Before Friday’s demonstration in al Ma’asara, I spent some time hanging out with a few of the children playing outside. Once the children get over their initial shyness, you won’t be able to walk away from them without taking each child’s photo at least 50 times. It’s madness!

Anyway, here are just a few…

Being a freelance photographer gives me a degree of freedom that might not otherwise be possible. However, that also means that I am often forced to finance my own projects. If you enjoy my work, please consider making a donation.

The Palestinian children below are on their way from school in a small village outside of Hebron. To their right is a dirt road leading up to an Israeli settler outpost. Settler outposts are simply small houses or villages constructed on land that was seized from Palestinians by Israeli settlers. Israeli settlements are much larger villages and towns that, while illegal under international law, are completely sanctioned by the Israeli government. Outposts are illegal even under Israeli law. The Israeli government has shown little willingness to remove them and, even if they do, they are often rebuilt soon thereafter.

Since this road is so close to one of these outposts, these children are often harassed and even attacked by settlers from both the settlement (behind me in the photo above) and the outpost (at the top of the hill to the right). As such, CPT stations its members along this road to accompany the children on their walk home in order to try and prevent, or at least discourage, attacks from settlers.

Being a freelance photographer gives me a degree of freedom that might not otherwise be possible. However, that also means that I am often forced to finance my own projects. If you enjoy my work, please consider making a donation.

Askar Refugee Camp is located on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. The camp was established in 1950 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The camp was created to house some of the 700,000 people displaced or expelled by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The original residents of Askar camp included Arab families from what is now Jaffa and Haifa in modern-day Israel. In 1965, residents of the camp began expanding into the surrounding territory because of severe overcrowding within the original lot allocated to Askar camp. This new territory became known as “New Askar” but is not recognized by UNRWA.

According to UNRWA, the poverty rate in Askar camp hovers between 40 and 50 percent, with close to 30 percent of camp residents experiencing “extreme” poverty. [1].

On 15 June 2008, the children of New Askar Refugee Camp participated in a parade to honor child “martyrs”. This included any child resident of the camp who had died or had been killed within the last few years. This mostly celebratory march took a somber turn when it ended at the grave of Jamil Abdul-Kareem al-Jabaji. Jamil was killed by the Israeli army on 3 December 2006. When the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem reported that Jamil was a minor and a non-combatant, the Israeli army was quick to correct the report by adding that Jamil had been shot while he was throwing stones at an Israeli army vehicle as it patrolled the camp, making him a combatant. Jamil was 14.

Click on each photo for a larger version…

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