Mornings in Jenin

Just before her 12th birthday, Amal is playing with her close friend, Huda, when her father calls them home. Israel has just attacked Egypt, and the refugees are excited at the prospect of returning to Palestine if the Arab armies defeat the Zionists. At the same time, they’re nervous about the imminent disruption. The men are handed the weapons Hasan has stored for such an occasion and listen to his authoritative instructions. They wait as explosions can be heard in the distance, continuing over the next few days.

Dalia tells Amal and Huda to hide in the hole in the kitchen floor, which she covers with a tile. After a long time, Dalia passes them Amal’s three-month-old baby cousin, Aisha, the only survivor of her family. Dalia passes them some food, but then days pass without the girls leaving the hole. In the dark and dirt, all that reaches them are the screams and crying of people around their home and the smells of destruction and death. As they pray to Allah, a bomb explodes near the hole. Aisha is killed and Huda wounded. Emerging from the hole, Amal witnesses how this trauma impacts her mother and the sorrow and desperation of her neighbors, who have lost everything. One such old man, Abu Sameeh, tries to defend himself but is shot by Israeli soldiers who arrive in trucks. Huda and Amal are found and saved by a nun.

The girls are taken to a temporary hospital that has been set up by international relief agencies. Amal sees Huda’s dead father but does not tell her. An Israeli soldier tries to prevent the nun, Sister Marianne, from taking the girls to the hospital, but she defies him, comparing him to the Nazis who tried to stop her from helping the Jews in Germany. The girls are treated, and Amal sees her mother again, her gaze vacant and unable to recognize her. When the nun asks if Amal knows Dalia, she denies that she does. Hasan is nowhere to be seen. The nun hides the girls in a truck and takes them to a church in Bethlehem, where there are many orphaned children.

Amal, Dalia, and Huda return to the almost-destroyed camp in Jenin. Hasan and Yousef are missing, but to Amal’s surprise, Haj Salem is still alive. She reflects at length on the man’s character, history, and what he represents to the village.

The camp is occupied by Israeli soldiers for 40 days. All the camp’s men are taken away, and the remaining women and children remain under curfew. Eventually, some of the men return, including Yousef but not Hasan. The men are naked; their clothes were stolen by the Israelis, and their wounds from being beaten are starkly visible. Some of the women desperately ask after their missing menfolk. A friend of Amal’s family, Jamal, has been shot as an “example.” Amal despairs over Hasan’s absence, while Yousef’s return gives Dalia temporary solace. Amal overhears him telling a friend that he saw an Israeli soldier with the same scar as their brother, Ismael. Yousef is convinced that the soldier is, in fact, Ismael.

Amal reflects on her close friendship with Huda, who came to live with her family three years earlier after the discovery that Huda’s father was sexually abusing her.