In general, I find it hard to sleep, I am hypervigilant and my sleep is shallow. I might be able to fall asleep during the day but at night I don’t. I am always listening to sounds around the house, and I wake up very easily.

 

On 15 August 2017, I was in bed trying to fall asleep when I heard footsteps around our house and people talking. It was around 2:30 a.m. I looked out the window and saw about 25 Israeli soldiers outside.

 

I quickly woke my husband and son. My husband opened the front door before the soldiers even came because he did not want them to destroy our door as they have done before. Soon there were around 10 soldiers in our home.

 

I started to shout at the soldiers. I wanted to know what they were doing in my home in the middle of the night. I told them to leave us alone. Within a short period of time they left our house without arresting anyone and without conducting a search. 

 

In the meantime all the neighbours woke up. My husband and I went and sat outside by the door to get some fresh air. Shortly afterwards young men from the camp started to throw stones at the soldiers to chase them out of our refugee camp. It was chaotic, people shouting and running in all directions. My husband and I went inside.

 

In March 2017, Israeli soldiers raided my house three times. They were looking for my son who was not staying with us after an argument with his father. On one of these occasions they searched our house and caused damage to our furniture. My 8-year-old son was so scared that he wet himself sitting on my lap. 

 

On another occasion the soldiers came with a masked man who we suspected was a collaborator. I was desperate to remove his mask to see who it was. I find collaborators scarier than the soldiers themselves. 

 

Not a single month goes by without Israeli soldiers entering our refugee camp in the middle of the night, if not once, multiple times. Sometimes they make arrests, other times they don’t. This is what "a normal life" looks like; fear and insecurity, day in, day out.