Issa Suf, a Palestinian peace activist, writes to the two soldiers because of whom he will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
“He has given long, hard thought to the two soldiers who stood above him, preventing his family from coming to his aid, as he lay on a gravel path, a bullet lodged in his spine, feeling the blood spreading in his gut and paralysis seizing him. “Get up! Get up!” one of the soldiers screamed at him, but he couldn’t. A few minutes earlier one of them had shot him, maybe the blond with the stubble, maybe the black-haired one, he had no idea.”
“One bullet fired from short range, 20 or 30 meters, from the direction of the two soldiers who appeared opposite him, walking down the street. The bullet slashed into his shoulder and entered his spinal cord, where it shattered and caused internal havoc. He was standing next to his house and calling to the children of the village to go home, so they wouldn’t be hurt by the tear gas the soldiers were firing. One bullet that changed his life in an instant: Issa Suf will be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. That was on May 15, 2001, Naqba (catastrophe) day, corresponding to the date of Israel’s establishment in 1948.”
