Khaled and her son Ahmed: had to burn schoolbooks to light a cooking fire

The first time Khaled and her family were displaced, her son Ahmed asked whether he should take his schoolbooks with him. “I said there was no need because we'd be back in a few days," Khulud says, almost choking. "But he insisted on taking them and his schoolbag. He said: 'I want to go on reading.'" 

Last winter the family was forced to burn the books; it was the only way to start a fire to cook food. "There were no twigs; we used torn clothes, but that wasn't enough," Khulud says. "I remember taking Ahmed's Arabic-language schoolbook and explaining to him that we had no choice. He cried and so did I."

The story of Khaled, 37, and Ahmed, 11, is told in an article published by Haaretz, an Israeli liberal Zionist newspaper, on July 21. 

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