Ibraheem, a 15-year-old boy from Shati Refugee Camp, was killed at Eretz checkpoint while he was throwing stones at the Israeli army.

My legs took me to visit his mother two days after his death. To visit Shati refugee camp is like visiting a cemetery. Everything is so quiet. Men sit at the gates of their houses, children play funeral games, and the walls are full of slogans and pictures of those young people who were killed without mercy.

Close to Ibraheem's "home" (which could not be considered as a home by any means), I saw a green tent with some chairs were men were sitting. We passed through them to meet his mother. A narrow passage leads to a small room full of women relatives and neighbors, and Ibraheem's mother was sitting there sharing her tears with the others.

I sat, and then I knew that the mattress I sat on was the one on which he was laid after being killed and brought from the hospital.

His mother is a 43-year-old, single mother of 10, who devoted her life to her children. Sometimes she was forced to sell her dress to feed them. Ibraheem was shocked when his best friend and neighbor was killed a day before and he wanted revenge. His mother tried that night to calm him but she said that he was angry, restless and did not sleep till morning. When she woke that morning she did not find either Ibraheem or his bird. His bird was the only thing that Ibraheem owned. He sold his bird to get a little money to take him to Eretz checkpoint where he was killed.

Palestinian women, the weaker in a male-dominated society, are compelled to confront two burdens. First, the Israeli territorial and internal colonization of their land. Second, the violent circumstances and the seemingly eternal victimization in an authoritarian and patriarchal society. In Gaza Strip, a relatively small piece of land 18 miles long and 5 miles wide, live over 1,000,000 Palestinians. 75% of the population are refugees, confined to eight-crowded refugee camps. The refugees, a marginalized class in Palestinian society, suffer emotionally, socially and economically due to the loss of their land and properties in 1948, when they were forcibly uprooted from their villages in Palestine by the Zionist military forces. They have been refugees in their own country for the past fifty-one years. Displaced Palestinians live in shacks or stone blockhouses, and have no electricity or running water. Open drains run in the streets and the overall living conditions inside and outside their homes is unhealthy and critically hazardous.

The refugee population have been treated as "surplus" people and conceived as a source of cheap labor. In addition, the deliberate policy of segregation between the refugee population and the native Gazan residents adds to their suffering and alienation within their own community. Political frustration and instability have had negative effects on the social and psychological psyche of the population at large, in which they feel its double impact due to their refugee status. The refugee women feel its triple impact due to their position in this stratified, and patriarchal society where they rank fourth on the hierarchical ladder after the Gazan native male and female and refugee male. The refugee population is undergoing a sharp reduction in all types of social services and economic assistance traditionally provided by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency), resulting in further deterioration of their living conditions. Economic frustration and political humiliation, combined with social-cultural strains, as well as the inability of the PNA (Palestinian National Authority), to deliver any meaningful reforms, have had a serious social and psychological impact.

Added to that is the stagnated peace process which only resulted in the loss of hope, the loss of direction and the loss of dignity. A new Israeli settlement is built every day on confiscated Palestinian lands, restricting their mobility between Palestinian cities and towns. Added to this is the humiliation Palestinians suffer on a daily basis in their crossing of the borders between Palestinian cities. Now Gaza itself is divided into three sectors. The detention and imprisonment of political Palestinian activists by the corrupt PNA is added to the fact that due to the economical deterioration, the unemployment rate exceeds sometimes 68%. Together with an increase in child labor, increases have also been reported in areas of social violence with new forms like suicide, honor killings, and incest.

In such an environment where people are politically frustrated, and economically starving, the social network disintegrates and falls apart. Politics is the major topic of discussion, which is shared by every Palestinian, even a child. Those children, heroes and victims of the unjust situation, believe that they have to sacrifice because their endless suffering and struggle has been nourished with their mothers' milk. Children of the Intifada know that the Israeli soldiers will target them and that the only result they expect is to be killed. Children of the Intifada are different from other children in the world: they do not show their fear but try to express their anger. They know that they are equal with their strong beliefs in justice and that they are not inferior to Israeli soldiers carrying an American gun. The stone for them is a symbol of power because it is part of their land. Every night we used to talk about our Palestine with family elders. About their memories which we still keep in our minds regardless of how many years have passed but within us we are still living, and we have hope. The children of stones know nothing about Palestine because they never studied our own Palestinian history in school. But Palestine is there in every heart and in every eye. Ask any child in the street and he will tell you that he is from Yaffa or Aka, but he will never say he is from a refugee camp.

Palestinian refugee women are also different from other women because of the unique history and the different stages they have passed through which forced them to play different roles. Palestinian women have had to confront displacement due to the massive Jewish refugee settlement movement that led to the creation of the State of Israel. This uprooting affected the economic base that sustained basic cultural values, including gender roles and the division of labor. When her husband was killed or imprisoned she played a new role that she was not used to: the home bread winner. With her limited skills she had to work to help her family survive. She was also a part of the liberation movement and many have been imprisoned or killed.

Al Aqsa Intifada resulted in more that 350 martyrs. 70% of them are children, and over 7000 causalities will end up handicapped.

I have lived in the Gaza Strip through the years of occupation, which has not yet come to an end. During the first Intifada I witnessed the killings of young people while they were playing or on their way to school. And now, Israeli soldiers are targeting the young people because they believe that they are a future threat to their existence. So why not to kill them now before they grow up?? Or my other explanation is that those soldiers who are equipped with guns are so scared that they shoot anything that moves!! We Palestinian women do not send our children to their deaths, but our children are born mature. They have never had the chance to live their childhood as normal children. They will act in response to the ongoing suffering of their country. They also feel proud that they provoke the most sophisticated army with a stone. When a woman loses her child she will sing among her tears that she has offered something to Palestine, and regardless of how precious the price is we, all Palestinian women, will always pay.