This summer was an eventful one, many impactful things happened that I will likely remember for the rest of my life. One of those impactful things was how I got a gun pointed at me by IDF soldiers when I was walking with my friends  through my hometown’s streets.

I was walking with two friends in our town in the West Bank of Palestine and we were exploring old abandoned houses in our town. Then my friend’s brother called, he told us that the Israeli military jeeps were in town and to get out of the old town immediately because that’s where they pass by most often. Quickly, my friends and I started to leave and were walking down the street to a place that was safe because many people were there and not much could happen.

That was, until I looked up past the giant rock and saw the two Jeeps coming our direction. I blanked for a few seconds and the next thing I saw was the two jeeps stopping right next to us. A total of four Israeli military soldiers got out and started pointing guns at us.

I took the lead and was the one to step forward. I started talking in English so that there was a lower chance of us getting kidnapped or beaten to death. I told them I was from America and pulled out a picture of my passport on my phone to prove it. My friends did the same. They checked our passports and put their guns down. Then, one of the soldiers comes to do what they usually do against defenseless kids (assault) because I guess something as simple as walking to get milkshakes with your friends is somehow “illegal”. He softly punched me on the chest and I screamed because when you scream, they check for injuries and leave. Which is what they did. Thanks to that experience I learned to always check the group chat that alerts us on where the Israeli Jeeps are roaming so that I can run home to avoid another terrifying situation like that.