Since my early teenage
years, when I started to become more aware of the conflict in
Palestine, I had developed this passion to visit the holy land.
From the age of 14, I
started to attend protests, marches, vigils, anything related to the
conflict.
In 2014, during the
summer, I had the chance to visit Palestine and stay in a summer camp
in Hebron (Khalil). However due to the ground invasion of Gaza
(Operation Protective Edge – as it was called, which had nothing
protective about it) the West Bank became a little unsafe and on the
day I was supposed to fly out, I had to cancel.
I spent the summer of
2014 on the streets outside the House of Parliament, Downing Street,
Israeli Embassy, American Embassy and other places protesting for a
Free Palestine. I climbed a couple of mountains and did a few runs to
raise money for the people suffering.
I even prepared for the
questions that would be asked at the airport and trained myself to
act as natural as possible and not guilty for something I had not
done.
Last year, in December
2015, another chance rose to go to Palestine. This time with an
Islamic group to visit the holy sites. I was to stay in Jerusalem (Al
Quds) not far from the Old City where the compound of Al Aqsa was.
Due to family
commitments, my brother, sister and I decided we would go a few days
after the group which meant we flew out on Christmas day. No other
airlines were going to Tel Aviv on this day so we had to go by an
Israeli Airline called 'El Al'.
Before even checking
in, the three of us were questioned for at least 45 minutes. Why were
we going? What did we want to do there? Did we know anyone there?
What was out intention? Father's name? Grandfather's name? What we
did in our spare time? Etc.
They saw that as a
collective we all had the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian Visa, me and my
sister had the Indian Visa and they had the Turkish Visa. In my
passport alone, I had the Algerian Visa and a Tunisian stamp. We do
travel to European countries but because we hold the British
Passport, no stamps or visas are required.
We were told to keep
our suitcases unlocked as it would get searched thoroughly or they would just break into it. This may
be the time to mention that we were the only brown faces there and to
top it of, we are Muslim.
After getting to the
gate, we were told we would have to go through extra security checks
by the people of the airline. I don't think any other airline has
this extra security.
So we sat in a small
room and were the first to be there as 'these checks would take quite
long' – especially on us Muslims.
A few other White and
European faces were there but their checks were done quite fast.
 |
| Explosives were detected on these boots... |
They first asked who
Salma was. It was me. They took my hand luggage, whatever was in my
pocket and took a swab of both of my boots. The room which they did
everything in was in full view. They entered the swab stick into one
of the computers and a shocking warning came up on the screen.
'EXPLOSIVES DETECTED' in bright red. My sister saw this and was
shocked. Remember how I said I trained to act natural, well I was
dahm scared but the training came in handy. Thank God for mother
tongue. 'I'm scared. I haven't been anywhere crazy with these boots'
I told my sister. They checked my brother's new boots and the same
came up for his. I was relieved for at this point I realised this was
done to actually get a reaction out of us, to make us feel scared and imtimidated.
My sister who is a
police woman, was wearing boots which have walked over drugged
floors, places with explosives yet nothing was detected on her. They
did a frisk search on me and my brother... but in my opinion it was
quite intimate. If I protested against being searched it would give them a reason to find me suspicious so I had to go along with it.
After finally boarding
the plane and walking down the aisle to our seats, all eyes were on us. We were so exhausted that we fell asleep straight away and when reaching Tel Aviv airport five hours later we knew what was in
store for us. We knew we would be kept back a few hours and be
interrogated. My other sister who travelled with the group a few days
earlier told us it wasn't so bad, though some of the males did get it
quite hard. So I was more worried for my brother. When going to
immigration we showed our passports and the woman looked at it and
told us to wait in a small open room in the back.
They took us
individually, me first. I went into a small office where a man asked
me my father's name, my grandfather's name, my email address (I gave
my university email as it is most neutral) my phone number and asked
me to wait back in the room outside.
2 hours later my sister
was called in by someone different. He told her he was part of the
Terrorist detective team to try and put my sister at unease. She
showed no reaction. By now we knew their tactics of trying to
threaten us, to waste our time. They wanted a reaction but we were
showing no sign of annoyance. In fact, we were more smiley, co
operative and ever so friendly.
They took my brother
and finally me. They interrogated my sister the most so she had it
hard.
I was asked four questions.
“Your surname is
Khatun. Why is this your name?” - my response “Because my father
named me this”.
“Why did he name you
this?” (This had to be the most ridiculous question I have ever
been asked)- “Err, you would have to ask him this. I do not know
why he named Khatun”.
"You are a student. What do you study?" - "Social Sciences". (I didn't want to say I studied Journalism as they dislike journalists entering and exposing the truth. You know what I mean?!)
“What parts of the
Middle East have you been to?” - “Saudi Arabia and Egypt”.
He sat me there for at
least ten minutes in silence. The power game, keeping people waiting.
I was tired so it didn't bother me at all. I just stared at his face so each time he looked up to see me, I was looking back at him with no emotion. His room had a picture of
Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, the Dome of the Rock and the Dead
Sea.
He told me to wait
outside and that someone would be with us shortly. We made friends
with a Palestinian American brother who was also waiting. He was
going back to Palestine after 15 years to visit his family in
Ramallah. He left an hour or so before we did and it felt so nice to
meet our first brother in Palestine.
After a while, someone
did come to us with the visas and our passports. We had waited for 4
hours for this one small piece of paper. This was actually nothing
compared to how long Palestinians and other Muslims have to wait. So
we couldn't complain.
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| Walking through the roads of the Oly City on our first night |
We finally went through
immigration, searched for our bags which someone had gone through and managed to get a taxi to Jerusalem.
It felt surreal being
there, driving through what I see in the media, seeing the old city
wall and the soldiers with their rifles loitering outside the gates.
I was finally there.
Fulfilling one of my dreams...
(Part two, The Journey
In Palestine will be up tomorrow – Wednesday
Part three, The Journey
From Palestine will be up on Thurday)
(Check out my Instagrams (links on the right hand side) for some more pictures from my time in Palestine)
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