"When I think of tomorrow I feel homeless"

On 25 February 2008, General Gadi Shamni, Israeli military commander of the West Bank, ordered the closure of fourteen schools and orphanages in Hebron. If carried out, the order will literary force some 7,000 Palestinian children onto the street, leaving them in a situation of homelessness, educational disintegration and poverty.

Eight of these orphanages and schools are funded by the Islamic Charitable Society and six belong to the Muslim Youth Society. In the mind of the Israeli military, this is enough to indicate a convincing, direct link to Hamas. In addition, official buildings connected to the same organizations, and which provide medical services and house a children’s library, have also been targeted. Some have already been dismantled.

To date, Israel’s High Court has not yet ruled on whether the military can execute this shutdown legally. Without a final decision from the court, no one knows what will happen over the coming days and the threat hangs continuously, ominously in the air. The expressions of the orphanages’ young inhabitants in response to questions about how they feel reveal a paradoxical and complex composition of hope and helplessness.

Despite the Israeli military’s justifications, the plan would appear to be yet another arbitrary demonstration of the power the army holds over the lives of the Palestinian people. In this case, this power takes on added dimensions because Hebron lies in Area A and is therefore – in theory - under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. But with an estimated 2,000 Israeli soldiers based in the heart of the city, there is little the Palestinian Authority can do to challenge the orders.

With the support of the Hebron community and some international originations based in the city, such as the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), the children are determined not to give up. For many of the orphans, these institutions have become their home and their staff has become their family. Overcome by grief and despair at the sight of her tearful friends around her, seventeen year-old Jihad says "we can’t turn our backs on it."

Sadness, hope as the last, but unconvincing option, worries about their future financial situation or their educational progress, and fear storms the minds of these children. Now, they continue to attend classes from eight o’clock in the morning till two in the afternoon. They have lunch at the orphanage, and dedicate the afternoon to their studies and to free time activities.

But the threat of being expelled at any moment deepened after April 4, when the deadline for the closure order passed. Members of the CPT now stay overnight at the orphanages to try and prevent the closure if and when the soldiers come.

Against everybody’s expectations, nothing has happened yet. “The nights are betters now, we can sleep again.” says Safaa, a seventeen year-old orphan, with a slight smile. Indeed the girls are smiling, laughing and giggling, and lively, but their eyes darken when they are confronted with the difficulty of their situation. They could be lucky this time and escape the expulsion, but they remain in a maddening limbo of uncertainty, not knowing what will happen.

The orphanage for boys, which houses some 130 children and youth, has also been affected by the closure order. Fifteen-year-old Muhammad describes how he heard about it for the first time from his teacher. When asked where he will go if the order is executed, he has no answer. "If there were such a place, I wouldn’t be here," he says eventually. "When I think of tomorrow I feel homeless..."