Bahjat was a member of the International Children's Jury from 2004 to 2005. He was elected as Chair person of the Jury for the 2005 jury meeting. Bahjat is Palestinian, from Bethlehem and he represents children whose countries are occupied and at war.
This is what Bhajat said when he was on the jury:
"Many Palestinian children don’t know if they’ll arrive at school when they leave their homes in the morning. They must pass road blocks, and all it takes is for a soldier there to be in an evil humour for them to be stopped. Once when I was 12 and my little brother was 8, we passed a road block. An Israeli soldier pointed his machine-gun at us and screamed: 'Go back!' After that, my little brother had problems. It’s the same with my little sister. When she was 8 and I was 13, I had just got a haircut and I was happy about it. Suddenly, they started shooting from the road blocks on either side of our house. The bullets hit our windows and walls. My little sister lay on the bathroom floor, trembling with fear."
"The occupation is blocking our future. Last year, my class got together with an Israeli class in Italy. We played sports on the same team, and wanted so much to learn more about each other."
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