On March 29, 2002 the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield, the largest military offensive against Palestinian civilians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. When the operation ended on April 21, Israel had destroyed Palestinian's economic and social infrastructure, levelled large swathes of residential areas, killed 220 people, injured hundreds more and arrested thousands. This book documents these events through a collection of witness testimonies by Palestinians and by Israeli and international peace activists. Deeply moving and courageous, these narratives offer a powerful and intimate account of the daily reality for Palestinians who endured Ariel Sharon's military strategy.

"For four days, I haven't been able to write. The headaches, the nausea, the pain in my eyes finally caught up with me ... I couldn't write, just as I couldn't keep any food down, or escape the persistent nightmares whenever I tried to sleep. I've been dreaming of friends getting injured, of blood, and of people seeking shelter from falling bombs. Even when we sleep, there is no escape." Muna HamzehThis remarkable book is a gripping eyewitness account of what it is like to live in Palestine as a refugee in your own homeland. Born in Jerusalem, Muna Hamzeh is a journalist who has been writing about Palestinian affairs since 1985. She first worked as a journalist in Washington DC, but moved back to Palestine in 1989 to cover the first Palestine Intifada P the war of stones. She then settled in Dheisheh, near Bethlehem, one of 59 Palestinian refugee camps that are considered the oldest refugee camps in the world.The first part of the book consists of a diary which Hamzeh wrote between October 4th and December 4th 2000, telling the story of the second Intifada. Facing the tanks and armed guards of one of the best equipped armies in the world, the Palestinians have nothing. The anguish and terror that Muna and her friends face on daily basis is tangible. Who will be the next to die? Whose house will be the next to burn down? The second part of the book provides the background to these current events. It describes what life has been like for Dheisheh's refugees since 1990, and explains why the second Intifada was a natural development of the Oslo peace accord. "Refugees in Our Own Land" is a rare insider's look into the hearts and minds of Palestinian refugees.

A peace book offered by a poet, a photographer and a journalist to unmask and offer alternatives to war.
The dead ask us to wake from our living death and look through the hole in our former reality. The path away from madness starts there. The path that led us here will not lead us away. (Alan Pogue)