When all the houses become one house

Writer: Bassam Zakarneh

On the way back from Jenin, after hours of standing at checkpoints and taking paths unknown to maps, the only thing waiting for the tired people was a sight they did not expect: young men from the eastern farm in their elegant clothes, as if they were at a wedding, not in distress, distributing water and food and saying to passers-by: “Our homes are open...stay with us.” They did not ask anyone from which country he came or from which family you are. It was enough for them that he was a person tired of the road on this land.

This is how we are when the paths narrow and the occupation closes a barrier, so we open a door and the settlers intensify their attacks, so we cling to each other as if they were a solid structure. What we saw at a crossroads is not an exceptional scene, but rather it is the living memory of a people who have learned that the only wall that cannot be demolished is the one that its people build around each other.

In Gaza, the damage affected about 82% of the Strip’s buildings and more than 200,000 facilities, nearly a third of which were completely destroyed, according to an assessment by the United Nations Satellite Center. However, the rubble did not turn into frustration or estrangement, but rather into a partnership in destiny: a house that remained standing became a home for several families, and a tent became a hostel and a single morsel shared by all.

In the camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, and other West Bank camps, when the hand of destruction extended to the homes and alleys, life did not stop at the camp’s borders. The neighboring cities and villages opened their doors to its people, and people shared with them the house, bread, and warmth, as if the camp’s borders no longer meant anything in the face of a single person’s pain. The camp’s walls may be demolished, but its people cannot be demolished, nor its memory uprooted, because its people carry it with them wherever they go.

In the villages whose homes and cars were burned, whose trees were burned, and whose crops and olives were destroyed, as in the villages of Al-Mughir, Tal, and Qusra.And Goliath, and Beita, and Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley, the response came from its people before anyone else: the young men collect money, the women prepare food and bedding, and open their homes to the afflicted, and the elderly sit in the courtyard, distributing the roles and embracing the bereaved and the families of the martyrs, with words based on the wisdom of years and long experience with pain and patience. On the morning of the next day after the fire, before the ashes cool, the burnt houses are illuminated, and the farmers are on the ground. They plant saplings and plants in place of burned trees. Their message is more eloquent than any statement: Whoever burned a tree thinks that we have uprooted him, and we plant another in its place to say that we are here and that the roots are not burned.

Then came the story of the little girl Basmala from Tulkarm, who was no more than 13 months old. She spent most of her first year in intensive care, struggling with a rare hereditary disease, spinal muscular atrophy. Her rescue was dependent on gene therapy, which was estimated to cost about 8 million shekels. Her story did not remain behind her family’s door. Her father’s appeal turned into a popular campaign that collected the amount within days and came under the slogan “At your service, Basmala.” And from every Palestinian and from every home: Donate what you can afford. A limited income donated the price of a meal, women donated their gold, and children broke their piggy banks. A little girl revealed that when these people decide to save one soul, they move as if the entire country is at stake.

The most beautiful thing about this solidarity is that it does not know the ready-made roles. The young man distributes water at the checkpoint, the woman kneads and cooks for dozens of guests without asking where they came from, the old man opens his desk and his heart, the child carries bags and runs with them among the people, everyone is in the square, and no one is waiting for a thank you.

This is not a coincidence, but rather the upbringing of villages that has told its children since ancient times: “Neighbor before“The House.” Then the days proved to them that these are not proverbs to be memorized, but rather a life to be lived.

The occupation may have barriers, bulldozers, and fire, but it does not have what we have: for neighbor to be a support for his neighbor, for the whole village to become a family, and for pain to be transformed into work.

As long as there is someone on this land who says to a tired stranger: “Come in...this is your home,” this people will not be broken, because their daily behavior is the truest proof that they deserve to live.