جامعة النجاح الوطنية
An-Najah National University

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My dear readers, how can I share with you the two most intense weeks of my life? I ‎applied to this program in April with the desire to truly discover Palestine, and to see ‎beyond what the French media delivers to its people. When Zajel posted my name on the ‎Zajel Facebook group, I started to receive a lot of message from local students saying ‎‎‘welcome’. I arrived a week before the beginning of the camp. I realised later that it was ‎during the end of Ramadan and ‘Eid.


By: Doriane More

This was a perfect coincidence! I was invited to the homes of three different families in ‎three different cities. What a privilege! I had the chance to discover Palestine as I could ‎never have expected. I ate the Iftar meal every night with the families, and I moved from ‎house to house to drink coffee and tea, and to eat a lot of delicious sweets. This week was ‎unforgettable! In coming to Palestine I knew that I would visit the most famous cities in ‎the country, but I never expected to become so close to the population. All the families ‎treated me like a princess, as I received gifts and an abundance of kindness.

After my first week in Palestine, the international volunteers taking part in the ‘Light a ‎Candle’ summer camp started to arrive. These two weeks seemed to last both one hour ‎and one year. Indeed, the camp was extremely emotional and intense. But at the same ‎time, when the end came we didn’t want to accept that the camp was over. I would like ‎to share with you my feelings about the people, the places we’ve been to, and the ‎country. As I said above, the people are admirable. The local volunteers were always ‎taking care of us – ensuring that we had everything we needed or wanted. They shared ‎with us their personal stories and their experiences of the Palestine-Israeli conflict, and ‎they spent their free time with us. ‎

A crucial element of our incredible experience was teaching classes to the local ‎students. It was more than a touristic camp, as it allowed us to gain some theoretical ‎knowledge about the conflict. To teach added a special human feeling to this camp, and ‎made me feel like I was taking part in a real exchange. I was not simply receiving ‎information from the Palestinian population, as I was also giving something back to the ‎community. ‎

Zajel showed us a lot of places and cities in the country. I still don’t know how to thank ‎Zajel for these experiences. We visited some places that I never could have even ‎considered travelling to if I had been alone. For instance, we went to Hebron. Hebron is ‎famous because of its instability and its recurring violence between Israeli settlers and ‎Palestinians.

This day was probably the more intense of the camp. The city is overloaded with check ‎points and Israeli soldiers. Even access to the mosque in Hebron is controlled by the ‎Israeli forces. Zajel showed us how to get into the settlement established inside the city ‎walls. I can assure you that this experience was one of the hardest of my entire life. The ‎streets were empty of people and shops (all of them were closed sixteen years ago), As ‎you can see, Zajel worked very hard to show us many different aspects of Palestinian life. ‎Every day the activities were different to the previous days. We had the chance to visit a ‎refugee camp, a settlement, destroyed houses, the UNICEF office, Hebron, Bethlehem, a ‎wonderful valley close to Jordan and many other places. I believe that all of these ‎activities were essential.‎

In Nablus I met Sedena, an international volunteer who attended the camp last year, ‎and returned to Palestine for ‘Light a Candle’. She said that her experiences with Zajel ‎radically changed her life. Now I understand what she meant when she told us this upon ‎her arrival. I am still wondering how it is possible to be so kind and peaceful whilst living ‎under oppression, aggression and humiliation every day. ‎

To conclude, this camp gave me substantial knowledge about the conflict. But most ‎importantly, Zajel also taught me a human lesson. I’m sure that I will miss the solidarity, ‎the communication, and the kindness between the local volunteers and the ‎internationals when I fly back to Europe. I hope that I will have the strength to bring back ‎to France the voices of the Palestinian people, and to spread awareness of the truths and ‎realities which I had the chance to see in their land.‎


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