I'm very proud of my family; we have a history of resistance - my father and my uncles and my grandmother, they told us about how they participated in the First and Second Intifadas. When I was growing up I heard stories about what my father did, what my uncles did, how many of them were imprisoned, what my grandmother did. I've always felt that I want to participate - Palestine is my homeland - but I didn't know how to. When the Wall came, I decided this is my opportunity, and my role. I was very excited; here was my opportunity to serve my people.
During every march I was afraid but I would say to myself, in the next one I will not be afraid. But when I saw the army, I was afraid. But the feeling of fear did not make me forget that we have a duty to fulfill. When you first see the bulldozers and the soldiers, you spontaneously go to work. I would grab the flag or the megaphone before every march and just go down. The fear is always present because everything is possible. The soldiers have no compassion, no mercy, they might hit you, they might shoot you, or they might imprison you. But there is a duty that one has to perform. At one of the demonstrations there was a whole wall of about 200 soldiers surrounding the bulldozers that none of us was able to penetrate. I found a very narrow opening I thought I could get in. Suddenly I found myself behind the line of soldiers, facing the bulldozer. I was extremely frightened, and I didn't know what to do. I got an idea: jump in front of the bulldozer. The bulldozer was digging a hole as a result of uprooting trees but it wasn't very deep. I jumped in.
When I saw the bulldozer, I realized that I was alone and I was terrified. I thought, "What can you do against a bulldozer?" Any movement from the bulldozer and I could get hurt. I was terrified the driver would react rashly. Of course, the history of bulldozers was not comforting - Rachel Corrie was killed by one in Gaza. The man in the bulldozer - I looked in his eyes and I think he didn't know what to do. He looked at the soldiers and he decided to stop because he couldn't do anything.
Seven soldiers started chasing me and that left a hole in the line they had formed and allowed people from the village to follow. At first I was afraid and panicked and then Ted, an American, jumped into the hole. So I felt better because we're two, not one; and because he's American they [the soldiers] might take that into consideration. Then a friend of mine from school joined us, and a few moments later everybody was there. I didn't know what I had done. My uncle later told me, "you did a fantastic thing, you stopped the bulldozer."