldiers commandeer his brother's apartment, forcing his brother to serve as their human shield while moving through the building. His sister-in-law struggles to calm her terrified children, ages four and six. Shehadeh cannot leave to check on his sick mother across the neighborhood. He cannot cross his own street. Days stretch into weeks as he remains confined, watching his city transform under military control. The siege creates a prison of familiar walls. Ordinary Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza face similar confinement under the strictest Israeli security measures in years. Shehadeh records the daily reality of occupation: the waiting, the fear, the small indignities that accumulate into rage. This memoir captures both a specific moment in 2002 and the broader experience of displacement that has defined Palestinian life since 1967.
Genres: memoir, non-fiction, 21st-century, middle-east
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: confinement, displacement
Setting: Gaza, Ramallah, West Bank
Period: 2002
ebook · Steerforth Press
Content warnings: war