Stick on democracy and nativity scenes

There are moments in the flurry of activity leading up to Christmas when you wish it wasn't happening. As I sat trying to wrap up three Panetones (don't try it) at 11pm last night for the Lozenge's teachers from all the class - I sat back to inspect my work and realised it looked like Rashimi had done it. In fact, maybe I could use that as the excuse, I thought to myself. At the 11th hour the school asked if I could film the school nativity play. Never again! Even the widest of lenses failed to capture the diminutive shepherds at the sides of the extra broad stage. And with one camera it's hardly like you can achieve the zooms, pans and dolly shots most discerning parents will be expecting. The Lozenge told me he was a 'tholdier' and I wondered where they fitted into the Christmas story. It turned out he was an 'Eastern Dancer' in sucker tight black lycra with a pillar box red Fez. A couple of steps out with the other Eastern Dancers - I could hear the cogs turning in his head as he concentrated on the moves. Then they sat cross legged on the stage looking bovine and yawning while all the girls stole the show in winged chiffon. Still, it was a rite of passage - the first of (perhaps, many?) stage performances for the Lozenge. St Grace and Rashimi came along too - J sadly away - and not a squeak emanated from the normally verbose little brother. Star struck it seems. I heard one little girl in the audience ask: 'Mummy, does Mary came from Amaryica?'

We can't move for nativity scenes in the house. The Lozenge is now particularly good at drawing camels.

The first term of school is over and the Lozenge has a bunch of lovely little friends, and can now write his name. Last week, one of his favourites - 'Vera from Thweden' came over to play. They had their tea together - and as the Lozenge's back was turned, preparing the pomegranate and yoghurt for their pudding, Rashimi snuck off his seat to go and twirl one of Vera's blonde pigtails with a sticky hand. 'Next time, can Vewa stay for bathtime too?' Rashimi suggested.

One morning St Grace was looking uncharacteristically grey and downcast. It turned out that the Jordanian authorities had declined her 12 year old son's visa from Sri Lanka on the grounds that he wasn't travelling to Jordan with his parents. Since St Grace and her husband are based here - there was nothing they could do to convince them in time for his Christmas visit to see them here. J and I agreed she must go back to see him for Christmas instead, with her husband, so we arranged her plane fare so they can all be together in Sri Lanka for 10 days. The shine came back to her face and I can feel the excitement building. The curry, the heat, the palm trees, her only son. When I see how much love she puts into caring for our boys, I understand how much of it must be replacing the time lost with her own boy. She and her husband are making the ultimate sacrifice by living and working here to afford him more opportunities than they had. She told me, 'I went to the church [Holy Sepulchre] and I was asking God what I should do. And now my prayer has been answered  - and only 3 hours after!'

My working life has been flat out, but I've now reached what feels like a beautiful flat plain before the next hillock on the 2015 horizon, having finished off the short film about Gaza for the hospital and another for Save the Children. I've been all around the West Bank, working in villages near Hebron, near Ramallah and near Nablus.  A beautiful time of year to film - with icy yellow/blue skies, mists and golden leaves, with incongruous greenery sprouting after all the rain.

The latest project took me to a little village near Nablus where Nawal, an 8 year old girl is still psychologically recovering from an attack on her family's house by the Israeli military during the summer. She's been in counselling for 3 months, and as we interviewed her about her experiences, the wonderful Palestinian counsellor, who looked at the pretty little girl with eyes full of love, warned: 'Please don't ask her about the events of the night of the attack. It's taken me 3 months to get to this point with her.'

In August, the Israeli military shot and killed a 24 year old Palestinian man who lived next door to Nawal's family, and demolished their house. In so doing, they also destroyed most of Nawal's home with shells and bullets. Each family member suffered serious shrapnel wounds and they all thought they would die that night as the shots rang around their ears. They've rebuilt their house, but received no compensation for it and are now heavily in debt.

Nawal's mother and her youngest child on the roof of their rebuilt house

None of this stopped Nawal's mother from preparing enormous dishes of rice with almonds and chicken for us before we started work, followed by thick Arabic coffee and chocolates. It was what we needed as we'd had to leave Jerusalem at 7am in order to avoid check point trouble. The Palestinian Authority Settlement Minister, Ziad Abu Ein, had been killed by the Israeli military the day before - while he was planting olive trees in peaceful protest to the occupation. We drove past the site - protected by Israeli military vehicles ready to stamp on the next uprising.

Perhaps I'd understand all these stories more if we were in Iraq or Syria where there is a real war being waged. But Israel claims to be a democracy. Ministers are killed while tree planting, and girls of 8 years old cling to their bleeding parents while soldiers' bullets rain down...in a 'democratic country'.

Nawal is a deeply eloquent and gentle little girl who seems to have used her natural intelligence and lightness of spirit to get over the trauma, with the help of the loving counsellor who works full time and has 4 of her own children. On my way out of their garden, looking onto a beautiful view of their village, she picked me a delicately perfumed, velvety red rose which the dwarves plunged their button noses into when I arrived home. How stark the contrast of the lives of these children, I thought as I pictured her wardrobe door riddled with bullet holes, and our dwarves' peaceful bedroom with every safety blanket they could ask for.

I travelled back to Jerusalem with a young Palestinian lady from Hebron who translated for me in Nawal's house. She's one of 10 children, and wears an immaculately tied headscarf. I asked her if she worshipped in a mosque, 'Me? Nooo!! I'm not religious at all. I just wear the headscarf to keep my Mum happy,' she laughed.

Tomorrow we leave this extraordinary land, full of confusion and disfunction, but beautiful all the same, for our Northern European breakaway which one day we might call home. But for now is a holiday land. The dwarf snowsuits are on order, and we're hoping for some icy flurries to blast us into 2015 and 'beginaginMcFinnagin' as Rashimi and the Lozenge would say.

After nearly a year of life here, there are now moments when J and I have time to observe. The dwarves being that little bit more independent in themselves and happy to tinker about without us in the epicentre all the time. We are grateful for the tiny pauses to witness the results of recent team work.

The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan put it wonderfully in a diary from 1975: 'I caught K's [his wife's] eye across the lunch table (roast beef and burgundy) and felt for almost the first time that we were a family - i.e.  that each had tough and durable wires of sympathy connecting him/her with the other thre that he/she would never feel for any other person.'

We're looking forward to beginning again in this city after some Christmas capers.

Happy holidays!

Where there's a wall, there's a way

After the economic crisis in 2008, someone remarked that it was caused by the destructive human emotions of fear and greed. The impermeable bulk of the apartheid wall as it is known by Palestinians, must have come from a similar source. It was built to protect those who lived in fear, and now inspires fear in those who have to survive on the other side. And its 700km form was supposed to snake along the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice line, or 'green line', but the border constrictor that it is, has greedily consumed 10 per cent of West Bank land, leaving further chunks of fertile land, formerly farmed by Palestinians, (up to 60 metres in some places) of exclusion area - now wasted terrain. It has severed communities, and blocks access for Palestinians to services, livelihoods and religious and cultural centres. Its stranglehold is felt by West Bankers and East Jerusalem dwellers in equal degree, whether they live near it or not. 

The only redeeming quality of this wall, is the fact that it is visible, unlike many other walls the Palestinians contend with in daily life. And as such, has been used as a giant canvas for free expression by local and international artists (notably Banksy), and anyone else who cares to paint or spray. Some results are beautiful and others are ugly. There are arguments to say that the wall should not be beautified, as a reminder of its catastrophic impact. But where there's a wall, there's a way. 

A Gazan told me an Arabic expression during my recent trip there: 'The dogs may bark, but the caravan keeps going.' The wall is an example of this spirit. To resist is to exist. 

All we know is that nothing stays the same. The Berlin Wall came down, so who is to say that this one won't meet the same fate some day. 

Al dunya shittaat

The colloquial expression when it rains here is: 'Al dunya shittat' which literally means: 'the world is raining.' Last week the rain was so heavy during the night, it sounded like multiple running taps. Both dwarfs wet their beds and the Lozenge came scampering naked into our room at 2am, having stripped off the soggy pyjamas, and clambered in to bed with us, rubbing his feet up and down my leg and pushing himself around into a comfier position until we fell asleep again. It was like sharing a bed with a seal - silken, slightly sticky skin and a solid form rather tricky to roll over to create space for myself. Though fortunately without whiskers or fish breath.

Then he was up and out of bed a couple of hours laters humming jingle bells under his breath and bringing in boxes of paper and glue to make some early morning chrithmath decorationth. Rashimi wandered in at 7 asking to watch 'a little bit of iPaaad', in the tone of a street urchin who wants some money. 'I want Fireman Tham on Youtube. But not the Fwench one!' The perils of globalisation for the anti-glot.

After school the dwarfs have been making the most of the enormous puddles outside our house thanks to the blocked drains - and the radiators are constantly steaming with damp socks.

The political backdrop rumbles angrily on, with the news of a 'Nation State Bill' which has been approved by the Israeli cabinet and has been widely contested. As far as I can see, it would put an official tag on what already functions as an apartheid state, and give recognised priority to Jewish citizens. As the director of the Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens in Israel commented: 'The nation-state bill...comes on top of the basic laws that already defined Israel as Jewish and dozens of laws that give excessive rights to Jews in Israel and throughout the world, while ignoring a fifth of the country's citizens'. 

And as the Israeli-Arab graphic designer, who created the 'State of Israel, second-class citizen' stamp in the wake of the bill surmised: 'What's new here? We were never first-class citizens. At least now you have said it out loud. I prefer that they tell us directly and not pretend we live in a democratic country, where they are self righteous and say there are equal rights.'

I've been reading to the dwarves a nightly chapter of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox, and the chapter where the fabulous fox family are bulldozed out of their hole by the 'terrible tractors' is so reminiscent of the political situation here. House demolitions and other dirty tricks, with the ever exhausted but still wily fox, who has lost his tail after Boggis or Bunce or Bean shot it off, a symbol in my mind of the Palestinian struggle, as I read to the dwarfs out loud.

There's been the decomposing corpse of a dead cat outside our garage for the past 2 weeks causing an almighty aroma which we receive mouthfulls of while climbing into and out of the car. 'Why did the cat die, Mummy?' asked Rashimi, ever fascinated by death and drama. I explained the Mummy version of events which involved the cat having had a long and happy life, and after a while when he grew tired, he lay down on the pavement for a nap, and never woke up. 'No,' interrupted the Lozenge. 'I don't think that's the thtory. I think that probably, the polithe shot it.' Another sign that perhaps Israeli tactics do not go un-noticed by dwarfs.

I've been working with a Palestinian friend at home translating some of the latest footage I've taken from Arabic into English. She arrived at our house and for once was not wearing her headscarf. She looked much softer and younger without it. Over lunch she told me all about her husband, who is so jealous over her, that he even feels put out when their son kisses her. As if this prison of Palestine wasn't enough - to have a marital prison at home, must be incredibly limiting to daily peace of mind.

Despite the rain, the Christmas spirit is fighting its way through, with a fortunate break in the clouds last Friday for the Lozenge's school Christmas fair which we held out of doors in sporadic sunshine. To be honest, I'd always hoped I would be never be one of 'those' Mums.

And as I laid out the cakes on the baking stall at 8am with my Christmas trees hairband having roped in 17 year old Mark 'the muscles from Moscow', one of the secondary students, I did wonder why my hand had gone up in the parents meeting, along with the hands of the dazzling array of Scandi ladies - the fellow fair fairies. Perhaps it's because they're so nice. Well, we had a good time, and we made over £400 just from the baking which all goes towards a children's summer camp in Gaza. And I think no one from the outside would have guessed that this 'community school' was made from disparate nomads from all around the world. And fortunately a good number of Palestinians just to keep our feet on the ground.

J was here for a weekend in between two weeks of work trips, and we met a lovely guy who I hope will become a new friend, and might be moving here from the UK. And double hooray - he's in the same trade as me. As we talked I realised it's been almost 2 years since I talked shop with a fellow Brit. We need people like that here, or I could risk going entirely 'native': the great fear of all governments for their diplomats. Though I'm not sure there are guidelines in the expat instruction booklet for trailing spouses that head down that route. Normally we're meant to trail along to keep the diplomat on track.

Then another Great Brit, known to dwarfs as 'That lovely laydeeee', Emma, came to visit and we embarked on a visit to the separation wall, which I'll enlarge on in another post, to look at the graffiti. A while back, the Lozenge asked me as we drove through its grey impermeable bulk: 'Mummy, is that thing still called a wall? Because it's the ugliest one I've ever ever seen.' And this time, he still thought it was ugly, and: 'weally annoying becauthe you can't see over it.' So they tried to have look under a chink below a solid gate instead.

Rashimi was fascinated by an old chair on top of a rubbish tip that could have been positioned there as a mock viewing platform. 'Why has someone put that chair there, Mummy? Look - it'th an antique!' 

After a glass of fresh orange juice at one of the cafes cashing in on tourist coachloads coming to witness the wall, we meandered back towards to Jerusalem along a pretty winding road through the hills to go to a Christmas fair at the Lutheran church in the old city. Without any of us noticing, Rashimi managed to strip off all his clothes in the back seat, much to the surprise of the Ethiopian and Russian 'Israeli' soldiers at the checkpoint. 'Oh no,' said the Lozenge. 'Washimi is naked again.' The little man is heading towards almost professional levels of exhibitionism.

Although a beautifully festive and Germanic experience, the Lutheran fair was not the best for visiting with 2 dwarfs, and 2 scooters. We spent the half hour inside with wailing coming from down below as one after another shaggy head was whacked with shopping bags and cameras. I juggled a mug of 'glug', the scooters and 2 sticky hands clenching mine. We found a sandwich and some cinamon infused cake, and the Lozenge dropped the glass plate which smashed all over the ancient stones. An unmerry ding dong it was, though fortunately we bumped into our lovely Palestinian friend Robert who popped a Cohiba cigar into J's shirt pocket and laughed with us about how he'd forgotten what this kind of thing was like with 'al atfaal' the children. His girls are all grown up.

The dwarfs were invited to a pirates and princesses birthday party and Rashimi needed no encouragement to wear his outfit from uncle Duncle. He ate 12 marshmallows in a row and the 'cutlath' was wielded with ever more fervour.

The Lozenge was too mature to dress up, but wore his Tshirt with sharks on: 'Like shark infethted waters.'

The pudding bowl hairdos have been dealt with chez Chris the Armenian hairdresser, who is famed for trimming Tony Blair when he's here. I'm afraid to get mine done there in case I get 'the Cherie'. I said to the Lozenge: 'Imagine if I sat in that seat and Chris cut all my hair off.' L replied: 'Then you would look like Grandpop.'

In fact, Rashimi's new style is frighteningly Tony-esque - complete with the ears.

As the Lozenge spotted a brush and started sweeping up all the hair, (he does love a job) I thought to myself that it was almost worth Tony Blair being nominated for that ludicrous Global Legacy Award this week by Save the Children, just for the humiliation of the in-house, and then public outcry, and over 100,000 signatures, to revoke it.

A trip to 'GoLand'

Black clouds loom in our skies these days, casting shadows on this troubled land, but also dousing it with raindrops of immeasurable value. The dwarfs and I have been rustling about the city in our raincoats. The atmosphere has changed since we arrived - with both Palestinians and Israelis living in fear of the next retribution attack as penance for the last.  And in the background, the Israeli state has resumed its practise of demolition orders - notably on homes of Palestinians who committed terror attacks in Jerusalem in the past month. But it seems like these are a deliberate way of harming innocent people, since those responsible for the attacks have either been killed by Israeli police, or are already facing trial. And it adds fuel to the flames already licking around society's most irascible quarters.

Since as internationals we're able glide mercurially from one side to the other, I've been making the most of this and roping the dwarfs, unknowingly, into a friendliness offensive or love-off with people we would normally not get chatting to. Just because we can, and I always fear we could become embroiled in the fear and the hate if we don't make an effort to venture out and keep an open mind.

In a park on the West side last week, I spoke to a beautiful orthodox Jewish lady with creamy skin, wearing a tight grey leopard print top, brown wig and black headband, who was strolling with her 1 year old daughter, and pregnant with the second child. 'My husband's a student here [yeshiva - the Jewish study of religious texts] and we moved here from New York a few months ago just to try it out,' she explained in a thick New York accent. 'But we don't really like it. You have to be so hard headed to survive here, so we might not stay - even though we're allowed to if we like.' The Jewish diaspora are allowed to embark on Aliyah: literally the 'act of going up' (to Jerusalem) to take citizenship and buy land in Israel whenever they like.

Meanwhile, the dwarfs were not towing the line with the friendliness offensive, and were physically blocking her one year old from entering the model train in the playground, Rashimi shouting: 'She ith NOT a nithe girl. This is OUR train.'

Her husband came to join her, dressed in black with the white strings symbolising some of the laws he's presumably studying, day in, day out. 'Hey, your boys look like they're a whole load of fun and a whole load of trouble, all bound up in one boy bubble!' she laughed as they wandered off.

She didn't mention the recent tit-for-tat terror and I regretted that I didn't ask her what she made of this current situation. But then, there were no Palestinians to be seen in the park that afternoon, so perhaps it didn't cross her mind.

The following day, the dwarfs and I tried to fly a kite and catch leaves in a tiny gust of wind at Liberty Bell park, also on the West Side. As the boys scooted about a tarmac area I got chatting to a Palestinian family taking a Friday stroll. 'We like this park and there aren't parks on the East side - so we come here. Although we feel a bit afraid, we don't think it should stop us living our lives,' they told us.

We took the Lozenge to have his ears tested. The doctor was South African, now Israeli having done his Aliyah 30 years ago, with a yarmulka and a friendly disposition. 'Well young man,  where do you come from with that beautiful accent. Is it UK by any chance?'

'No, I come from Jeruthalem,' replied the Lozenge.

The weekend arrived and J and I were wined, dined and breakfasted by various friends. A Palestinian couple took us out to breakfast in a lovely cafe which felt a bit like we were in France. Rashimi was with us as St Grace had nipped back to Jordan for a weekend, so while he tackled a plum tart sprinkled with icing sugar, we talked. She's a child psychologist, and he a lawyer - they work with Palestinians and Israelis in their team, and speak Arabic, Hebrew and English fluently. They are funny and modest and we laughed a lot over plates of patisserie. J and I mused on the way back to begin our respective days, that these kinds of people are the gold of this land, and its future also (if Palestinians are allowed to have one here).

After a five course dinner cooked for us on Friday evening by some equally wonderful Dutch friends, we set off on a family adventure to the Golan heights to meet an Israeli friend visiting from the UK and his family. We wiggled along the Jordan valley, the green undulating landscape dotted with palms and other tropical vegetation.  The green is a welcome change from the dustier heights of Jerusalem. The autumn rains had caused a spring-like burst of green and chubby cows grazed happily beside the road. After nearly 3 hours in the car, we reached Rami, or 'Wami' as he's known by the dwarfs, who spent the day guiding us around his home. We started at a memorial for his father, who was killed fighting in Lebanon in 1984 when Rami was 10. What a view, down to lake Galilee. His father sounded like a wonderful man, full of integrity and well deserving of this landscape spread before his memorial site:

Rami himself is completely free of hate, even though he was only 10 years old when his father was killed by Hizbollah fighters. And he's a mine of information and personal experience, we discovered, as he gave us a whistle-stop tour of this extraordinary highland area where Lebanon, Israel and Syria meet - with many a feud to mark it. When you look at a map of the area it is littered with dotted lines: Ottoman Villayet boundary; 1920 Franco British agreement boundary; 1923 mandate boundary; 1949 armistice demilitarised zone; 1967 ceasefire lines; 1974 disengagement lines...

We meandered about between minefields, disused Syrians barracks and other administrative buildings, pock marked with bullet holes and now within the Israeli border, since after the six day war in 1967 since when the area has been under Israeli control.

The weather was as wild as the region itself. We stopped at a look out post in an old Israeli bunker to look at the Syrian border, where on a  clear day you can see the black flags of Al Nusra, one of the Syrian opposition groups allied with Al Qaeda. The dwarfs are not used to wind and rain but enjoyed the climb up the rocky outpost, and fortunately it was cloudy. I wasn't sure I wanted to see those flags with my own eyes.

The area is also well known for its Druze villages of Majad al Shams, Buqata, Mas'ade and Ein Quiniyye. Druze is a branch of Shia Islam and they are independent communities here renowned for their hospitality and independent mindedness. While many Palestinians were driven out of their lands by Israelis since the 1940s, the Druze stayed put.  Their villages have a completely different feel from everywhere we've experienced so far - coloured houses, extravagant architecture in some places, plenty of building work creating more mismatched structures, dotted with large numbers of tractors of varying vintage.

We all had a Druze labaneh and za'atar flat bread sandwich made by this lady.

We can't wait to go back. And as we meandered back to Jerusalem in the darkness, Rashimi announced: 'Mummy, we did have a weally good time in GoLand!'

Sunday we lounged about, and the Lozenge decorated most door handles and knobs with 'Chrithmath Mouthtaches' made from pipe cleaners, and made a few little 'Chrithmath mithe' from walnuts, who are sitting by the oven keeping watch.

Light and dark, and a birthday brunch

The house soon felt more like a university digs with the Glammy, her sister, St Grace and the dwarves lounging about watching The Little Mermaid and playing hide and seek. Rashimi spent the first morning with the Glammy in their pyjamas, looking for bugs in the garden with a shoehorn and a sock on his hand.

I showed Mum this picture and she said: 'I somehow don't think Rashimi will go for blondes when he's older.'

St Grace showed them about the city - to the wonderful Mehane Yehuda market, where the Glammy came back exclaiming: 'Israeli men are HOT! I couldn't work out whether to stare at all the amazing food on display or them.' And then to Bethlehem where the guard heard that the raven haired ladies were Jordanian and ushered them quickly to the front of the queue. It's extremely difficult for Jordanians to visit Israel and Palestine so they were treated as honoured guests. They visited Mary's cave where allegedly she gave birth to Jesus. St Grace managed to persuade the Glammy out of drinking the 'milk' there which is created from shavings from the wall of the cave mixed with water, which allegedly helps women who are hoping for a child. Since the Glammy's name is the Arabic for the Virgin Mary she felt there was an extra connection. 'When you find a husband, you can come and drink the milk,' explained St Grace, laughing. She's in awe of the Glammy's romantic revolving door - spinning men out of her life as quickly as they came in. 'First you are friends. Then you can have the love. If you do it the other way, you will not be happy,' lectured St Grace to the Glammy.

We drove to some springs on the Israeli side of the Dead Sea and the Glammy recited most of Dr Seuss 'My name is Sam, I am, I am. Do you like green eggs and ham?' to the dwarfs in the back which meant no one asked for the iPad. The boys stripped off and swam in the little rocky pools. The raven haired beauties and I spectated from the safety of a rock.

The night before Rashimi's third birthday, the kitchen was a cloud of self raising flour and icing sugar, to an accompaniment of the Kinks. Rashimi pranced around the house in a half skip with a naked bottom, while the Lozenge tried to inflate balloons and bake fairy cakes all at once. The balloons were then cordially low slung about the house meaning any one taller than a dwarf had static balloon brushes to the head and face through every doorway. The Glammy hung the birthday banner only to realise she'd hung it backwards, Arabic style

Then we had a candlelit dinner all together but the dwarves kept blowing out the candles. We realised the only candles they see are birthday ones. They gobbled fish pie and we drank red wine which fueled J and I for a late night wrapping session of all the amazing trucks and toys from the Grandparents and others back home.

Rashimi's 'brunth' as he called it was a hoot. The trick with children's parties is to make them adult friendly. And we soon had lots of bleary eyed parents putting down their coffee cups and reaching for the jug of bloody mary. The Glammy tried some too.

 The 'brunth' was over and done with by 1pm so we watched our first film altogether - the first of the Harry Potter series which now looks quite dated - mostly because Daniel Radcliffe now has a beard and probably children. The dwarves loved it for a while, but we had to switch off half way as the Lozenge found it too scary. He's just started to be afraid of the dark. 'I don't like dark, I like light, Mummy. I don't like black, I like yellow.'

As we drove to school the next day, through the rain drenched streets, the Haredim - orthodox men - were resplendent with the plastic bags covering their precious hats to protect them from the raindrops. In this city where so many people flock to find true light, there is a growing amount of darkness. A Palestinian bus driver was found hanging in his bus from a wire - the Palestinians are sure he was murdered. He had a young family and no reason to take his own life, they say. Then further horror as a Synagogue was attacked by two young Palestinian cousins wielding knives and axes. An Israeli friend said: 'I'm really not the religious type, and I often think these orthodox guys all decked out in their relgious clothing are ridiculous. But no one deserves to die like that.'

The Palestinian perpetrators, who were shot dead by police, came from a district in Jerusalem called Jabal Makaber. I read a bit about it. Like many Arab areas in East Jerusalem, it is plagued by settlements that have sprung up in the area; house demolitions are rife. These people have no rights, and nowhere to go. Here is a post from 2010 by Peace Now, a leading voice of Israeli public pressure for peace:

A New Settlement in Jabel Mukaber

A new Jewish settlement was established this morning in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber (not too far from Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations). Israeli police evicted the Palestinian family from their home and handed the property over to private guards working for the settlers.
The reason for the eviction? An Israeli court ruled that the house had been purchased a foreign company called “Lowell Investments,” registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands. And Lowell Investments is represented in Israel by David Be’eri, one of the leaders of the Elad settler organization, the well-funded and politically powerful settler organization.
The family says that the sale is fraud. Possible and also possible not. The court ruled it isn’t. Many sales are secret so Palestinians can have deniability. Many sales are also done in a sleazy manner – getting one family member to sell out ownership rights for the entire extended family.

The Israeli state has created its own monster and is being eaten alive by it. You wonder how different 2015 might be, if Israel could promise to crack down on the building of illegal settlements. A tiny gesture like that, might allow some chinks of light into the dark corridor of the future.

This week, I met with a university lecturer from the US who is living and working in Ramallah, and she said the situation reminds her of the tale of the native American Indians, who were slowly and determinedly driven from their own land. Perhaps, as a British woman I know who married a Palestinian remarked, 'their natural warmth and hospitality has been their Achilles heel.'

The Lozenge and I went to his music class with his beautiful French-Israeli teacher. The road was almost empty, the Synagogue murder having taken place that morning, with both Palestinians and Israelis staying sheltered in their homes for fear of retribution attacks. Each music session L's teacher and I get to know each other a little better. 'Do you think you can make a difference here?' she asked me. We both agreed that we could be of limited use, but just by trying to live with an open mind, inviting all types into our lives, encouraging our children to see everyone as equal and hear both languages, was a start. And not to take fright and run away, we agreed. She arrived here 15 years ago from France and married an Israeli, just as the second intifada begun. 'I have barely known peace,' she said, 'but I love my life here.' A large cushion on her sofa was emblazoned with: 'Do what you love'. She is a lovely and creative force for good here, there's no doubt.

The Lozenge and I drove back through the dark and empty road, alongside the light rail train, usually packed with both Israelis and Palestinians returning home at that time in the evening. That night it was a ghost train - seats empty with all the lights on.

People drive with caution these days as recently, there have been enough cars used intentionally to mow down pedestrians to make us all remember we are driving a weapon. I saw an Arab family in a small car turn a corner while a Jewish man in yarmulka cap, was about to cross the road. The headscarves ladies stopped their car, waving him on and smiling, as if to say: 'We promise we're not trying to run you down.' He waved back at them and smiled, holding his cap in place as he ran to the other side.

This city houses reasonable minded people, also. It's important not to succumb to the panic.

I took the dwarves to a tennis class with the Lozenge's little French friend, Julien, or 'Julie Ann' as Rashimi calls him. The light was fading and Rashimi pointed to the sky. 'Look Mummy, a hot air balloon.' 'Yes Washimi, that'th the balloon that takes pictures of us,' answered the Lozenge.

'I will fly a hot air balloon when I'm grower and grower', said Rashimi.

I wondered how much of our lives they see from up there through the giant CCTV in the sky. There seem to be more of them than ever these days. An over-policed state is a frightened state, and how can this ever make things safer?

The ochre and the blue

Climb every mountain (as long as it's your idea)

A few hours after Gaza I walked back into our kitchen to find Mum and Dad sitting with Rashimi and the Lozenge as they tried to twirl spaghetti around their forks. It was a great moment to have them with us as it seems an age since the summer. I heard on the news that evening that for the first time since 2007, Gazans were able to export their produce to the West Bank. A picture of huge piles of Gazan cucumbers illustrated the story. I thought of Muneer's fish shop and his promise to export fish to Ramallah the minute the ban was lifted. It came as a significant ray of light, just like seeing Mum and Dad's faces in our noisy kitchen.

Even coming from the destruction zone of Gaza, Jerusalem feels increasingly troubled. In just a week, right wing Israeli groups have forced their way onto the Muslim holy site of Al Aqsa compound despite calls from a moderate (Sephardic) rabbi to stop this provocation. A right wing Rabbi was shot and badly injured. A Palestinian drove his car through a tram station injuring three people after which he was shot dead. 3 settlers were stabbed near Bethlehem. An Israeli soldier was stabbed in Tel Aviv. And a Palestinian has been kidnapped by settlers in Bethlehem. All this against a backdrop of continued settlement building, home demolition and land grabs, with ever more bitterness and despair in Palestinian ranks. The atmosphere is tangibly on edge. I asked a local shopkeeper, 'How is the situation?' Al wada'a sift' he replied: a Palestinian expression meaning the tar on the road. Filthy and black.

We escaped for the weekend to the peace of the desert, heading south to the Negev. First stop was a goat farm where we had a delicious goaty lunch with local red wine and the dwarfs scuttled happily about the rocky terrain. That night we stayed in a lovely little cluster of cabins overlooking the pale brown landscape dotted with vineyards, with a little shop where the owner, Moshe, and his Dutch wife sell local wines from neighbouring wineries. They've made everything themselves, from the cabins to the playhouse, and the little sculptures and details around the place. Just a few kilometres away to the West was Gaza, and I noticed the freedom which enabled Moshe and his wife to explore their own ingenuity, and live their own life. A distant dream only a few thousand dunes away, for the Gazans in their seaside prison.

The dwarves were in heaven and up early wandering about the sand in their pyjamas in the morning light.

We suggested a walk to see some desert flowers - delicate yellow crocuses which arrive every year during the rainy season. There was a bit of whining from the shorter legged members of the group, until the Lozenge spotted a little hill which he suggested we should climb. Suddenly the adventure became his and the whining petered out. Perhaps every choice needs a sense of ownership for it to mean something, including a desert adventure. We found the yellow flowers, and a little higher up some empty shell cases. A rusty reminder of where we were.

The Lozenge was on his own adventure, and he wasn't going to stop until he reached the top.

Which we did. 

Including even the smallest member of the team.

On Mum and Dad's last night we had a brilliant evening with our new octogenarian Israeli friends. We needed a local substitute for the Jordanian Duke, after all. They are warm and funny and after living in London for over 40 years, they are tuning themselves to this city in the same way as we are. It's changed so much since they were young students here. Not necessarily for the better, they admit.

Since Mum and Dad left I've been tootling about the West Bank with doctors and nurses from the hospital. We drive on winding roads through rocky hills all over the West Bank, through checkpoints, and separation walls. Though the news gets worse from the outside, while we're in the van the mood is often light and full of chat and humour. Nader the driver in wrap around shades taps his hands to the tune of 'Life is Life' playing on the radio. It's the attitude you need to have if you're Palestinian.

I filmed with a family of a little 2 year old girl living near Hebron. Although they're poor and fairly traditional, they opened their doors to us and when we left, handed us huge bags full of almonds and walnuts 'lowz wa jowz' from the trees on their little patch of land. The father loves his little girl with tight blonde curls so much, he can hardly stop himself from kissing her all the time. She stomps after him everywhere he goes, calling: 'Baba!'

I filmed the first of her two cataract operations in the hospital. As the surgeon scaped away the milky covering of the pupil, the operation was magnified on a huge screen in the corner, and after half an hour he had entirely removed the cataract. It must be a satisfying job. Her sight will soon be completely restored for a whole life ahead of her.

The last couple of days my head has felt like a soda stream with all the thought bubbles fizzing inside it. I had a preparation evening for the school fair with a few Scandinavian Mums. They were very adept at whipping up Christmas decorations out of paper. Their results were a little more impressive than the loo roll and cotton wool Santas I remember making when I was little. So I followed suit with the scissors, trying to make a paper snowflake to match theirs. After a few seconds I saw it was smoking. I'd managed to set fire to it by getting too close to the candle on the table. Much hilarity as I raced to the sink to douse the flaming flake. I think I'll stick to the baking stall and leave the snowflakes to the Scandis.

The Glammy and her sister have arrived to stay for the weekend, and the dwarves have two ladies each at their disposal. It's a certain dwarf's third birthday this weekend and they've come over specially.

The bathrooms are bedazzled with all the Glammy's lotions and potions, perfumes and sprays. The dwarfs are fascinated and their hair now smells of Marc Jacobs. Louis Vuitton handbags are draped in the playroom and the house is tingling with a happy and excitable atmosphere.

What once was Shujayiya

'Can you imagine,' asks Sami, gesticulating towards a pile of rubble with a wheelchair dangling on a string from one of the smashed floors, 'how you would move over 200 hundred patients from a hospital after a strike warning giving you only a couple of hours to escape?' Sami doesn't know how the workers in the Al Wafa hospital managed to save as many lives as they did before the building was bombed. Particularly as the hospital was for rehabilitation and many of the patients were unable to walk.

The mukhtar and his driver give us a tour of his district, almost every street pulverised into a rubble. The only straight lines in the mess are the roads which divide the mounds of cement and twisted wires, which only 6 months ago were functioning streets.

But through the stench of sewage from all the broken pipes, and the dust whipped up by the wind, where there is a straight line, or a clear patch, there are children and signs of life. The ubiquitous line of coloured washing hangs to dry in the dusty air. Little school girls in pristine white frilled socks and hair bobbles to match, pick their way to school through the mud. Within a mound of rubble, a room remains, and through the chink I see a barber in his makeshift salon under a dim light bulb, carefully shaving a customer. A boy takes his little brother's hand as they cross from one former street side  to the other. A donkey pulls a cart loaded with shiny red apples and perfect yellow bunches of bananas, casting a colourful contrast against the dusty destruction. Human survival against all odds. And the donkey looks well cared for.

In another street a bulldozer is scraping rubble into piles. Groups of young men work alongside with their hands. They wave and smile as I bring out my camera.

The mukhtar takes us to where he once lived. From the site of his house - now riddled with bullet holes and windows blown out, we see a fertile stretch of land, undeveloped, and in the distance, the border with Israel, from where the shells had hurtled for those 51 days of hell. We're standing on the front line. Looking behind us we inspect the remains of his district - a mosque - its minaret a metal framed skeleton against the sky; apartment blocks previously 6 or 7 storeys, now the height of a bungalow; an empty space, once a communal yard, now a giant mud puddle reflecting the ruins around.

 'My neighbours are all still under that rubble,' says the mukhtar, pointing to a ruined building and shaking his head. 'They were all at home when it was hit. Their children all killed.'  Looking at the big puddle in the middle, with tiny shoots of grass peeping above it, I imagine the children playing in this space. Their quarrels and their laughter. Now they're lying silent under the ruins of their house.

We drive out of the destruction zone past a field of tomato plants standing proud, already bearing fruit despite the short period since the war, and back to the clinic along the roads emblazoned with signs advertising Hamas - soldiers in camouflage, smiling proudly with their weapons, boasting strength, might and protection.

We interview four people who've lost one or both eyes during the attacks.

It's already time to leave though I feel like I've only just begun. As we say goodbye to Sami and promise to do everything we can to get him a 2 day break from Gaza, and some apple tobacco, I feel dizzied by my own freedom. The sand on the feet of my tripod is the only outward sign of where I've been lucky enough to visit, and lucky enough to leave.

The world will never look quite the same again.

After this summer's war, the director of the Israeli Army's mental health department commented: 'I don't want to call it a phenomenon, but 3 Israeli soldiers committing suicide after operation protective edge, is a significant event.'

Siege from every side

As we drive through Beit Hanoun on the outskirts of Gaza City we pass a blackened block of buildings with the front blown off, revealing the insides of demolished apartments. The rooms of ruined furniture are visible as if in a dolls house with the door open. I imagine a giant hand reaching in, to crush furniture and snatch people. Just as the shells would have snatched the lives of anyone left inside when they struck. Though Sami explains that most people escaped from this building before it was hit, during the summer's 'Operation Protective Edge'.

Sami worked as a nurse in Al Shifa hospital in Gaza throughout the 51 day war this summer. 'We really saw hell in those days. Sometimes when I shut my eyes at night I still see the children we were trying to treat on the floor, who had no skin left on their bodies which wasn't burned,' Sami tells me.

'You can't imagine what it was like. Bodies everywhere: many on each bed, bodies on the floor, bodies in the doorways, children - everywhere - screaming. And all we did was just save lives. Nothing more. And we had nothing.'

This war is over now but the scars run deep.  Gazan children of six years old have experienced three such wars in their lifetime. And these peole are braced for the next. They of anyone in this region understand how fragile and precious is this tiny patch of peacetime. As we pass one pile of rubble in an ordinary street, Sami explains: 'This was the house of an important member of Hamas. His wife and children were killed. We don't know where he is now. It was a nightmare because we didn't know where the shells were going to land next. Nowhere and no one was exempt.'

Many streets we pass have a house taken out, like a mouth with a missing tooth. Many of the strikes must have been calculated within inches.

For Sami, life has become even more of a straight jacket. He can't get cigarettes easily, or his favourite apple tobacco for his shisha pipe. The crossing from Rafah in the South, bordering with Egypt is now closed; the tunnels -  formerly the only other way of getting goods in, are smashed. There's barely a flow of anything, let alone people. Since 2007, when Hamas took over Gaza from Fatah, the situation has been in free fall. Sami admits: 'We all voted for Hamas because they were our last hope. We thought they could change things. Now we see the truth. Things have got worse'.

'It's like we're in a bottle with a cork in the top now. All I want is a trip to the West Bank. Just for 2 days in Ramallah - to have a change of scene and decompress. Then I will come back here and I will be able to work with more energy and less stress.'

Donkey carts trot beside us, loaded with fruit. Horse carts clack along weaving in and out of the traffic of ancient cars. We hop out to film a group of young men working with a JCB sorting out the rubble of a bombed building. All that remains is a huge hole, filled with rainwater, encircled with rubble and twisted wires. They smile at us and call: 'Welcome!' as they pull the contorted metal bars from the ruins, and drag them over to the metal straightening machine to use again.

If anything, this admirable recycling job is a pastime for angry young men. I remark on this to Sami. 'But what choice do we have?' he laughs. He's always laughing.

There's been a promise of $5.4 billion to re-re-re-build Gaza, but Sami explains the official building work has not yet begun, and won't do for months, due to the 'Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism' established by the UN and Israel where every rebuild needs to be assessed first. Israel needs to avoid sponsoring a regrouping of Hamas.

Israelis have long barred the entry of basic construction materials such as cement, metal pies and steel in to Gaza, insisting that they are 'dual use' items that Hamas could use to build more underground tunnels. This ban has become more draconian since the summer. And civilians are suffering yet again as a result.

Over 100,000 Gazans are living in temporary accommodation in UNWRA school buildings. And they'll be waiting for at least another 6 months until they can start to build. Men and women are segregated. Families, already smashed, are divided up. Some people are beginning to do the work themselves. 'No building materials are wasted here. It's like gold to us. Everything that can be used again, we use. What other choice do we have?' Sami says - laughing, again, as if the frequency of his laughter might conceal the flatness beneath.

We spend the day filming in the crowded hospital, the white coated doctors ducking and diving through clusters of grey looking patients. Without exception the people are friendly and welcoming. Everyone wants to talk, to tell us how it's been in the summer. At around 4pm Sami drops me at the hotel - a vast structure overlooking the sea with ornate golden lights and swirling carpets. 'We have only 8 hours of electricity a day. This is a timetable we know very well, just as we know the sunrise and the sunset. There's nothing to do here and nowhere to go, so I lose myself in Facebook whenever I have a moment to myself and when there's power,' Sami says before he heads home.

I find my way up to the hotel roof as the call to prayer sweeps over the city from an elegant grey mosque (funded by the Qataris I was told) on one side. I film the cityscape as the sun sinks below the Mediterranean, framing a few tiny fishing boats in silhouette. Children playing below prank about doing backflips down sandbanks, and a line of military cadets dressed in black jog in a line along the road. The sun sinks below the blue, and the only lights around me emanate from the hotel - its huge generator rumbling loudly below.

I go for dinner with some of the doctors. Muneer the owner of the fish restaurant greets us. His is yet another friendly, moustached face with twinkling eyes. He names each of the fish spread out on the icy bed at the entrance.

Then he chooses a selection for us and we sit in an underground room painted blue with assorted shells hanging in fishing nets. He arrives shortly with small bowls of spicy shell fish soup and some warm flat bread; then comes a huge pile of grilled fish, hummus and cucumber and tomato salad. As I pick with my fork, one of the doctors tells me he learned during his training in Ukraine: 'that fish, chicken and women should be taken with the hands,' encouraging me to lose the fork. It's much easier. The food is delicious. Over coffee and cigarettes Muneer comes to join us and I try to follow their conversation in Arabic. They help me fill in the gaps when required.

During the 51 days of war in the summer, Muneer sheltered over 100 people in the underground dining room where we're sitting. They were mostly members of his extended family who'd escaped from the shelling in the area of Shujaiya, the area in Gaza City that was worst hit.

'We had so many orphans in here who'd lost their parents, and we were all trying to look after them and find any of their relations who might still be alive. All our gardens were badly hit, so during this time we couldn't find parsley or lemon or even basic things like tomatoes to eat,' Muneer explains, puffing smoke from his nostrils.

It's increasingly difficult for him to work as there's hardly any power. What used to come cheap from Egypt is no longer coming. Israel has not permitted Gazans to fish beyond 6 miles from the coast since 2006. Often this distance is reduced to 3 miles. Anyone who crosses the line risks death. But like every Gazan I meet, Muneer smiles and laughs a lot, but I also wonder what us below this mask of warmth. They're a nation under siege. How can anything or anyone be 'normal.'

On our way back to the hotel we see what we think are children swimming in a puddle. 'You should take a picture!' says one of the doctors. As we draw closer we see the nocturnal swimmers are army cadets in training. 'The Gazan army?' I ask. 'Well, yes. Hamas army.' I put my camera away and keep my head low as we splash past in a shallower part of the same puddle.

The next morning I set out with Sami at 6.30am. 'It's an institutionalised siege,' Sami tells me, 'because everyone plays a part in it. Not just Israel, who are denying us all our rights and the flow of essential goods, even when they aren't bombing us. But the UN is part of the siege through its bureaucracy with everything, and making us wait for so long before we can officially begin to build. It comes from every side. And to the other side - well, at least we still have the sea.'

We interview one of the most senior doctors in Gaza, who also plays a pivotal role in politics here. Though he's officially with Fatah, Hamas need his influence as he's connected and respected. He is open minded and full of information. He and his wife live here, though his children study in Egypt. They can't come to visit him in Gaza, but they occasionally have fleeting time together in the West Bank.

He looks out of his surgery window as he describes his medical training in Edinburgh and a much enjoyed trip to the highlands. 'I think there's a big connection between the Palestinians and the Scottish,' he smiles. 'We all know what it is like to have a bigger and more powerful neighbour, and it effects who we are as a nation.'

Sami lays out a breakfast of hummus, za'atar (the Palestinian thyme and sesame seasoning) and warm flat bread before we set out for Shujayiya, one of the districts most damaged this summer. The senior doctor has arranged for us to have a tour by the mukhtar - town elder of that area. He drops us by the Islamic University and we drive on with the mukhtar and his driver - both decked in clean white 'keffiyeh' head dresses and the black rope around the top.

You can't tell from his face that he's the elder of a suburb that's been all but flattened. I'm always intrigued by the facade of a human face.

The crumbled facade of his district of Shujayiya is more revealing.