The area of Beita in the south of Nablus is scenic with gentle hills sprawling across the landscape. It's an ideal place for hiking, enjoying the views, or spending time with family on a picnic. Yet, every Friday, its serenity is disturbed by the firing of automatic weapons, flash-bang grenades, tear gas, screams, panic, blood, and dead bodies.

By now, it has become a ritual: Palestinians gather to protest the illegal settlement built atop one of the hills, an embodiment of a broader occupation. After Friday prayers, they march together, some tragically, to their deaths.

This is what Aysenur Eygi, the Turkish-American activist, would have done - martyred while marching in solidarity with the oppressed. Her actions, like those of countless others, sent a clear message to the occupiers on the summit: no matter how much power they wield, their occupation will always be met with resistance.

Unfortunately, Aysenur isn't the first innocent person murdered by the IOF at Beita. The 26-year-old is part of a long line of men and women, young and old, who have been slaughtered by an occupation that grows even more deranged with every passing year.

Beita has been a battleground for years. Its atrocities and blood-soaked land are ignored by all around it the same way Palestine had been for decades, until Aysenur's sacrifice cast a small light on the suffering before it was drowned out by IOF lies and cover-ups, faux outrage, and manipulation, before giving the world something else to mourn, as more butchery ensued.

The attendees of Beita make for a unique demographic mix. Every day, Palestinians are joined by local leaders, politicians, international volunteers, NGOs, and even Israelis who oppose the occupation.

Aysenur was there with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization known for its nonviolent resistance against the occupation throughout Palestine, through a myriad of methods including legal action, protests, and protecting olive farmers and their harvests from settler attacks.

It's also the group Rachel Corrie belonged to when she was killed by way of a bulldozer. Despised by the Israelis, the ISM has been a target of the IOF for decades. Its members are harassed, attacked, imprisoned, murdered, and always under surveillance but forever defiant.

That was apparent when I first met them in a flat in Ramallah, joining them as a volunteer. Three of its members explained how they operated and what they wanted from me and the friend who introduced me to them. It was also apparent by a little print-out sign stuck up on one of the corridor walls you could walk by a countless number of times without noticing: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

It was April 2022 when I went to Beita with the ISM. On a searing hot day during the holy month of Ramadan, my friend and I accompanied the day-to-day head of ISM's operations. I saw a diminutive Palestinian girl from the North of the West Bank, who spoke little but with purpose. Her quiet defiance had been channeled into supporting the struggle of her people.

Being one of the first to arrive at 9 am, we entered the gates of a compound we explored in wait for the others. She pointed at the blue and white flag of the occupiers, blowing in the wind at the top of a hill in the distance, "That's where we're going."

We came across a fence with grenades, smoke bombs, and tear gas canisters all attached to it. "It's like when the Europeans put locks on fences to symbolize their love," a Palestinian man told us with a sarcastic smile, referencing the famous Pont des Arts bridge in Paris; "the love between us and them is the 'till death do us part type.'"

We waited as people poured in. An old man wearing traditional Palestinian Bedouin clothes, with a great mustache whitened with age entertained us with his charisma, humor, and stories. He told us about all the people he's lost in his life to the occupation and recounted his feats of bravery in the face of occupiers. Even at this age, he said, “They still can’t catch me” – he’s too fast and too clever for them.

We waited as young men sat around on their phones under the shade of the trees and fathers tried controlling their children who ran around oblivious to the heat bearing down on us and the danger we would soon be faced with.

They all knew one another and the ISM girl introduced us to a lot of them and told us about the others. "That man there," she pointed discreetly, "lost his son here last week." She responded to our silence with, "There are many here who have lost loved ones here, and they are the ones who turn up every week without fail."

I remember observing him, standing there so calmly conversing with his friends as if they were having a catch-up, except he was standing at the scene of the crime where he lost his son just seven days prior. I remember the respect I felt for his commitment, his acceptance, and his faith.

My thoughts were interrupted by a group of non-Arabs entering the compound. Again, without needing to ask, she explained, "They are Israelis. They come here every week on the march with us." Having never seen Israelis openly support Palestinians before during my two months there, we asked a lot of questions.

"We always welcome them, and we respect them. They are people like us, and life for them is not easy either. To go against the occupation as an Israeli means your life is almost as difficult as ours. They are outcasts in their community, subject to abuse and harassment. They are seen as traitors. It's difficult for them because they are left in the middle. Of course, whenever we see them, we greet them and exchange small talk, but the nature of this conflict means you have to be wary of everyone, you can never share too much because you don't know the reality of who is who."

Our conversation was cut short by the call to prayer. As we gathered around for the Khotba (sermon), I sat and listened to an impassioned man remind the congregation of their duties in Islam; to protect their rights and those of their families and not just ignore what is happening. "This is Allah's will. This is how he has chosen to test us".

Concluding our prayers, we started the march walking down the hill in no particular order before naturally forming a group as we ascended the occupied area. Conversations quickly got heated leading to raised voices as parts of the group suggested we had walked far enough, while the others insisted we continued.

Stopping to have their discussion, myself, my friend, the ISM girl, and three others naturally overtook them and ended up at the front. It was at this point I remember a distinct feeling of cold vulnerability, like we were being watched and spoken about, with no protection and no cover. "We're really exposed out here," my friend said to me, reading my mind and confirming I wasn't the only one sensing danger in the air.

The terrains of those hills are such that the incline is punctured by drops of 5 feet, with the path snaking around it and the next level being head height. Thirty meters later, I instinctively turned my head left to find, on the level above, a soldier wearing a balaclava peering down the barrel of a rifle pointed directly at me. I remember his eyes through the cut out of the mask, one closed with the other squinted with concentration to ensure he hit his target.

I remember his gloved finger pulling the trigger, releasing a puff of smoke and a bang, with an object coming flying toward me leaving a trail of smoke following its trajectory. It was a tear gas canister, which had narrowly missed its target.

Hollywood has distorted our sense of reality. You hear about these incidents, watch them on social media, and think if I were in that situation, I would do this or that, but when you're faced with the reality of an armed, indoctrinated soldier with you in the sights of his scope, you freeze, realize how desperately you want to live and run.

The group broke up and fled, knowing what was most likely to come next. I struggled to open my eyes to see which direction I was running in and where the drop to the next level was. The burning feeling from the tear gas was forcing my eyes shut. It had blocked my airways: my throat tightening as though caught in a vice-like grip, suffocating me. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. All I could think was that, at any moment, a bullet with my name on it would bring it all to an end.

Having managed to jump down a level, I felt my right foot getting trapped. I tried twice to pull it free by force, before realizing I'd have to turn and look to get it out. I remember being certain that I would turn around and find the soldiers taking aim and finishing what they started, and upon turning, I found three of them, aiming and shooting, just not at me. A colleague of ours was shot and rushed to the hospital, and he thankfully survived, though with life-changing injuries.

Dislodging my foot from a stray coil wire, I continued my escape and found my friend in the process. Stopping at the bottom of the hill to catch our breaths, we thought we were at a far enough distance to be safe, though the details of Aysenur's murder show how naïve that was of us to think so.

Searching for the ISM girl who ran in a different direction, we noticed on the right side of the hill, a small group of masked men firing slingshots in the direction of the settlers and the soldiers. It didn't take long before tear gas canisters were launched in their direction, followed by bullets. Anxiously watching them making their escape down the hill, we breathed a sigh of relief when they came down and joined us.

With my eyes and throat burning, anger took over. Anger that I had to run for my life. Anger that I had been led up a hill like lambs to the slaughter, anger that they waited and watched and chose who got live ammunition, who got tear gas, who got rubber bullets, all at their behest.

Eventually, once the chaos ended and we found the ISM girl, we sat down with the group of young men and spoke for a few hours. Ranging in age between 18 and 25, they were curious about who we were and why we were there but hesitant to share any of their own details. This was demonstrated by one member of the group who refused to take off his mask for the entire duration.

After some time, they started opening up, revealing how each one of them had been shot multiple times, with rubber bullets and live ammunition. "I remember being unable to move and bleeding a lot thinking I was going to die, but Alhumdullilah I'm still here," one revealed. "So what makes you come back?"

He chucked, "You know they will all tell you the same thing," pointing at his friends. "When you get shot, your resolve, your commitment becomes even stronger. As soon as they told me I would be okay at the hospital, all I could think about what was coming back."

"Were you not afraid though?" my friend asked. "Afraid? They are the ones who are afraid. Look at them. They need bulletproof vests and helmets and radios and American guns. We are here facing them, with t-shirts and slippers and a slingshot, imagine if we could have what they have!"

I questioned them on what their families felt about what they chose to do. "Of course our families are worried, afraid that we will be shaheed (martyred), but this is our duty, otherwise the occupiers will take all of our lands and kill us all, but we cannot make it easy for them. We know that deep down our parents are proud of what we do. However, big or small our impact may be – it matters because not everyone chooses to make one."

"What about your own dreams and aspirations? Do you want careers and families?" I questioned. "For sure we do, this one here wants to be a doctor," he pointed to his friend before the group broke out into laughter, while the butt of the joke tried defending himself, saying, "But how can we do it? What type of life is this? A life of limitations, fear, humiliation, with no peace, no security. It’s better to die fighting, then to live a such life."

With a journey back to Ramallah in time for Maghrib still to complete, we said our goodbyes to the group. Leaving the compound, the finger of the ISM girl's hand raised and pointed at lines of portraits of faces with names and dates, "You see those posters, those are all the people who have been killed here." Rows of faces stared back, all murdered, with Eygi's face set to be the latest to join them.

I turned to look at the hills of Beita once more. Serenity had returned. A peaceful bliss betraying what it actually is. A representation of reality. A location where resilience and courage are openly faced with injustice and oppression, and nobody cares. Neither international laws nor humanity applies in Beita or the rest of Palestine. The price of disobedience is death, and Beita is the graveyard.