Palestinian woman posts about her experience being caught at Tel Aviv airport.

I’ve been to Israel twice and I wanted to share with you my experiences at Tel Aviv airport.<br><br>The first time I was 15 my family and I decided to go to Mecca for Umrah through Tel Aviv airport. I didn’t know we were gonna go through Tel Aviv until the day we left. We spent the whole night at the airport waiting for our connecting flight to go to Jedda. At first our flight got delayed so we had to stay at the airport until they found a hotel for us. So they took us to a hotel and made my dad and uncle stay at the airport to make sure the flight took off and that nothing went wrong and to make sure we got our boarding passes for the next flight. When we arrived at the hotel we got into our rooms and rested until the morning. My cousin and I woke up early and wanted to go to the beach so our moms went with us and we spent the morning there not knowing that we were right next to a war zone. On our way back to the hotel we ran into two Palestinian men who worked at the hotel. They were talking to us and we found out that they were from Jerusalem. They told us that they were surprised we got into the country since we were Palestinian. We told them that we told them we were from Jordan and that our grandfather was from Jerusalem but we got our citizenships from Jordan. They told us to never reveal our true identities and pretend we are Jordanian and have nothing to do with Palestinians from Jerusalem. They even gave us advice on how to get through and how to answer the guards’ questions. On our way back to the airport they kept asking us if we were sure we were ready to go to Israel. They told us to never reveal that we are Palestinians no matter what. We spent the whole day at the airport until 1 am in the morning until our flight finally took off. We didn’t face any problems at all. <br><br>The second time I was 17 we also went to Jedda through Tel Aviv airport. This time I was so nervous. Again we had to wait at the airport for 10 hours until our connecting flight. This time we spent the whole time at the airport waiting until our flight took off. As we walked towards the security and our passports got scanned the guard told my cousin who was 15 at the time to come with him. He took him to a room full of Palestinian men. My uncle who is a disabled man had to go with my cousin. I was so worried and I didn’t know what was going on. They were asking him questions and asking for my uncle’s passport. My cousin came back and told me that they were asking him questions about his grandma, his uncle, and my dad. He also told me that they asked him if he was religious and if prayed five times a day. They kept asking if he knew anyone in Jerusalem. My uncle got desperate and started yelling at them saying, “My son doesn’t know anyone from Jerusalem. He’s 15! Stop it!” But they got my uncle upset and told him to go back to the main waiting area and that they will call them once they are ready. Then after 10 minutes they called him and said to my cousin to go back and get his passport. I went back with him and I saw him arguing with the guard. He told me that he wanted his passport and the guard told him no and that he can’t give it to him. He told the guard my passport is the only thing I have left and no you can’t take it from me. The guard told him to leave and to go back to the waiting area. This made the situation worse. The guard called his supervisor and then at that moment a Palestinian man came out of nowhere and told my uncle to calm down and stop yelling. He told us to relax and he took my cousin’s passport and told him that it’s my passport and you don’t have to take it. He told my uncle to let him handle the situation. And he started talking to the guards in Hebrew and then he took us to a private room right next to the entrance. He told us to calm down and not to let the guards upset us. He told us to stay calm and that everything was going to be fine but then he started asking my cousin questions. He started asking him where are you from? What is your real identity? He told us we are Palestinian from Jerusalem and we have nothing to hide. He started laughing and told us he’s Palestinian from Jerusalem too and that he works at the airport. He told us that he helped thousands of Palestinians get through the airport safely and with no problems. He told us that he made sure Palestinians got through safely and that he helped them get through the airport without any guards stopping them. He told us not to worry. He started talking to the guards and told them to let us through. He made sure they didn’t bother us. At that moment he told us that we were finally cleared to go and that we had nothing to worry about. All he told us was never to reveal our true identities and to pretend to be from Jordan. He told us we got lucky and told us that it was safe to go. I learned that day that there’s always good people in this world who want to help you and make it easy for you to get through tough situations.