Kind Note

Fabio Bucciarelli
West Bank, 2024
Dimensions: 91 mm x 140 mm

In February 2024, I went to Nur Shams camp in the West Bank to work on The Occupied Territories book. I was working on a story about Taha.

Taha was a 13-year-old guy who had been killed by an Israeli sniper during a raid. The story was about Sarah, his sister, and about occupation. She was 18 years old, watching Taha from the balcony of their apartment. She was record- ing him with her mobile. The IDF sniper shot him – killed him – and Sarah record- ed everything with her phone.

Then, it wasn’t enough. She started screaming. The father heard her scream and ran to the apartment. He asked her, “Is this Taha?” and then immediately started running down the stairs to go to the street to pick up his son. When he reached Taha, the sniper shot again, this time in the back of the father. One month later, the father died in the hospital.

The day after the shooting, the IDF came back to the apartment. They took it over for 48 hours and used it like a new headquarters.

I was working on the story and had left my notebook by accident inside the apartment, Sarah’s family’s apartment. When I came back, Sarah had written a kind note in it.