{"id":610,"date":"2016-04-15T18:10:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T17:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/?page_id=610"},"modified":"2016-04-15T18:10:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T17:10:57","slug":"arwa-abu-haikal-of-hebron","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/?page_id=610","title":{"rendered":"Arwa Abu Haikal of Hebron"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Arwa Abu Haikal of Hebron<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I GREW up in Tel Rumeida in Hebron, where we always had to fight settlers\u2019 plans for occupying our land. Since September we faced the most difficult time of my life; we faced lots of killing in our area.<\/p>\n<p>On September 22 a young girl was shot at the checkpoint between Tel Rumeida and Shehada Street. Every day after this, on my way to work, I was walking over the bloodstain of that girl. Every time I passed I felt there was something suffocating me.<\/p>\n<p>September 30 was a gloomy day \u2014 it looked like it would rain. I looked at the sky, saying a prayer beginning \u201cI wish some heavy rain to wash the bloodstain.\u201d That was the start of this poem:<\/p>\n<p>Blood stain<br \/>\nI wish some heavy rain<br \/>\nto wash the blood stain;<br \/>\nto rest and calm my fears<br \/>\nand Tel Rumeida\u2019s pain.<br \/>\nMy dream is peace and justice<br \/>\nand ending that chain<br \/>\nof murdering, killing, shooting.<br \/>\nCan you tell me what we gain?<br \/>\nHatred breeds more hatred.<br \/>\nLove can end the pain.<br \/>\nI dream of sunshine coming to meet the rain;<br \/>\nto build that love around despite what has remained.<br \/>\nDo you know what has remained ?<br \/>\nBarriers, borders, walls;<br \/>\nkilling, shooting and drones.<br \/>\nAnd that dream again<br \/>\noccupying my brain;<br \/>\nthe dream of heavy rain<br \/>\nwashing the blood stain;<br \/>\nending occupation<br \/>\nand feeling life again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arwa Abu Haikal of Hebron I GREW up in Tel Rumeida in Hebron, where we always had to fight settlers\u2019 plans for occupying our land. Since September we faced the most difficult time of my life; we faced lots of killing in our area. On September 22 a young girl was shot at the checkpoint &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/?page_id=610\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Arwa Abu Haikal of Hebron<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}