The next Beyond the Checkpoints children’s visit from Palestine starts next week. The Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) has been organising such visits for the last 19 years but in the current context this is especially challenging.

Eight young people will be coming (with their leaders) for a visit to schools, youth clubs and community groups in the north of England, the Midlands and finally London. A full list of public events can be found here.

Earlier this week, the campaign held a very moving Zoom meeting with two groups of young Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as friends from across England and Wales, many of whom had helped with a visit of a group of them to the UK in September/October.

The happiness at seeing old friends was very special for the young Palestinians. Although they live in a tiny country and not far from each other, many of them haven’t been able to meet since their visit to the UK because they live under occupation behind walls, checkpoints, military areas and the roads are dangerous for Palestinians – much worse since the ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza.

The young people from Silwan and their families are living under the threat of house demolition all the time. Houses are being taken down by Israeli bulldozers. Two girts from Silwan said they saw another demolition on their way to school and three families in nearby Butan al-Hawa are being pushed out of their family homes as Israeli courts have decided that Jewish settlers can go and live there instead.

The children from Al Walajeh are also faced all the time by house demolition. Houses have been being taken down by Israel at a rate since the ‘ceasefire’.

The children from Hebron said that everything is very bad in the Old City of Hebron. They said that soldiers redeployed from Gaza are in the Old City and there is enormous pressure on the Palestinians living there. There are checkpoints everywhere, including between the children and their school.

Palestinians have to have ID from the age of 16, but in Hebron now, children of 13 are being asked for their ID before they are allowed through the checkpoints. Meanwhile,  Israeli settlers are trying to make a settlement in the vegetable market in the middle of the Old City.

“The situation is not good in Aizariyeh,” said a boy from the Jerusalem suburbs. He told how four of his friends had been arrested by the Israeli army while he had been in the UK, and two more had been arrested since then. Another, in Essawiyeh, had been placed under house arrest.

Other children from the Beyond the Checkpoints project, which CADFA has been running for the past four summers, are also in the frontline of suffering  from the Israeli occupation. The Jenin Camp children have been pushed from their homes as Israel has knocked down buildings and ploughed up infrastructure where they used to live. The New Askar children have lost a number of friends in the past year – killed by Israeli snipers when they played on the small hill that is the only free land for Palestinian children there.

And the Beit Leed children, who had for some years seemed to live in one of the most peaceful places in the West Bank, on a lovely hill in a sea of olive trees, this week endured a horrendous attack on their village by dozens of settlers, setting fire, breaking things and terrorising people young and old, in their attempt to destabilise the Palestinians and build an Israeli settlement on their land, in defiance of international law.

Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza, things have become even worse in the West Bank and Jerusalem. For the UK people listening to the children, this was a reminder both of the importance of the youth visits and the need to work as hard as possible for Palestinians’  basic human rights.

CADFA works in the UK to promote awareness about the human rights situation in Palestine. It works to bring Palestinian voices to the attention of people in the UK through publications, public events, creative projects and exchange visits. It has worked with schools across England and Wales, bringing speakers, visitors and organising  Zoom links with Palestine.

Image: c/o CADFA.