The Olive Fights the Occupation
*An olive nursery set up by in Gaza to restore decimated cultivation.
GAZA CITY, Jan 8, 2012 (IPS) – By Eva Bartlett *(blog version longer than published version)
“During hard times, we have survived off olive oil,” says Ahmed Sourani from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee.
“Including during the last war,” says Sourani, referring to the 23 day war Israel waged on Gaza three years ago. “Many people who couldn’t leave their homes had only bread and olive oil to sustain them for long periods.”
Even during the first Intifadah (Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation), olives and olive oil were vital to survival. “They enabled many thousands of very poor Palestinian families to survive,” recalls Sourani. “When the Israeli army imposes curfews on us, preventing us from leaving our homes, it is our main food source. Most students take za’atar (wild thyme) and olive oil sandwiches to school for their lunch.”
This source of sustenance has been targeted by Israel over years. In November 2008, Oxfam reported that since 2000, 112,000 olive trees had been destroyed in the Gaza Strip. post continues
targeting medics
Today, three years ago, an Israeli sniper shot this man, shooting at both he and his colleague, as well as towards the ambulance I was in.
When Hassan and Jamal approached a body in the road, it was during the first day of Israeli-declared “cease-fire hours”, supposed humanitarian hours when civilians were to be allowed to move about without fear of Israeli bombing, shelling or shooting.
Hassan, a Palestinian Red Crescent medic, was uniformed, as was Jamal a volunteer with the Red Crescent. The ambulance I was in was flashing its lights and siren. The stretcher the two men carried was flat, blood-stained from other martyrs, but quite obviously just a stretcher. And when Hassan and Jamal walked from the Dawar Zimmo intersection of eastern Jabaliya towards our ambulance, sides to their sniper predator, their hands were full with the dead body they carried.
At this point, walking away from wherever the sniper was huddled (typically 2nd or 3rd floors of homes whose wall has been bored with sniper firing holes), the Israeli soldier began shooting at them, and us. Hassan and Jamal ran for it, body and all, until bringing the body back was impossible. Dropping it, they stumbled and ran for their lives. post continues
january 4 anniversary of Arafa’s murder
*Arafa Abd el Dayem after being shredded by an Israeli-fired dart bomb (photo source unknown)
Memories have a way of overpowering. And Arafa Abd el Dayem’s death should do so.
Three years on and his murder is no less painful, his loss no less present.
Arafa, when shredded to death by an Israeli-soldier-fired dart bomb (a dart bomb is a shell filled with between 5000-8000 dart-shaped metal nails, designed to bore into their targets and split apart upon impact, ensuring maximum damage), was a long-term medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, as well as a high-school teacher and father. post continues
2008-2009 Israeli massacre of Gaza, not forgotten
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Hands Apart the Length an Infant
Formalities are exchanged first. Where am I going? How is life in the Strip? Do I know Jaber and Leila from Faraheen?
We chat. He is friendly, a distant cousin of Jaber’s, ready to help me if I need anything.
Offhandedly, hardly expecting me to notice, he mentions his house was destroyed, in May 2010…I suspect he is Jaber and Leila’s western neighbor and that I’d seen the ruins of their home post-Israeli military bulldozers and tanks, the day after their destruction.
He is benevolent smiles and confirmations: yes, that was our house.
I remember the wreckage trail, from Leila and Jaber’s bulldozed vegetable crops and chicken/storage barn, to the dark brown, freshly –ravaged earth of his bulldozed land and home, he and his wife stoically standing in front of their ruins, Jaber and Leila beyond stoically sobbing at their third consecutive year of Israeli army invasion and destruction.
Now, a year but little change later he chats nonchalantly with me about his many losses.
“During the war (2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza), our house was bombed. My son,” he says, hands apart the length of an infant, “he was killed in their bombing.”
So now, three years and little relief later, he is headed out, to search for work outside of Gaza, if he can.
He looks older, over 40, meaning he stands a chance of being able to leave Gaza if the Egyptian authorities abide by their discrimination against Palestinians under-40 trying to leave Gaza.
“Life is hard. I’m going to search for work so we can re-build our home.” Algeria, Libya, Sudan…”Wherever, I’ll go wherever I must to find work.
He speaks with an easy smile and warmth, with humility borne of faith in God and of living for decades under occupation.
Orphans on the Rise in Gaza
*The Amal Institute for Orphans cares for 120 of Gaza City’s orphans.
GAZA CITY, Dec 23, 2011 (IPS) -By Eva Bartlett
Yousef walks barefoot into a children’s room with four beds and points to a snoopy-blanketed bed by the window. “That’s where I sleep,” he says. A red remote-controlled toy racecar sits atop a new mini-laptop. The closet is full of clothes, a pot of soup simmering on the gas range in the spacious kitchen, and the wooden dining table is piled with seasonal fruit.
Unlike the overwhelming majority of children in the Gaza Strip, the seven-year-old’s naked feet are not a result of poverty. Quite the opposite, his home in the Rafah-based SOS Children’s Village, run by an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), does not leave him wanting for shoes, clothes, school supplies, regular meals or a safe abode.
His home, one of 14 in the village hosting 111 orphans, is new, has plenty of natural light and is larger than the cramped refugee camp homes in which more than 75 percent of Gaza’s population lives.
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When you don’t have the distraction of electricity –and hence computer–you have time to think about other things.
Like the din of the few generators running in the harra (neighbourhood) or the last gasps of my low budget candle or the calls from mosques throughout the town –and surely the entire Strip –on the over 500 prisoners to be released from Israeli jails today post continues
mornings in Palestine
I’ve been waking up by 7 or earlier lately, mostly because I’ve had a number of early morning appointments in Gaza City but also because if I wake before the power cuts I can charge the laptop whose battery, like all my laptops, is almost useless.
Most mornings are quiet, just bird calls, rooster crows, and footsteps of children leaving for the 7 am school start (they go early since 85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts, for want of space for the students since more schools need to be built and those damaged or destroyed in Israel’s 2008-2009 war on Gaza need to be repaired or re-built). post continues
Israel’s threat to cut Gaza water supply would be “complete catastrophe”
*Gaza’s sole power plant still maimed by Israeli bombing in 2006.
GAZA CITY, Dec 9, 2011 (IPS) -By Eva Bartlett**
[re-published at Electronic Intifada]
“Taking our water is not like taking a toy. Water is life, they cannot play with our lives like this,” says Maher Najjar, deputy general director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) of the recent Israeli threat to cut electricity, water and infrastructure services to the occupied Gaza Strip.
“Everything will be affected: drinking and washing water, sewage and sanitation, hospitals, schools and children,” says Ahmed al-Amrain, head of power information at the Palestinian Energy and National Resources Authority (PENRA). post continues
