In Gaza

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from the war on Gaza

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.

*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

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

A typical Palestinian car interior post continues

*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

As dire and emotionally draining as the situation and daily life in Gaza can be, I like to show it’s beauty, which does abound, when I can.  Gaza doesn’t need pity, it needs strong, vocal, unhindered support and solidarity, recognition of the 1.6 million lives within who continue to be largely ignored by the corporate media and of the continued Israeli occupation and siege.

There are people and voices and stories here, of tragedy yes and of amazing resilience as well.

Take Mona and Amal Samouni, 2 young girls from the extended Samouni family which endured a massacre during the 23 day Israeli massacre of the entire Gaza Strip in 2008-2009.  Amal’s 4  year old brother and her father were shot point-blank by Israeli soldiers, she herself injured with shrapnel to the head which may still be in there (it had not been removed as of December 2009 ). post continues