Raja al-Hija, father and homeowner, aged 62, resident of Jenin Refugee Camp.
We have been living in the Jenin refugee camp since 1948. Before then we lived in the village of Ein 'Awad, in the Haifa district. I have worked for many years in order to build this house in the Jenin refugee camp. I live in an apartment on the first floor. My two married sons, Mahmoud and Majdi, live in the other apartments with their families. There's another apartment under construction. It's for my son, Khaled.
On Friday, October 25, around 2:15 A.M, IDF soldiers came to the house. They went up to the second floor, which is where my son Mahmuod lives with his family. They made him and his family leave the apartment, then they made them go downstairs. At around 2:30 A.M., we heard knocking on the door. When we opened the door we saw my son Mahmuod. He told us that the soldiers had entered the house and that they wanted us to leave so they could search it. Among those present at that moment, beside myself, were my wife, Kamla, and my children: 'Issam, Ashraf, 'Alaa, Arij, Muna, Mujahed, and Tha'ir. Everybody left the house, except for Khaled, who was sick and couldn't go out. We informed the soldiers that there was a sick young man inside. Approximately six soldiers entered the house. They stayed inside for about five minutes. An additional thirty to thirty-five soldiers remained in the courtyard.
When the soldiers finished the search, they made us go back into the house, locked the entire family in our apartment and took control of the other three apartments: Majdi's Mahmoud's and Khaled's. They also took control of the balconies and the roof. During the day, my son, Rajeh, who works nearby, came home as well. We were twenty, all of us forced to sleep in one apartment. We did not have enough mattresses, bedding, and pillows. We thought the situation might last for two or three days. That's what usually happens when soldiers take control of houses in the camp.
In the morning, one of the soldiers came to the room and asked whether or not we had any telephones. We told him we didn't. We hid the phones we did have. The soldiers would come in every day and ask if we had phones and if we were talking to someone on the outside. Every time they came to ask us, we hid the phones and said we weren't talking to anyone. They did not allow us to open the windows or to leave the door to the house open. The soldiers came into the house and walked around for no apparent reason. In the afternoon of the fist day, we phoned our relatives and friends and told them that we were at the house and that we were all right.
The soldiers did not leave after two or three days as we had thought. During the first four days the soldiers allowed my wife to leave the house once a day to feed the sheep. She was not allowed to enter the pen and she had to throw the food to the sheep. A soldier accompanied her every time.
Every time we wanted to draw water from the well, using the rooftop pump, we had to ask permission to go up to the roof. Whenever the water tank got empty, we were left without water for hours. Every night the soldiers caused a ruckus and disrupted our sleep.
When we realized that the soldiers would be remaining in the house for a long time, we asked to leave the house, even if it was for only a couple of hours, to go to the neighbor's house. One of the soldiers told us that we were forbidden to leave the house. After an argument, he allowed the children to leave. We had the feeling that they were keeping us in the house to serve as protection for them.
On Tuesday, 29 October, around 10:00 P.M., one of the soldiers asked the men for their ID cards. He took them and left the apartment. A few minutes later, soldiers came to the apartment where we were trapped and asked for my sons Rajeh, 'Issam, and Ashraf. The three came forward and the soldiers took them outside. We supposed they had been arrested.
On Thursday, an Irish volunteer came to the house to check up on us. Afterwards a physician from Medicins sans Frontiers came to the house and examined my son Khaled. Some people from UNRWA came and brought flour and other basic necessities. We tried to leave the apartment during the breaks in the curfew. When the curfew was lifted for the first time, the soldiers did not allow anyone to leave. On the second day, they only allowed my wife to leave. The third time the curfew was lifted, I asked the soldiers to allow the women and children to leave the house. After a long argument, the soldiers agreed.
The soldiers left the house on Saturday, 9 November, at around noon. They left a lot of garbage behind. They urinated in Khaled's apartment and broke a bed and six chairs. They used kitchenware and mattresses in Mahmoud's apartment and didn't clean up. They used mattresses and slept on the beds in Majdi's apartment as well. They also broke the pictures in the apartments they took over.
Raja Nimer Abu al-Hija, age 62, is married and father of sixteen. He is a municipal worker, and a resident of the Jenin refugee camp. The testimony was Taken by 'Atef Abu a-Rub, in the Jenin refugee camp on November 12, 2002.