Issa Kassi, Palestinian, Orthodox Christian, born in Jerusalem in 1967 and mayor of Ramallah, the capital of Palestine, believes that "another October 7 is possible" due to the devastation that the occupation causes to the inhabitants of the West Bank. "I don't want it to happen - he explains during a meeting at Cidob - but it is possible that it will happen because Israel is suffocating us. The settlers and the Israeli Government have pushed us to the limit, they attack us without stopping, they drive us to despair, and I fear that we will again reach another breaking point. This is what October 7th was, a breaking point. We shouldn't be here, but that's the way things are. We dive without being able to take our heads out of the water, with a tube in our mouths that barely lets us breathe."
Kassi measures his words and speaks slowly as he unravels the causes that, in his view, led to the October 7 massacre by Hamas, the cold-blooded murder of 1,400 Israelis, including women and children, the most atrocious day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Kassi explains that employment is not only getting longer, but getting tougher. The number of settlements grows, about three hundred, and also of settlers, around 700,000, but, above all, violence increases.
Coexistence is more difficult every day. "Now it's not just the bureaucratic hurdles, such as the fact that Israel took twelve years to give us permission to expand the cemetery. This is tough, but we're used to it. Now we get shot for any reason. No one can be safe in the West Bank. Settlers are armed and open fire with any excuse as long as the Israeli army allows it.
At least 184 Palestinians have died in the West Bank since October 7, the vast majority from gunfire by Israeli settlers and military forces. Getting around the region is very complicated. Military controls abound and Kassi complains about the arbitrariness with which the soldiers act. "It was very complicated to go from Ramallah to Amman to come to Barcelona. It took me an hour, for example, to be able to cross Jericho. I understand that your safety is paramount, but so are we. They can't ignore us. We haven't done anything. We are not suspicious of anything. We don't want to die for Palestine, we want to live for Palestine."
I ask him if Hamas really wants to die for the liberation of Palestine. "They are paying an intolerable price - he admits - and I fear they will continue to pay it. It's a tragedy."
Kassi won the mayoralty with the support of Fatah, the main political force of the Palestinian Authority. Like many Palestinian Orthodox Christians, he is financial. He was educated in the United States and has headed several Palestinian financial institutions. "People made a living in the West Bank, there were many investments and now we can lose a lot," he says. Before the war, the economy was growing at 3.5% and unemployment in the West Bank had dropped by 25%. "Israel, despite this, does not leave us any hope".
Shortly before this comment, Kassi had said that his job as mayor of Ramallah is to give hope to the population, to show that "coexistence is possible in an open and equal city", in a West Bank of Muslims, Christians and Jews
The present, however, weighs too much even for his old-rooted optimism. Kassi insists that "this must end because there will be no winner" and that "Israel can defend itself by making peace", but then acknowledges that "we have paid for it with thousands of deaths and we will pay for it with many more. We are ready and we have no alternative".
