the fighters held out for almost two weeks before the camp was occupied by the time the israeli army withdrew and the ground over sixty palestinian men women and children had been killed thousands of men rounded up and detained and over four hundred homes demolish in the aftermath of the massacre i worked with a group of volunteers from the camp digging bodies out of the rubble of demolished homes we ended up taking with shovels and sometimes their bare hands unearthing the charred remains of bodies it was devastating for everyone who witnessed it and the memories of it continue to haunt me  my name is cleaver i lived in geneva fiji camp for the year of two thousand and two and this year i was to witness not only the brutality of the occupation but also the resilience hospitality and humanity of the people who refused to be broken my own engagement with the struggle has deepened from an ideological one to a far more painful one that of love and respect for a refugee camp that became home face of the west one of humanity and solidarity when we come to occupied palestine to independently witness the realities of the occupation and to challenge the silence surrounding them in the aftermath of the massacre people tried to reclaim some stability in their lives but there was no  know i grappled with how to respond i decided to use my physical presence to try to minimize some of the brutality the ability of activists to do this is possible only because of inherent racism by blood as foreigners  palestinians and we are less likely to get shot engaging in interventionist actions it was an uncomfortable dynamic to work with but i used it to intervene and negotiate with israeli soldiers and to be present  when viewed from a comfortable context in the west footage of activists standing in front of tanks can seem crazy and possibly suicidal but it's a natural reaction to an unnatural situation when you're surrounded by  one has a responsibility you know to to stand by you know not necessarily to stand up not to be removed from the people you know that you're trying to protect or trying to minimize the brutality that they suffer on a day to day basis in any way that you can but to stand with them to co exist to live to you know if you watch any situation like that tank moving up the hill you see immediately those children know how to duck they know how to get down and that is what is keeping them alive you know the self preservation instinct even when the tanks  of when they'll come back into town it's the uncertainty of you know should you let your child go to school because you don't know if he or she will come back home again in life it's the uncertainty every time you say goodbye to somebody in the morning of whether they're going to come back to you walking or come back to you and i'm dillon to come back in school children are under continual siege over the past four years over two thousand eight hundred schoolchildren of the moon did on their journeys to and from school five children have been killed in their classrooms by israeli gunfire a local journalist and father of three he has been seriously wounded twice while trying to document the daily human rights violations committed by israeli soldiers challenges the occupation with his came involved direct action and getting in between and when israeli soldiers entered into jenin a far greater part and i regard this as much a direct action you know with the sitting in the listening and trying to assume some of the pain and the burden of people who are living around me or there is no genuine expense for childhood engine in the occupation brings with it a culture of imposed death children witness the brutality of israeli soldiers on a daily basis they see their parents humiliated and their homes desecrated they know that there are no sacred faces that there is no refuge for their  they are forced to become fearless in order to survive the majority of palestinian children have been traumatized by what they have lived through is when the often chaotic violence filled days fold and tonight that the true poetry of the company merges and the magnitude of the grief here can be felt it was often john the night as i sat with families that they spoke of their loss and loneliness and fear