Personal Loss/Bereavement
Yoa'ad Shbita
Building Bridges for Peace, Reut-Sedaka
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“ There's a guest book at the end of the [Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC], and [one of the Palestinian participants] wrote in it, "All Jews should die, I don't care, what I do care about is that lots of the pictures that I see here I see in my life, things that repeat themselves from fifty, sixty years ago." Then this Jewish girl who understood Arabic read it […] Somehow it turned into a discussion and we all sat together. […] then she started telling her own story; that a month ago a soldier shot her uncle, and he died. After that the discussion really changed its direction. People stopped taking things so personally and really started talking about things seriously.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ayelet Shahak
Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen Shahak, Bereaved Families Forum
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“ Our daughter Bat-Chen was killed by a suicide bomber in Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv in 1996, exactly on her 15th birthday, according to the Hebrew calendar. She was born on Purim and she was killed on Purim. The doubly happy day of Bat-Chen's birthday and Purim, which is the happiest holiday, has become a very sad day. For us Purim is when fate got turned upside down. There is no more Purim at home. Instead of sending mishloach manot and receiving mishloach manot, our friends bring us memorial cakes. Ofri and Yaela do not wear costumes and do not go to parties, although Yaela, in the past two years has begun to go to parties. Ofri still has not. This period of Purim is hard.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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“ I never imagined I would ever be a member of this circle [the Parents' Circle/Bereaved Families Forum]. I never thought I would work and sympathize with them, but the occupation demanded I become a member of this forum. The imperative began on the 14th of May 2002, when my husband became a martyr. On the same day my husband became a martyr, Arab friends of mine from inside the lands of '48 knew about what happened. An Israeli newspaper called me and asked what my response would be as a peace activist and whether my activities would change as a result of my husband's assassination. I replied honestly and from all my heart that I would continue working and fighting for peace for the benefit of our children and for a better future for the future generations who deserve a better life.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Salwa Abu Libdeh
Dialogue On The Road
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“ I don’t want to lose my son. I lost my brother before and that’s enough. I want my son to grow up and get educated. Until this day I think about my brother and what it would have been like if he had lived and had a family and children. Until this day my mother grieves for him. He died in 1979, but she still keeps his clothes in a bag and takes them out once in a while to look at them. Why? Doesn’t she have the right to see her son grow up and have a life?” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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“ All these people who lost an immediate family member, Palestinians or Israelis, are the people I would least expect to follow another path. The sort of immediate reaction is "revenge," like people talk about. Instead of channeling it into revenge, the people in our group have chosen another direction for their pain. The pain breaks down barriers very quickly between Palestinians and Israelis in the group. There's a sense of trust. It's not hummus and hugs-- it's much deeper than that; it's acknowledgement and empathy, which happen much faster than in a normal meeting between a Palestinian and an Israeli because we recognize each other immediately through the pain.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ihsan Turkiyyeh
Arab-Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa
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“ In the end for me he [my husband] was killed, and he sacrificed his life fighting the Israelis. He wanted to go home. The last thing he said to me was, "I love you, I love my kids, but I love Palestine more. I want my children to live in dignity. I don't want my children to live as refugees like us. It's very hard. We lived without dignity. We were humiliated by Arab regimes, and by the Israelis. We have the right to live as people. If I die I will die for this cause." That's what he said. What shall we do? That is our life.” [Source in Complete Interview]
George Sa'adeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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“ Of course it changed our lives completely. We were a happy family, now we are a family that’s missing a member and this affected us very much. All the plans that we had for the future, it's all changed now. All the hopes and ambitions… our life has become very difficult. We are suffering because of what our country is going through, politically and economically and of course we are only one of the families to have gone through this. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
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“ During the recent intifada I became connected to the conflict in a different way. I was badly injured in my leg by an Israeli settler and my brother was killed by an Israeli soldier in a totally inhuman way and without any reason. The soldier shot my brother from a distance of two feet only because he was talking to him. This isn’t human conduct at all. At the time, my brother Yussif didn’t know that the Israelis had issued a new law. He didn’t know that it was forbidden from opening his mouth; we were supposed to keep our mouths shut. My brother broke that law, and since then I decided not to shut my mouth.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Riyad Faraj
Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum
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“ It was the first time in my life that I met, sat with and listened to an Israeli that was suffering like me. I used to hear on the news or from friends who worked for Israelis about how Israelis had lost a son or family member. This was the first time I experienced seeing an Israeli emotionally touched by knowing that I had lost someone and so had he, and he was willing to sit with a Palestinian who felt the same way. At the same time, he is the cause of what happened to me, but I wasn't the cause of what had happened to him. I mean, I didn't take his land; he took mine. For example, the Israeli Roni that came to the Forum has lost his two sons. That's not because of me, but he is the reason I lost my father and brother. [As an Israeli] he was imposed on me.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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“ The message of reconciliation is, in order for us to have no more killing, we have to negotiate the past, and these people [Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families] are the perfect partners in both societies to talk about and to negotiate the past. They are the ones who can negotiate past atrocities without lending them to serve as a vehicle for further violence, which is what both sides are currently doing. Both sides' political leaders are using these atrocities in order to instigate further violence. We should use the same tool that is used to ruin chances for peace in order to bring peace. I believe this idea is missing in both societies' narratives right now.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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“ David was killed by a sniper, along with nine other people. They were at a checkpoint, a political checkpoint, near Ofra [settlement]. Two days after he was killed it was pulled down; they removed the checkpoint. I suppose all of my life I spoke about coexistence and tolerance. That must be ingrained in me because one of the first things I said is, "You may not kill anybody in the name of my child." I suppose that's quite unusual, an expected reaction to that kind of news.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ During my studies at the university I was a member of the student youth movement and was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in 1989 with the charge of resisting the occupation. I married a colleague of mine from university, and in 1991, during the first month of our marriage we were arrested. I was arrested, interrogated and released after a few days, but my husband was placed under administrative detention because he had a history of struggling and had previously been arrested thirteen times. During the Al Aqsa intifada he was assassinated by the Israeli intelligence forces. He became a martyr on the 14th of May 2002.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Aziz Abu Sarah
Bereaved Families Forum, All For Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ Before I personally was affected, there was the massacre at the Aqsa in 1990 and our neighbor who lived right next door died as a martyr. I remember at that time, we went to their house to visit and gave our condolences. Everyone was outraged; everybody was sad. But after one...two... three weeks, a month passed by and one started to forget. My brother at that time was in prison. But there’s a feeling that’s a little different when you see something going on around you than when it happens in your own home.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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“ There is a word for it, shahid. It's different from bereaved-- bereavement is something else in Arabic. Shahid suggests that you have a certain place in society, that you've done something for your society. […] So in a way, it's very tangible, it's something you can really see. Bereaved people in both societies can do things and say things and get away with things and can change people's perceptions in a way other people cannot. This is why The Families Forum should not be a political organization, which means we should not get involved in the traditional process of peace making. Our role is to give voice to the victims who were not heard by the two sides during previous peace negotiations, for victims who refuse to allow further violence to be made in their name.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Riyad Faraj
Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum
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“ […During] the invasion of the Bethlehem church, no one was allowed outside their homes. My father, at age 56, went out to get some groceries. My brothers and I were playing cards at home. We had longed so much to be with each other. We have local TV stations, and I was facing the TV and I read my father's name on the screen--that he had been killed. We hadn't yet heard about it. I'm telling you this now but I still don't believe it. People had started calling us, and they were worried but didn't want to tell us. They wanted to check first to see if we knew about what had happened. We didn't have a clue as to why they were behaving like this until we read his name on TV. We went to identify his body but we couldn't--he had been shot by 36 bullets of the 500 type. His body was ripped apart. It was horrible. This was only six months after my brother's funeral.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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“ Everybody had asked me what I thought should happen to the sniper, and if they caught the sniper do I want them to kill him. I said that he killed David not because he was David; if he had met David he would have loved David. David worked for peace, David was part of the soldiers who didn't want to serve in the territories. David was the most loving person, if he had sat down and had coffee with David, they would have become friends. On David's grave there is a quotation by Khalil Gibran that says, "the whole earth is my birthplace and all humans are my brothers." I was looking for something and that was the truest thing that I could find. I said that the sniper didn't kill David because he was David; he killed David because he was a symbol of an occupying army.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ayelet Shahak
Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen Shahak, Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ In general I feel very complete with what I do, I get a lot of strength out of it. I even call it the "double strength of the diaries." The diaries helped Bat-Chen to cope with her difficulties and today they help-especially me-to cope with the loss. Through her diaries I do a lot. I investigate them and use them to reach students. Much of my activity, besides the Forum, is concentrated on that. But yesterday someone said that perhaps I linger on in my daughter's death instead of rehabilitating myself. Until then I thought I could serve as an opposite example - how I took the wreckage and built something new out of it. So it shook me a little. But the more I think about it I realize that this is what fits me. I do think that it is my luck that Bat-Chen left us the diaries and showed us the way for action. This action makes me feel very good, so I don't mind if someone sees it as meddling with death.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ David went to his reserve service and I was filled with a terrible premonition, of fear I suppose. He called me on that Saturday and said, "I have done everything to protect us. You know I love my life, but this is a terrible place, I feel like a sitting duck." He never shared that kind of stuff with me, ever. My kids never told me what they were doing in the army. They always told me ridiculous stories thinking that I was going believe them. The next morning I got up very early and ran to work hours before I had to be there. I didn't want to be at home, I had a very restless feeling.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Tzvika Shahak
Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen Shahak, Bereaved Families Forum
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“ The day before there had been a suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem and [my daughter and her friends] were scared to take the bus, so they took a taxi to Dizengoff Center. The taxi got them there 15 minutes early. At 3:45, as they crossed the street, a suicide bomber crossed their path and detonated himself, killing himself in the process. He was a young guy, an art student, a resident of Gaza. He murdered 13 people; among them, Bat-Chen.” [Source in Complete Interview]
