This item of news cropped up on the 29th of December 2020 (from VPalestine)
Palestinian journalist Sari Jaradat was shot and injured by 'Israeli' occupation forces while covering their human rights violations south of Hebron, the occupied
West Bank
It touched me strongly, 'cos I met this guy and he impressed me.
We were in the office of the Human Rights Defenders in Al Khalil.
The IOF was in the streets below us.
Jaradat came up for a coffee and to chat to my group.
He talked to us about the targeting of journalists. Like other men I met in Palestine, he bears scars of the kind I have never been exposed to.
I am privileged.
When the time came for him to go back to work, he asked for help in putting on his bullet-proof jacket.
I didn't understand the request - neither the language nor the concept! In fact, a lead-lined jacket is amazingly heavy. But if you've never handled one, you don't realise
that.
Another member of the group caught on to Sari's solicitation faster than me...but it took the two of us to hold it up so that he could shrug it on !
Despite the photos of other injured journalists on the walls of the Human Rights Defender's offices and having, himself, endured a gruesome injury to his foot, and although
some of his friends and family have been shot while recording the occupation, this guy was still determined to bear witness.
For me, that day, the weight of this jacket symbolised the weight of the psychological burden these brave people must bear every day.