Az Zawiya village - Land grabbing
“Talla (look)! Can you see the ruins over there?” Amir asks. “That’s where I was born and grew up. All that land belongs to my family”.
The wind blows hard almost to return the pride of those words.
From the hill Amir looks that land, now so far from him. A military jeep patrols the road on the other side of the fence. Voices are heard in Hebrew, and the sound of machinery which are working in the quarry. Amir lets slip his usual contagious laugh. “When I was a child, I always got closer to the quarry to play”.
The silence returns. Amir can’t go back on that land.
Now the grey buildings of Israeli cities are there, and not so far Tel Aviv.
For someone, a wall to protect from a world considered hostile but that people refuse to see and to know; for others, a cage which is becoming narrower and oppressive.
Now the wall separates and divides a land that before stretched free until the sea.
The wall imposes itself vehemently, following a line deliberately not regular. Delineates spaces, not only physical, but mental.
An “outside” and an “inside” where it’s easy to get lost.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
