Umm Kassem is the last person I record with in the Beit Laham district, and though her story is harrowing, I'm glad I didn't miss her. The photograph I took of her shows a small, sad, bowed woman sitting in front of the portrait of her son Khaled, who is imprisoned for life. One of her daughters and three of her sons have been in prison; a daughter-in-law has been killed. Sitting beside her is one of two sons left living close by. Two others are working abroad.

In punishment for the political activism of her children the Israelis blew up their house, and they were forced to live in a tent for a year before managing to rebuild. From that time Umm Kassem has suffered pain in her back, knees and arms. In fact most older women I know living in camps suffer from rheumatic pain, not surprisingly given the lack of insulation and poor building materials used in camp housing. But Umm Kassem's face and figure form an unforgettable physical expression of the suffering of Palestinian mothers.

This family is originally from Al-Qabbu in central Palestine.

Umm Kassem speaks:
"Before we left the village, before we 'emigrated', we were happy and enjoying life, relaxed in our village. Our life was good in the village. No one bothered us.

This was in the time of the British. We lived from our property, we lived by selling the products of our land, from the earth. When we left we stayed under trees. When we stayed under trees, rain fell on us. We went and rented a house - we rented more than one house. After we rented houses, we came to this camp. [How many times did you move?] Thirty times. [How old were you?] When we left the village I was eight years old. Eight.

We came here to the camp. We weren't comfortable. They destroyed our house, the Israeli authorities, in 1982. They destroyed it for us and they imprisoned my daughter and son. First they imprisoned my son, two months later my daughter. They sentenced him to three years. And my daughter three years. Then another son, they sentenced him to four years. And after he finished the four years, (they added) four months, And after the four months, eighteen months - no, fourteen months. He'd come out and they'd take him in again. They'd come and take him. And another son, five years, no, nine months, the third. Three sons and a daughter they imprisoned. [All at the same time?]. No there was a year or two years (between them). Then there was one -- here's his picture -- this one was sentenced to life. He's now in prison. He was sentenced to three life times, ninety nine years..."