Faces from Palestine

A NEW EXHIBITION of photographs from Afghanistan, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, and currently showing in London, shows no faces at all, just the physical traces, tracks and detritus of the recent war there. The critics are puzzling over this and one of them, in a television discussion programme, suggested that the Western imagination had now seen in its lifetime so many pictures of faces ravaged by war, want and woe that it had become desensitised by them.

This is a most grievous and despairing perspective which I can by no means share. I have seen the raw nightmare of the human face throughout my own lifetime, from photographs of stupified survivors of the Blitz on London, the piteous owl-eyed creatures found in Belsen, mothers at Aberfan with their children under a black mountain, a naked child running, burning, in Vietnam, African faces from a dozen countries year after year, beautiful, dead-eyed, fly-crowded, dying. I might sometimes flinch from the horror and the grief of it all but the human face is still to me the supreme and irreplaceable register of human expression and feeling, of the souls of men, women and little children.

Portfolio of Palestine

It has therefore been a privilege for me to gaze, as it were, over Carlos's shoulder, at these pictures of present-day life in Palestine. Of course we could have presented a portfolio of pictures from Israel, of devastated streets, buses, communities, lives, faces, funerals, the other side of the conflict finding focus here. If we were able to enter judgement on the Middle East conflict, Carlos or I, that would mean that we understood the events and the individuals mired in it well enough to be able to propose a solution. If either of us were or ever had been in that lofty position, believe us, we would not have kept our knowledge a secret. But Carlos's journey, made in hope and to serve peace, was in Palestine.

The continuation of the al-Aqsa Intifada on the part of the Palestinians and the countering aggression of the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza have created a humanitarian disaster in Palestine. The situation of the ordinary people is deteriorating, with border closures and curfews restricting population movement and hindering delivery of health care services. There is terrible damage to the infrastructure, with threats to clean water supplies and grim problems over sewage treatment and disposal.

Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote in The Guardian two years ago that he could not believe that young Palestinians, their faces twisted with hate, had any real will for peace. They didn't want a smaller Israel, they wanted no Israel at all. Yet he went on that violence and war had filled too many cemeteries on both sides and this could not and must not go on. Most Israelis feel as I do. Palestinians must have the right to live freely and with dignity, without fear and without shame.

Every photos reveals a story

Majdi Shaheen, 22, was a casual labourer from a family of 13. Israelis entered their Nablus home, demolishing and destroying furniture and shooting randomly. Majdi and his mother were shot, she in her breast but he in the shoulder. The bullet lodged in his spine and he is now paralysed for life.

Muhammad Elian is a 17-year-old student from Nablus. He was with other children in the street near his home last August. They threw stones at a passing Israeli tank. The tank in the city is one of the most dreadful and anti-human images of our time. Memories from Prague and Beijing arise readily in our minds. A soldier began shooting from this tank and a rubber bullet struck Muhammad above the eye. He was in coma for two weeks. The bullet cannot be removed because of its dangerous position. Running to see him, his mother fell and broke her leg. Misfortunes do not come singly.

Muhammad Shaheen, who is 12 and from Rafah, South Gaza was injured last August during a demonstration near the Edien gate. A bullet went right through him, back to chest. He fell, suffering a head trauma, leading to double vision and quadriplegia. He is getting better and can walk but has a balance problem.

Alá Wishahi, 16, from Jenin, was shot trying trying to save the life of a friend who had also been shot. The IDF (Israeli Defence Force) soldiers were shooting in all directions as their loud-hailers announced a curfew. Alá was targeted deliberately when the Israelis saw him running to his friend. The bullet struck his back, leaving the lower half of his body paralysed. Carlos took this picture in the Abu Raya Hospital in Ramallah. It is easy to believe this account if we remember what we see with our own eyes on the television newsreel coverage of the street skirmishes.

A UNICEF report from Jerusalem last October noted that while most Palestinian children had by then either returned to school or were receiving alternative tuition, more than 226,000 children and over 9,300 teachers were unable to reach their regular classrooms. Curfews and other factors had closed 580 schools. Carlos' photograph on the left shows girls defying the curfew to attend school.

In stark contrast to patterns in today's Europe, children represent the largest age group in Palestinian society. Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) runs many projects to help them. It has a five-year Child Health Development Project in parnership with the British Ministry of Health and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, London. The dramatic photo of a mother and her child published here.... was taken by Carlos in the Community Health Centre in Ard El Insan, Gaza. The sadness on the woman's face is palpable: her young baby is suffering from malnutrition.

Our front cover picture is another from Ard El Insan in Gaza. The mother is Siham Al Dieri from the Sabra area of Gaza and she is cradling her 2-month-old daughter Nour Al Dieri. The child was underweight at birth and in need of nutritional supplements from the Centre.

Amina Khali Bashin, 17, is from a family of nine, two brothers of which are now living in Germany. The family has the misfortune to live close to the guard point of an adjacent Israeli settlement. Their village is El Mazraa Der El-Balah. Their house is constantly being attacked by settlers and occupied by Israeli soldiers. Their orchards and greenhouses have been destroyed. The second and third floors of the house are occupied by the Israelis and marked out of bounds to the family. For the last two years the family have been sleeping in one room in the centre of the house. Amina's father, a headteacher, was shot in the back of the head when going to his own room. The ambulance refused to attend and the family had to get him to hospital themselves.

Despite all this harassment and contemptuous treatment the Bashirs are determined to stay and, like Elie Wiesel the Nobel Laureate, they want and believe in peace. How sincerely do we, safe and far away, believe in, pray for and contribute to peace in this apparently hopeless struggle in the Holy Land?

At about midnight on 30 September 2002, Salah Buhar, 53, was at work as a night guard when planes and tanks began an attack. He tried to escape but the Israeli soldiers noticed him and gave chase. He hid behind a bus but they attacked it with a rocket. As he ran to hide behind a car another rocket killed him. He was holding his Koran, covered in blood, when they recoverd his body. Our pictures show scenes from his funeral. Following custom his face is uncovered as he lies in his coffin. He was father to nine children, the eldest 22, the youngest 3. The second picture shows a daughter holding a picture of her daddy at the funeral. The little boy pictured being carried has Downs Syndrome whereas another one of the sons has kidney failure. Salah Buhar was the family's only source of income.

I cannot end without some image of hope. So the last picture I have chosen is a happy one. Four young boys, all smiling, and a bicycle. Let's keep on top of fashion, says the logo on one boy's Collection Special T-shirt. Let us wish them long, happy and peaceful lives. It lies partly in our hands. Our thoughts, our words, our attitudes, our practical help all count and make a difference.