“and always be the yellow butterfly that is flying above the barbed wire.”

Liliana Segre, Jewish Italian woman deported to Auschwitz on 1940.

 

In the end it is only a thin line that divides the maternal hug of Manal from that of a Jewish mother celebrating her son’s 13th birthday and from the warmth of the Nicola’s stove.

And even more subtle is the difference between Manal and the Israeli military who, maybe, on October 2th, 2020 was still chatting and eating potato chips with a machine gun on her lap, on the banks of the Jordan river without asking herself Why or having the strength to say No. If we really found the strength to be that yellow butterfly.

 

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“The test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated, people in jail, especially so with minors”

Mark Regev, Spokesman of the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu

 

Israel applies military law to Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip and in the West bank while civil law applies to Israeli children. Israel is the only country in the world to apply military law to children.

 

On October 2th, 2020 Wadih, 14 yo, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces. He was playing football in a park recently annexed to Israel. He was released on November 2nd, 2020. No charges have been filed against him.

 

The project is in the name of Wadih, Handala and all the Palestinian children who have been, are and will be arrested and incarcerated by the Israeli occupation forces. Of all those children whose gazes, nights, thoughts and aspirations will never be the same again. It is in the name of those who will find the way to overcome the pain and the strength to not let it transform into anger and of those who will not achieve it and will be overwhelmed. I met Wadih’s family by chance.

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We spent time together in their house during my stay in Bethlehem: we were not together very long, we had a connection right from the start, by the way. We are always in touch.