Israel has a right to defend itself - some old hypocrite in the white house. 

It's 2 o'clock in the morning. The house smells of detergent. My muscles are sore and tired, but my smile stays in place. Unseen, under my bed, my first pay-check waves at me. All over, surrounding me, my first house is like a warm embrace. I roll into my blanket and chuckle into my pillow, as the rocking boat of sleep takes me to my land of dreams. 

The first knock sounds. 

My eyes struggle to open. 

The knock sounds louder. 

I kick at the covers tangled around my legs. 

The door blasts inwards. 

It happens in mere fractions of a second. Loud footsteps on the stairs, then figures are surrounding me. 

Are they humans, or are they machines? It's hard to tell under all the masks and goggles. I spring up, my heart beating a drum in my chest. So hard it's about to burst. 

They are men here. I can tell from their voices. Nevertheless, the person that grabs me by the hair and drags me out of my bed is a woman. She's barking shrill orders. Orders that for some reason, can't penetrate the ringing barrier around my ears. 

I scream as she drags me out from under the covers. Behind their goggles, the men's eyes seem animalistic. Like they want to devour me. One runs those animals of eyes from my bare head that only my family can see. To my bare forearms that only my family can see. To my bare legs that only my family can see. 

The inside of my skin explodes in a nest of many wriggling, shuddering things that make me want to scrub my body raw. 

'I want my headscarf,' I finally manage to scream. My throat is raw and husky, 'please, please, let me wear at least a headscarf.' 

How I can manage even that, I don't know. Mother taught me how to look down when passing a soldier. She taught me how to never cause an ounce of trouble. 

She never taught me how to beware in my own home. 

As soon as I scream, a lump grows in my throat. It expands...expands...

I've done it now. 

'Never raise your voice to a soldier,' Mother says, 'they hate loud noises.'

I flinch, covering my head with my arms. When I look up, the room is deserted. Only the female soldier stands by the door. 

'Get your damn headscarf,' she hisses, 'and go downstairs, you...' I flinch again and cower. Maybe if I sink low enough, whatever insult she's about to spit won't hit me. 

She spits it. It hits me. 

I wear an undershirt and baggy trousers under my dress, and then wrap the biggest headscarf I can find around myself. My legs have turned into trembling stalks that shake with every modicum of weight I put into them. 

I go down to the sitting room and sit among them. They loom like shadows of death around me. One points the barrel of his gun at my temple. For some reason, that barrel looks more benign than the man behind it. 

The room isn't as full of soldiers as I thought it would be. I'm about to be relieved, but then I hear it. Smashing and breaking and tearing and shouting. 

Don't scream, Mother whispers in my ear, soldiers hate screaming. 

But it's a close thing. What have they broken? The vase that Ahmed gave me, and told me to keep for our wedding so that he could fill it with flowers? The chest I bought after that harrowing accounting job left navy circles under my eyes? The frame with Mother's picture inside it? 

Loud footsteps sound again. I pull my headscarf tight around my shoulders. The soldiers upstairs breeze past me without a second look. The ones surrounding me leave after them. 

As soon as the door shuts, I rush to my room. I shove open the door and sink to the floor. 

What will they break? I had thought and imagined the worst. 

What will we break? they had thought and done their worst. 

They say that imagination is more painful than reality, but those that say that have never experienced this reality. 

What will you break, I had asked them, though my voice never passed my lips. 

Everything, they answered, though their voices never reached my ears. 

On the floor is a plaque my sister made for me. 'Mabruk,' she had said, as she put it in my hand, 'look at you, starting your strong, independent life.' 

Sister, if only you knew, I cry deep in my heart, strong and independent are not words that we are blessed to have. 

I pick up the plaque. It sags to either side, a frail strand of wood holding its two pieces together. 

Home is where the heart is, it says as if smiling. 

'Home is where the heart breaks,' I say, and break it for good. 

AN

This story was inspired by 'A Life Exposed' A report by Breaking the silence that details the forced house searches experienced by Palestinians from both a Palestinian and an IDF soldier point of view. 

Breaking the Silence is an organisation created by former IDF soldiers to create awareness of the horrors that they force Palestinian citizens to face. Read it and ask yourself what 'defending ourselves' means to the Israeli government.