Born to live
My name is Sawan Abu Turki.
I am aged 17.
I live in Ramallah.
It is just three years since I was placed in an Israeli prison
for threatening an Israeli soldier with a knife.
On May 7, 2001, I had visited my sister and her new baby in the Alia Hospital and was on my way home.
I passed through one checkpoint without difficulty,
then another.
At the third, at Bab-al-Zawia, a soldier told me I could not pass.
I told him I must go home.
He hit me with his gun, first on the shoulder, then on the head.
A bystander took me in his car to Al-Ahli hospital, where I recovered consciousness.
I stayed there for a week.
They treated me for my injured shoulder, for concussion, and for blurred vision.
On June 6, 2001, I was walking with my 9-year-old cousin, Obeid, through the market.
It was Shabbat, the Jewish holiday.
Settlers with dogs surrounded us,
got the dogs to attack us.
My cousin ran away but I was paralysed with fear.
A Palestinian told me to escape through the cemetery.
They often attack us like this, the settlers.
Their children throw eggs and garbage at us,
even pee on us.
Who is raising these children?
Who teaches them to do these things?
What kind of society do they come from?
A week before I was due to go back to school,
the soldiers started firing their guns at my house.
The electricity was turned off.
We hid in one room in the dark, waiting for the gunfire to stop.
A few days later, a 9-year-old girl from my youth club was shot and killed by the soldiers.
I saw one of the soldiers had written "Born to kill" on his helmet.
When school started, the soldiers came every day.
They threw teargas grenades into the classroom.
My sister fainted once.
I carried perfume, bandages, adhesive tape and iodine in my schoolbag.
I'd sprinkle the perfume on a kerchief and hold it to my nose and mouth when the teargas came.
Going to school was becoming a nightmare.
I didn't want to go.
On Thursday, June 9, 2001, I bought presents for all my family.
I also bought a sharp knife.
It cost me 15 shekels.
I was determined to have revenge.
I went to the checkpoint.
Two soldiers were there, one male, one female.
I drew the knife.
They started shooting and I ran away into the old city, dropping the knife as I ran.
I came to a house and asked them to hide me.
When the soldiers came, I called the old man dad, but they were not deceived and they took me away.
I was taken to Kiryat Arba.
Female soldiers undressed me, tied my hands and feet.
They hooded me
and I was made to stand in the sun for a long time.
My head hurt, because of the concussion but also because of the sun.
My nose was bleeding.
I was very thirsty.
Also, my hearing was affected,
and it was as if I was deaf.
I asked for water and also a tissue for my nose but no one heard.
I was interrogated.
The interrogator was very angry and I became afraid when he smashed a glass to the floor in his anger.
I was taken to Abu Kabir and put into a cell with 20 women,
I think they were Russian prostitutes.
They were dressed immodestly and made all sorts of rude gestures to me.
Some of them burned me with cigarettes.
I still have my shirt, with the holes from the cigarettes.
During interrogation, I was slapped and given a confession to sign.
It was in Hebrew, which I cannot understand,
but I signed anyway, because I wanted my ordeal to have an end.
I had no contact with my family.
I went on hunger strike,
and after four days I was allowed to phone home.
On the twenty-first day of my imprisonment
I was transferred to the Neve Tirzah woman's prison and placed in solitary confinement.
I went on hunger strike again and demanded to be placed with the political prisoners.
I also threatened to commit suicide,
but though I had hidden five paracetamol capsules on my person,
this was not serious,
since it is against the rule of Allah.
When they agreed to my demand,
they tried to recruit me as informer, but I refused.
One interrogator said to me I was a 14-year-old girl
with the mind of a 24-year-old woman.
He was wrong.
My mind is now 56 years old.
I am as old as the nakba, the catastrophe of 1948,
though my calendar age is 17.
After four-and-a-half months they sentenced me to that time of imprisonment,
so I was free to go.
They also fined my family 15,000 shekels,
which is nearly £2000 sterling, or $3500,
which has put us seriously into debt.
I have had two operations on my leg,
because of injuries received during the beatings,
and the leg-irons which cut into me.
I still have a bad limp.
I no longer seek revenge.
What is the purpose of all this killing?
I am working to protect children in detention.
I also want to be a journalist, to reveal the depth of our suffering,
or perhaps become a nurse to help relieve the suffering of the injured.
If I wore a helmet,
I would not write upon it "Born to kill".
I would write "Born to live".
As are all God's children,
Christian, Muslim, and Jew,
yes even the soldier who beat me to the ground
and began this terrible story.
How it will end is up to all of us.
Jerusalem, based on a report in Haaretz Magazine, August 22, 2004
