👑The heroic Palestinian journalist, Islam Bader describes his relationship with his Press Vest, worn for the purpose of identification as a non-comabatant and as protection from ballistic threats:

🔴Honestly, I don't know how many days of war there are. I've stopped counting. What I know is that this armor has been my clothing since the first day.

I wake up and put it on and before going to sleep I take it off and some nights I sleep in it - I admit, I was afraid [on those nights] - What you do not know is that without the metal plate that was supposed to be in it, I might have left it behind the day the occupation stormed the Indonesian Hospital in the middle of the night.

Some colleagues ask me: Where is the helmet? Why don't you wear it? They do not know that it is missing in northern Gaza and the occupation prevents its retrieval.

In general, it is heavy and annoying. Despite this - by the grace of God - the shield protected me from a fatal injury... and the tear remains in the neck of the shield from the shrapnel that was making its way towards my throat and the other that struck my chest...

I was saved from two, while two other fragments made it through to my body, in the shoulder and the pelvis. The pelvic fragment is still a heavy memory in my body.

With a needle and thread, my mother patched the tear on the shield from the shrapnel weeks later for me, but the traces are still visible.

Why am I telling you about the shield? Because I was able to wash it yesterday... Finally...This restored some of the shine to its color, but it did not reduce the wear of its fabric...

In my post-war fantasies - there are not many of them - I will put it on the wall of the house as a souvenir🔴

[G&T]