CanadaPolitics

“We can’t imagine what the people of Palestine are going through,” said Liberal MP Shafqat Ali. “What we witnessed with our own eyes, it’s basically constant humiliation, and constant mental torture.”

She said her Palestinian constituents warned her of what life is like in the West Bank, but she was still shocked. “I’ve never seen or imagined that level of dehumanization,” she said.

The group met Palestinian grade-school children who lamented being taught about human rights, which the students argue they don’t have. “That’s how the international community has failed, in that idea of an international, rules-based order, when that’s the base of it, when a 12-year-old kid can tell you,” Mathyssen said.

“I’ve seen conflict areas; I’ve seen areas where there’s some real poverty. And I would say that what we saw in Jenin was probably one of the worst things I’d ever seen,” she said.

“There’s such despair because it was relentless — the attacks, the loss of life, the impacts on the community. Every building had bullet holes in them, every family’s living conditions were damaged.”