I was fast asleep with my two daughters aged 1 and 3-years-old, when the telephone rang. It was around 4:00 a.m. It was a friend of my husband’s telling us that Israeli soldiers were in our refugee camp. We did not make much of this as it is not unusual for soldiers to be in our camp in the middle of the night. 

 

I went back to sleep but shortly afterwards my husband woke me up and told me that the soldiers were now in our neighbourhood. He went to the living room and then left the house. Shortly afterwards soldiers came to our front door. I was so scared that my knees started to shake. 

 

Soon I heard the sound of a device which the soldiers sometimes use to open locked doors and within seconds they had opened our front door. About 15 soldiers entered our home. They had a torch and the whole house lit up. I froze in my place and did not move. Luckily my daughters did not wake up.

 

The soldiers walked into my bedroom and one of the soldiers asked me who was in the house. I did not answer; I think I was in shock. I was terrified but at the same time I did not want to show it. Then he asked me in broken Arabic for my name. Then he told me to go to the kitchen and I did. He asked me again who was in the house and I told him I was with my little daughters and begged him not to wake them up. Then he asked where my husband was and I told him he was at work on night shift. 

 

The soldier told me I had to call him and ask him to come home immediately. Then the soldier compared a photo of my husband hanging on our wall to a photo he had with him. Then he gave me a weird look and told me I was too young to have children. I was scared he might hurt me and felt vulnerable. I pushed him away from me as he was too close and then I realised the soldiers had a dog with them. I was so scared that they might take the dog into my daughters’ bedroom. I handed the soldier a piece of paper with my husband’s number on it and told him to call him.

 

The soldiers and the dog remained inside my home for about two hours. They searched our house without telling me what they were looking for.  Then they spotted a storage area above our bathroom and a soldier grabbed a stool and wanted to stand on it to look inside. Then another soldier grabbed a ladder which he had folded in his backpack. I thought to myself how well prepared they were for any situation. 

 

After turning our home into a mess they went downstairs to the apartment of my husband’s family. As soon as they left I started to cry and could not stop. My 3-year-old daughter woke up and saw me crying. 

 

Then I heard my husband’s voice. Soldiers were shouting at him and ordering him to hand himself over but I think he walked away. My husband managed to leave the house just before the soldiers came; I think he did not want me to see him humiliated or hurt. He wanted to save me the trauma of watching him being arrested. 

 

Later that day my husband came home, fixed the broken door, said goodbye to me and the girls and told me he was going to hand himself over. 

 

My older daughter misses her dad badly; she sleeps in our bed and keeps calling him. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and hear her calling his name and crying. 

 

Life in our refugee camp is hard. I live in fear and anxiety and I worry about my daughters' future in this violent environment. I have no idea how long my husband will be away from us but I know raising two young girls all by myself is not going to be easy; I don’t think I can do it.