A difficult month to recount in person, even more so to report in a few lines, but I will try. Never would I have thought to be saying things like “it’s a situation where you just had to be there”, but now I know that it’s true; you need to live through the occupation to understand it.
Since 2004, Operazione Colomba has been involved in monitoring - and accompanying to ensure access - the Right to Education of Palestinian students in Masafer Yatta (South Hebron Hills, West Bank). Since 7 October 2023, the Right to Education of Palestinians in the area has been impeded by continuous attacks by settlers and abuses by Israeli soldiers. The boys and girls of the village of Tuba have had to find alternative ways to not completely abandon the course of studies undertaken.
Wires with lighted bulbs swing suspended over the neat rows of chairs where all the guests are taking their seats. Some of them are very elegant, some in flip-flops, one man arrives on the back of a donkey, and another parks his tractor next to the cars. The atmosphere reminds that of a village festival, men greet each other, some faces are familiar to all, the ladies and younger boys and girls sit to one side, all well-dressed for the occasion. In front of everyone stands a banner celebrating the presence of Operazione Colomba in the area: 20 years of solidarity and continuous support in defending Human Rights in the South Hebron Hills.
There are five of us here - four adults and a little girl - representing dozens and dozens of volunteers who over these 20 years have accompanied and protected the Palestinian communities of Masafer Yatta from the violence of the Israeli occupation, from the prevarication of settlers and soldiers who unfortunately continue to besiege the area. I feel the incredible privilege of participating in this celebration, I am the newest arrived here, and nevertheless I enjoy the unconditional affection and gratitude that others before me have obtained through years of nonviolent accompaniment of shepherds under the scorching sun and nights spent awake on the rooftop of the house closest to the Havat Ma'on outpost. I am very lucky to be here, and I also feel a little out of place, as if I am usurping the place of those who would be more entitled than me to receive all this gratitude.
When I take a step back, I am not losing against the occupation. I must write it down to keep it in my mind.
The children from Tuba, the shebab and the Palestinians have taken many steps backward, but they have never given up. To carry out resistance, you must be patient and forward-looking. Taking a step back and then taking a thousand forward tomorrow. Because it takes a thousand to get that road back. But they need to be done at the right time.
The other day the Israeli soldiers threatened us to stop the Palestinian children they were escorting. They escort them to school, to protect them from Israeli civilians who attack them with stones, sticks and knives.
We had to move, to take a step back; exactly one step behind the wall, the one that marks the "border of Havat Ma'on", the land of the settlers. That step backward has a profound meaning, it means they want that land, free and Palestinian, to become a barren piece of the settlement, full of racism and violence. Anger, frustration and helplessness. But children must go to school, they have to study, they have to take that step forward with the leg that the occupation has been trying to amputate for years: education, playing, social relations.
Taking a step back, the children arrived and the soldiers left.
To achieve small successes in this moment, you have to step back a few meters.
Operation Dove / Operazione Colomba is the Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII Association. Since 2002 it has been carrying out unarmed civilian protection and accompaniment in Palestine, at the beginning in the Gaza Strip and then in Masafer Yatta (south of Al-Khalil/Hebron).
During these 21 years, hundreds of volunteers from Operation Dove have lived 24 hours for 365 days a year standing by the Palestinian civilians and those communities who chose nonviolent resistance to fight the human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli army and settlers.
During these 21 years, we have observed, documented and reported these violations by thousands of hours of video footage, hundreds of press releases, dozens of meetings with Italian and international institutions, dozens of articles on national and foreign press, thousands of public meetings.
During these 21 years, we have built strong trust and friendship relations with hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis. Together we are helplessly witnessing the events with deep concern and immense pain, mourning the dead ones. Their request for ending decades of Palestine’s occupation to achieve a just and stable peace is now more than ever unheard and silenced by the deafening noise of weapons.
We now feel that these 21 years efforts are at risk of being definitively crushed and betrayed by the violence of weapons and the arrogance of those who have never acted to stop it, even though they could.
It saddens us to witness this distorted media attention, which talks about the Palestinian issue only now that bloodshed is happening causing an increasing number of deaths day after day, on both sides. Media are not telling that the humanitarian catastrophe for the Palestinians in Gaza has been persisting for decades, it did not start today.
Now and as long as necessary, we keep on staying where it is right to be that is exactly where we have been during these 21 years: alongside those who suffer and stand against violence.
Operation Dove / Operazione Colomba
[Foto: Yahya Hassouna/AFP]
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
