Raafat Tenina, worker

I live with my mother and nine brothers and sisters in Beit Ula. Of all of us, the only ones who don't have an ID card are my sister Ilham, who is 28, and myself.

My father didn't take the trouble to register Ilham and me in the population register, which was run back then by the Israeli Civil Administration. When I got to the age you're supposed to get an ID card, I went to the Ministry of the Interior, but the clerks told me they couldn't issue me a card because my name didn't appear on the computer, and I didn't have an ID number. The same thing happened to my sister.

One of the officials in the Ministry of the Interior office in Hebron issued birth certificates for my sister and me, without ID numbers. The officials told me that the only solution was to submit a request for internal family unification. I submitted the request and received a document confirming submission of the request. The clerks told me to return in 10 days, but when I went back to them, they still had no answer for me. Since then, I've gone back to the Ministry of the Interior dozens of time, but they've never given me an answer. Two years ago, I stopped asking.

I really suffer from not having an ID card. At my age, I could have been married already, but I'm afraid to take that step without an ID card. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to register my children and that they would also have to live without an ID card.

I work as a laborer, collecting scrap metal, and ride all around the West Bank in a truck  Since I don't have an ID card, I've been stopped at army checkpoints more than 100 times over the past 10 years. Each time, they detain me for a few hours, and when the soldiers verify that I really don't have an ID card, they release me because they don't know what to do with me. This past week, for example, border policeman detained me at the Za'ayem checkpoint, in Jerusalem. I gave one of them my birth certificate, but he couldn't find my name on the computer. They held me for two hours and didn't know what to do with me. One of them asked why I didn't go to the Ministry of the Interior to get an ID card, and I told him the whole story. I told him that I think I'll get a card only when there'll be peace in region. He said there won't be peace and let me go.

I hope my problem gets solved and that I'll receive an ID card proving to the world that I exist and allowing me to move about freely and plan my future.

Raafat 'Abd al-Hamid Yusef Tenina, 27, is a laborer and a resident of Beit Ula in Hebron District. His testimony was given to Musa Abu Hashhash at PARC offices in Hebron on 6 April 2008.