Jenin and Talcarem occupy the West Bank – Omaima Faraj bows his head in silence for a while – she is tired, but work does not stop.
She arrives at a school-turned-shelter near Talcalem, where her first patient, a gentle greeting elderly evacuated woman, waiting for her to measure her glucose and blood pressure. She then moves to her next classroom, the next patient, walking down the open aisle, soaked in the late February sunshine.
Farazi, 25, has been volunteering for weeks to support residents who have been devastated by Israeli attacks. She is one of the young Palestinians working to tackle the emergency created across the Israeli occupied West Bank, as Israel raids refugee camps and expels thousands.
I’m gonna enter danger
When Israel began military occupation and evacuation on January 21, what the Israelis called the “Iron Wall,” Farage didn’t flee the violence, but ran into refugee camps in Tarkalem.
She stayed there with fellow volunteers for the most intense attacks and more than 12 important days when people were still trying to organize to escape the camp.
They focused on providing assistance to people in need, including injured, elderly people, and people with limited mobility. No one could go to the hospital because Israeli soldiers didn’t let them do.
Israeli soldiers harass the volunteers, and Farage explains how to threaten her and her colleagues, telling them to be shot so that they leave and never come back.
One incident particularly plagues her, an old man who has been locked up in his house for four days.
The team continued to try to reach him, but Israeli soldiers blocked their path. Finally, the International Committee of the Red Cross intervened and coordinated with the Israelis to allow the safe passage of volunteers.
When they arrived at the man he was in the miserable strait – food, water and sanitation were short for four days, but they were finally able to evacuate him.
When they were leaving, they got stuck and warned not to come back – or risk being shot.
Backpack Medic
“There was no emergency plan for this,” says Ara Slooj, director of Al Auda Centre in Tarkalem.
The Lajee Center at Aida Camp in Al-Awda and Bethlehem are training volunteers to document the expulsion of people and camp situations so that they can assess the assistance they need.
Volunteers are gathered by about 15 female nurses and medical scholars who gathered when the Israeli attack began to provide medical assistance and distribute essential supplies to thousands of people who have been harmed.
Their young faces show that they are working non-stop for nearly two months with those displaced by Israeli attacks on the camps in Nursham and Talcarem.
They are struggling to close the big gap when Israel bans the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) from helping people in the occupied West Bank.
These volunteers do not have headquarters. They walk around all day long to serve people who only have backpacks and resolve.
They go to one of the 11 temporary, hurry-set-up shelters.
They bring medical and psychological support and clothing, food and other essentials to those who have lost everything to Israeli raiding soldiers.
The backpack includes gauze, portable glucose monitors, gloves, bandages, tourniquets, manual blood pressure monitors, notebooks and pens.
“Our role as a community is very important,” says ALAA.
Volunteers also have to provide emotional support to each other. Group sessions must be held to address the sacrifice of working within a devastated community.
Many of them come from camps, so they have also been evacuated and targeted, and have seen their neighborhoods leveled by Israeli bulldozers.
The same goes for Farage. Like many Palestinians, she is characterized by loss and violence after her 18-year-old brother was killed by an Israeli drone in January 2024.
Camping is in a no-go zone. Some evacuated residents risk returning home to try to retrieve some of their belongings.
They sail through streets filled with tiled rubs, what the foul smell of rotten food is now left in abandoned houses, and sewers torn by bulldozers.
Laughter, cry, screaming trauma
The one hour drive from Talcarem is Jenin. Ten minutes from Jenin is a village called Kahuldan.
About 20 children roam the garden of the large house. They are gathered in a rough circle by trainers who encourage them to speak loudly to free their fear and anger.
This activity is organized by Jenin’s Freedom Theatre. Jenin came to Kahuldan to provide this moment of rest so that the displaced people will simply be present for a while.
They began within the Jenin camp as a space that allowed children and young people to participate in cultural activities but was blocked from being there by the Israeli military.
So, “We bring theatre to our kids,” says Shatha Jarrar, one of the three activity coordinators.
Children are encouraged to be as loud as they please, to scream out the fear and anger they are being held inside after the violence they are exposed to.
Next is a game that involves a spoon-balanced little ball, making the kids laugh again, and the mother smiles and the kids are happy to see them happy.
Sitting next to him was a 67-year-old smiling Muhammad, who had several of his children involved in the activity.
However, they are not her children as she provided shelter to the seven families who recently evacuated her home from Jenin.
Um Muhammed was exiled in 2002 during her second Intifada, her home in the Jenin refugee camp, which was destroyed by Israeli forces when her three children were young.
They are now old, she says, her eyes sprint around as they recall the trauma of displacement. They have their own children and she is a grandmother.
Moohamed is well aware of the fear of Israeli tanks rolling and explosions echoing. So she insists on helping people experience the same thing.
Shata, 26, and her two co-organisations put them in their backpacks and began cleaning up the equipment. Today’s activities are being held.
Shata came to the Freedom Theatre when she joined the program as a child and later decided to devote her time to the theatre heritage.
“Theatre is a different world, a way of life. My work with children is part of this world. They are our tomorrow,” she says.
Near her is her mother – who likes to withhold her name – was watching her child.
She, her husband and two children lived through the dystopian sight of an Israeli drone quadcopter sounding orders to evacuate. Then came the Apache helicopters hovering into the sky, drone attacks, and fleets of invading armored vehicles.
Her eyes widen, her speeches become faster, and the memories she has as she tells her story are refreshing.
Finally, when they left, they had to stand up while Israeli soldiers scanned their faces and arrested some of the men trying to leave.
When they first left, she hoped they would come back in a few days.
However, the reality of their displacement is slowly settling.
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