We could see them now, settler children throwing rocks. Behind them, their fathers pointed rifles at us while soldiers guarded their flanks. Amna was reciting the Quran, still trembling, when her mother called to her. I watched mother and daughter flee holding hands. Clouds of tear gas crept menacingly through the trees, forcing people into the valley.

Can something expected still be a surprise? We knew that Israelis were especially menacing during the harvest season. They know olives have been the mainstay and centerpiece of our social, economic, and cultural presence for millennia, and it infuriated them—still does—to watch the unbroken continuity of our indigenous traditions. So they came with their big guns, and the colonial logic of interlopers who cannot abide our presence or our joy.

Two shots rang out.

“Hurry!” Jumana urged.

I ran behind her up the hill. The settlers appeared to be retreating, firing from farther and farther away. Hajjeh Um Mhammad had collapsed to the ground amid smashed plates of food and someone’s blood. Bilal was screaming to help his mother as a horde of soldiers bound and dragged him away. Faisal too was arrested. Wadee carried a boy who had been shot in the abdomen toward an approaching ambulance. The boy would die in the hospital that night.

Hajjeh Um Mhammad was having trouble breathing, but she was conscious. As soldiers hauled Bilal away, I shouted as loudly as I could that his mother was okay, we would get her to the hospital, and prayed he heard me.

The streets shook with mourning the next day as large crowds carried the body of the slain boy to his burial. He was eight years old. But there was still work in the fields, and we all went back to finish as much as we could. What had been delightful yesterday was unbearable now. Clouds dimmed the sky. No one spoke. There were no radios or songs. The sound of plopping olives was bitter and mournful. Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s kin took turns caring for her. She had recovered physically, but heavy grief anchored her to her bed.

We left in the afternoon to pay our respects to the boy’s family. Some internationals came to help pick olives and offer their bodies and cameras as shields against another attack. They came again on the third day, but could do nothing but film when masked settlers arrived, once more protected by soldiers. I was engrossed in a robotic rhythm of picking, my mind emptied of thought. The ability to become vacuous was a skill I had honed over years. The slow stream of sweat trickling down the groove of my back brought me in and out of awareness. I was there, but not there.