In Gaza

The sea provides no relief today. I sit on a tattered plastic chair at the seaside, close enough that the waves’ mist brushes my face. But there’s no relishing this water. I’m acutely aware of the sewage and pollution in it, and shudder at the sight of kids diving in headfirst. There’s no other option for them, and perhaps luckily for them they don’t know what diseases they will quite possibly contract. Out of school and with little else but kites to amuse them, the sea is one of the blessings of Gaza.

But it’s not just the kids exposed to these waters the sea today. Families, women in long robes wading knee high, men in t-shirts and pants splashing in… And even from my non-immersed spot on the rocks above, my skin is slowly being saturated with the sewage water sea.

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*Saleh al-Medani shows one of the three places where flechette darts punctured his skin and remain embedded after Israeli soldiers shelled his civilian area.

The Electronic Intifada, 30 June 2009   By Eva Bartlett

Seventeen-year-old Wafa al-Najjar was about 800 meters from the border with Israel when she was shot in the kneecap by an Israeli soldier.

“There was an explosion, maybe 20 meters away. Then another immediately after. I realized I had been hit,” said Saleh Ahmad al-Medani, pulling aside the collar of his T-shirt to show one of three places where he was punctured by the metal darts known as “flechettes.” The razor-like flechettes are dart-shaped bits of metal packed by the thousands into a single shell that are approximately two inches long. post continues

the visits:

I asked if I could wash off, if my friend had a pair of track pants I could wear. His sister came down with a track-suit and towel, and led me to the bathroom. “Shampoo?” she’d asked. “No, thanks, I just want to rinse off,” I explained.

Coming out of the shower, I thought I could sneak by the sisters and mother, hide the fact I’d not brought flip-flops to lounge in. Within seconds one sister’s sandals were off. She, barefoot, handed them to me to wear.

“No,” said another, clucking disapproval, “those are like boats. Bring the black sandals.” The younger sister flitted off. I shuffled off anyway, but soon after the younger, still barefoot, sister re-appeared with the black sandals.

She then set out cleaning off my friend’s desk, “so you can work well.” post continues

Two weeks ago, I met with Hamsa and Iman, both looking very stressed and quite worried about their coming baby. It was Iman’s first, she quite young, and Hamsa had spent all of his hard-earned money on medications and vet fees for his ill horse, which he used for his work collecting plastics for re-sale.

He had no idea how he would manage the doctor’s fees, and was very concerned about Iman’s health and the expected baby’s health. Iman, aside from being just 16, is a petite woman. I could understand Hamsa’s concern.

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First Published (IPS) By Eva Bartlett- ‘Biddun mey, fish heyya’, they say in Arabic for a universal truth: ‘Without water, there is no life’.

While diminishing water resources are a global concern, in Palestine the struggle for water is not against global warming or multinational corporations, but for access to water, and against contamination of what precious resources there are.

Mohamed Ahmed, director of the Water Control Department in the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), says “there continues to be a very rapid depletion and deterioration of ground water.” post continues

First Published   By Eva Bartlett

Monday, 9:45 am

“Tayara! Tayara!” a toddler’s anguished scream announces. The roar of an Israeli warplane cuts through the sounds of the morning. Flying low, its menace is loud.

The child’s voice is not like that of the confident child I met half a year ago, who calmly named the warplanes by sound. Now I hear the wail of a traumatized child who equates the F-16 sound with terror and death.

I learned later that around the same time that the Israeli warplane was buzzing around the Gaza coast, the Israeli military dropped flyers along Gaza’s eastern border, proclaiming the 300m no longer a part of the Green Line, an off-limits zone in which anyone risks being shot. According to news reports, a box of the flyers hits a 12-year-old boy in the Tel Al-Hawa district, sending him into a coma. post continues

Hamsa’s wife Iman is very near the end of her term, due to give birth any day now. Thinking that she may have already had her baby, I called her this morning to ask her news.

Only because I had called did Hamsa divulge their latest problems: they need an adequate doctor, because Iman is quite young and this is her first childbirth and they are worried the public doctors won’t be good enough. But they don’t have the money to cover a private doctor’s fees. Hamsa mentioned that his horse has been sick for the last 10 days, so for the last 10 days he has not worked collecting plastics for re-sale.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” he told me. “I’ve brought a vet to look at him, he said the horse is fine.” But when Hamsa hooks the horse up to its cart, it doesn’t walk. He’s spent what money he had, which wasn’t much, on vet fees. Now, his son due in a matter of days, jobless, and uncertain what to do about the horse, his work, a doctor, their future, Hamsa looks like he’s aged years since I last saw him a few weeks ago. post continues

Today, on my birthday, we (ISM) went with Beit Hanoun ‘Local Initiative’ volunteers to retrieve the long-decomposed body of a man who didn’t live to see his 19th birthday.

Ahmed Abu Hashih disappeared on April 21st.  His family believed that he had been killed somewhere in the north-eastern border region, the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ where Israeli soldiers routinely shoot at Palestinian farmers and residents. Since then, his parents and others have searched, unsuccessfully, for his body, fearing the worst.

Sixteen of us (family, international accompaniment from the ISM, and local rights activists and volunteers from Beit Hanoun) set out this morning to comb the land for the missing youth.  The terrain is dry weeds and tall, prickly scrub, making walking difficult.

We accompanied the father -Abu Ayesh- and a local who knew the area well, filming and attempting to convey to the soldiers shooting at us from jeeps that we had come to retrieve a corpse post continues

The Electronic Intifada, 11 June 2009   By Eva Bartlett

Dr. Nasser Tatter in his office at Gaza’s Shifa hospital. (Eva Bartlett)

One of the most densely populated places on earth only has two cardiac surgeons to serve its entire population. According to Dr. Nasser Tatter, head of Shifa hospital’s cardiology unit, that only explains part of the medical crisis that exists in the Gaza Strip today.

“We are in bad need for cardiac surgeons,” said Dr. Tatter, further explaining that one of the two surgeons is ill and unable to perform surgeries. The second, Tatter added, isn’t able to work independently, rendering Gaza devoid of specialists able to perform open heart surgery.

Dr. Tatter estimates that there are roughly 400 patients in Gaza in need of such surgery. Some, he said, have died from their heart maladies. “Many have tried to leave, to go outside for surgery,” Tatter said. “But they were denied exit by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities.” post continues

Upwards of 300 Palestinians, with a number of international supporters, rallied at the road to the Erez crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday morning, calling for the crossing to be opened and an end to the 3 year long siege, in place since shortly after Hamas was elected in early 2006 and escalated dramatically following June 2007, when Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip.

Women were a strong presence in the demonstration, as were elderly, and children. A number of ill and disabled Palestinians highlighted the importance of the crossings being opened. Nearly 340 Palestinians have died as a result of denied medical care, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Amidst the crowd of demonstrators, 5 year old Mohammed Nasser el Ghneim, a child with multiple ailments needing medical care outside. “He doesn’t see well, cannot hear, cannot speak, doesn’t walk yet, and has heart problems,” said his mother, imploring for outside help for her son. post continues