“Mom, I am going to see my friends” called the little 10 year-old girl who used to live in Shufat. The child was born and raised in Shufat, and her house was one of the few homes in that area. All of the neighbours knew each other very well, and the connection between them was obvious: there were plentiful social visits, they stood together during good times and bad, the kids grew up together; it was a real sense of community.

The child was me and my friends were the Bedouins who used to settle down for the summer in Shufat with their flocks, in order to escape the heat of the Jordan Valley. I used to enjoy talking with them and spending time together.

Shufat, or our home, was enveloped by a valley and a hill, green grass and trees. Nature compensated us for the lack of playgrounds, and the lack of security we experienced due to measures taken by the occupation during the First Intifada. It was the place that my cousins and I would explore and map out. It was a safe haven. Suddenly, all of the nature gradually began to disappear. Concrete houses started appearing everywhere, there was no more green space, people became strangers, and no more of my friends returned to visit. The Separation Wall (or “Apartheid Wall” to use the Palestinian terminology) was in the midst of being constructed. My friends were no longer allowed to travel from the Jordan Valley. They were Palestinians who needed entry permits to cross the wall, and residency IDs to stay in Jerusalem. Palestinians were “uprooted” and displaced; not in an obvious manner like during the Nakba in 1948, but through legal means: If you live in the West Bank, or the wrong side of the wall, your residency will be revoked.

Families soon moved en masse to 'the right' side of the wall. And everything changed.

These days I pass near the lifeless, cement wall and remember my childhood, and my aunts and family who used to live on the other side. Now they are merely empty houses. I wonder: will my son ever really believe me that once upon a time there was no wall, and Jerusalem was connected to the rest of the body? Or will he grow up to normalise this lifeless, separation wall?