Current situation

In March, 3 attacks were carried out in different areas of Israel causing 2 victims in Hadera, 4 in Beersheba and 5 in Tel Aviv on March 30th. In response to these incidents, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced a tightening up of public security measures. The same evening some clashes occurred in Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus, as well as in the refugee camps of the main cities.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the results of a research conducted by the association “Breaking the Silence”, according to which Israeli soldiers are allegedly collecting sensitive data on Human Rights activists in the South Hebron Hills, with a particular focus on the ones coming from European countries. This action would pursue the objective to identify activists by taking photos of their passports and faces, in order to keep a file on them in the system called Blue Wolf which already collects sensitive data to monitor Palestinian citizens. In this way, the access to the country would be prevented for them from the arrival at the airport.

Sharing, Work and news about Volunteers

In March, the volunteers guaranteed a presence both in the south and north of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with particular attention to the Jordan Valley. In this area, new villages were explored, getting to know new contexts and communities dedicated to pastoralism. Unfortunately, the conditions for accessing the land have worsened in recent months. Israeli settlers graze their flocks undisturbed on Palestinian lands, while the legitimate owners of the area barely access them since they are attacked and expelled by the settlers protected by the army.

A dark tent, a feeble light of a rechargeable lamp, a two-year-old child sitting on the floor while eating with a thousand coloured face into the plate.
The colour of his story, the colour of his genealogy, the colour of the refugee camp dust, the colour of non-existent tissues, the colour of the greasy, which first reaches the nose and then the mouth.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such an overflowing violence.
Feet without socks running over sharp stones, trousers too large and underwear that are too expensive to be seen here, while outside it’s raining and the frozen air’s blowing from snow-clad mountains.
May a law exist for returning the toys, the fold-back blankets, the kiss taken before entering school, the bow on the smock, the bedtime stories and all the tenderness needed when you are a child?
Who’s going to compensate with a caress for each slap in the face?
What kind of man will become the one who has never been a child?
While I’m wondering about it, I think to the empty space of that tent; the answers to these questions take my breath away.
The road taken by these young ladies and men with big eyes, completely dirty, that hug you, scream and sing “bella ciao” passing our tent. A minute before they are playing and a minute later they are crying because of the blows; the road I see takes my sleep away.
In this night, that tent, that face in the plate, all the ongoing or breaking-in wars, all the emigrating people, the jails full of forgotten persons, the tortures, all the closed borders, all the commentators seated chatting, everything is stronger than the thunder of this rain that falls incessantly on this tent.
A dark tent, a feeble light of a rechargeable lamp, a two-year-old child raises his face up from the plate where he was eating and, in spite of the stink, I can smell the bright wonder of childhood. I wish the world to stop right now so that such unaware smile could remain there forever.

Olena lifts her gaze from the iron looking tense:
“Is it the siren?”
I look around,
I go outside in the courtyard and listen,
construction workers working,
cars honking in the traffic,
everything seems fine.

“No” I answer “I don’t think so”.

Olena slightly lets herself go
with teary eyes:
“I think I am going crazy, I hardly sleep, my life has been hard in the past, but I never imagined I would live a situation like this.”

“By now, when I hear the siren I sit down and pray, this is what is needed, pray for healing from the disease of power and money, which has infected the mind of the person who started it all.”

In recent days, the escalation of violence in the war in Ukraine has shocked many of us, who suddenly feel "close and involved" in a war which only now seems to be “next door”, but which actually began in the spring of 2014 and has already caused 13,000 victims and 1.5 million internally displaced people. However, before the recent upsurge very few were interested in it.
Of course, the empathy towards so much suffering and the indignation for the horror that Ukrainian people are experiencing is sacrosanct, and it is a duty to show solidarity and bring help to those who are fleeing. We too, as Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII Association, immediately went to Ukraine to open a Humanitarian Corridor.
Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking about the thousands of victims who escaped from other wars which we did not consider "ours" or "close" or "threatening" and which only led us to raise walls and barbed wires, confining so many persons in cold, hunger and oblivion, denying them any possible future.
In fact, I wonder how it is possible that the tears of those African, Afghan, Syrian children are less worthy of our embrace and our ability to welcome.