Though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of media coverage, for decades Israel has been committing acts of piracy in Palestinian waters: Attacking, kidnapping and stealing from Palestinian fishers, sometimes just a mile off the Gaza Strip’s coast.

Despite pledges of restraint, the Israeli navy’s attacks have continued since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israeli authorities and the Palestinian resistance. The Mezan Centre for Human Rights noted on March 24, 2013, that “Since the ceasefire agreement, Israeli occupying forces have carried out 44 attacks against fishermen in Gaza’s waters, injuring four fishermen. Israeli forces arrested 44 fishermen, confiscated nine boats, and damaged fishing equipment on five separate occasions.”

FULL ARTICLE AT RT.COM

Ceasefire Means ‘Nothing’ to Gaza Fishers

Israeli naval abductions and shooting at Palestinian fishermen: it’s routine

Israeli Navy Terrorism: Destroying Boats and Livs

Israeli naval abductions and shooting at Palestinian fishermen

one year later, young fisherman still trying to heal

musings from a fishing boat

“I am conveying Palestine’s message to the world, and if I had to choose between winning the Arab Idol title and the freedom of Samer Issawi, I would choose freedom for the Palestinian hero whose steadfastness is peerless and I can’t compare myself to it,” Assaf told Ma’an.

Speaking from Beirut, the singer from Gaza City said that he considers himself an “ambassador of Palestinian art,” who wants to convey a positive image of Palestinians, despite Israeli occupation and oppression.

Arab audiences are happy to see a Palestinian singing different genres of music rather than just patriotic songs, he said, adding that he has been receiving support from his fans in the Arab world.

Assaf says he has been moved by the plight of Palestinian prisoners, especially Samer Issawi who has been on hunger strike in Israeli detention for 265 days.

“Issawi has provided a model in the struggle which is too great to be imitated by artists, despite the fact that art has an element of resistance as it can deliver the message of a people under occupation to the whole world.”

“I can’t differentiate between my art and my patriotic attitude,” he added.

Assaf qualified on Friday for the final of MBC’s popular singing competition Arab Idol.

Vanessa Beeley writes from Gaza on Mohamed Assaf, a talented and inspiring Palestinian from Gaza:

“Two days ago Mousheera Jammal and I went to Palestine University to talk to Lecturers and fellow students who know Palestine’s rising Arab Idol star…Mohamed Assaf.

Mohamed has been setting the stage alight and bewitching the Arab Idol judges with his depth of soul and soaring vocals. Ragheb Allama described Mohamed as “a rocket that was heading for the stars, the Arab Idol is born”. Nanci Ajram ” you are incredible, my vote is already cast!”.

Talking to those who know him at his University in Gaza, we understood why.

Mohamed is described, without exception, as an unassuming, humble student who has endured great hardship in Gaza without complaint. His voice has been his escape from the day to day survival in Khan Younis refugee camp where his family would have experienced regular incursions and attacks from the Israeli forces permanently camped at the border fences.

One young girl, Sharouk Aljor also a singer for many years shyly said that she is living her own dreams through Mohamed’s success on the TV talent show.

The pride in Mohamed’s achievements is palpable. There is a real sense that he is putting Palestine on the map, where it belongs, not only in the Arab world but further afield where his voice may touch hearts that years of political campaigning and international activism have failed to affect.

Israel’s concern at his unexpected star status is evident. They are attacking him for the traditional song choice that sings of the ancient villages of Palestine. The song describes a bird that flies from village to village bringing greetings and love to the displaced inhabitants of Palestine.

Hussein Saad, his lecturer at the University had pride in his eyes as he described how Mohamed will bring honour to Palestine. “It is resistance through Art that will put our cause in the spotlight and highlight our suffering worldwide”. Hussein remembers Mohamed as an 11 year old who had seen more horror than any 11 year old should have to witness. ” His voice carried him away to a world far from his life of terror and fear. He sang to forget and now he sings so the world will remember Palestine and support our fight for Freedom. Mohamed is the symbol of all that is Palestine, we support him and pray that Arab nations will take him to their hearts so he can carry our message further than it has ever gone before”

–Vanessa Beeley

To vote for Mohamed Assaf: Number 3

00882 1622774111 (international number, choose Number 3)

Africa to Gaza Aid Convoy

First Published at Inter Press Services –by Eva Bartlett

(IPS) – “We wanted to help foreigners in Gaza, so we created an English map of Gaza City,” says Amir Shurrab, one of the minds behind the foldable Gaza Tourist Map.

At the time a lecturer for the University College of Applied Sciences (UCAS), Shurrab led a team of Geographic Information System (GIS) professionals and students in mapping Gaza City street by street in 2009. “GIS drawing is usually aided by satellites, but the Israeli occupation authorities prevented us from using the nearest satellite,” says Shurrab. “So we used one further away.

“We also wanted to share Gaza’s beauty and culture, to show a different face from what is seen in the media,” says Shurrab, referring to the images of Palestinians maimed and killed by Israeli bombings and shootings.

The map, also available on the Internet, is a cheery rendition of Gaza City’s highlights, and also optimistically depicts fishing boats in Gaza’s sea, an irony for Palestinian fishers daily targeted with shooting, shelling and abductions by the occupying Israeli navy.

Among the icons representing Gaza’s cultural and historic sites, as well as practicalities for daily life, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) outnumber all else, followed closely by pharmacies, businesses and mosques.

Sites like the Pasha Palace, a former British prison and current an antiquities museum, as well as the Great Mosque and the Turkish bathhouse are among a few of the cultural historic highlights not completely damaged by Israeli bombing.

Other sites, although not touristic, merit mention as an important part of Gaza’s recent history. One is the closed Palestinian Airlines office, of no use after Israel repeatedly bombed Gaza’s sole airport.

The many pharmacies listed, and those not listed, on the tourist map may or may not have vital medicines and supplies. Under Israeli siege, the Strip has suffered years of drug shortages.

In January 2013, Gaza’s central drug store was completely out of 32.7 percent of the 480 essential drugs and 52.2 percent out of the 902 essential medical disposables, according to the United Nations.

In Gaza’s old city area, the Saaha market is a key market for produce, spices and clothing, and although many of its buildings and streets have been damaged by Israeli bombing, the old architecture is intact in many places.

Not far from Saaha, a sign at the entrance of Gaza City municipality’s main building reminds visitors both of the proximity of Palestine’s capital city, Jerusalem, and of the bitter irony that although only 78.96 km away according to the sign, most Palestinians in Gaza are not allowed to see Jerusalem.

The Israeli rights group, Gisha, points out that since 2000, Israel has banned Gazan Palestinian students from studying in the occupied West Bank or Jerusalem. Gisha also notes that this ban applies to nearly all of Gaza’s Palestinians, the minor exception being some, but not all, of the medical patients referred to hospitals outside the Strip.

Amir Shurrab notes the Palestinian desire for travel between Gaza and the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. “The majority of Palestinians haven’t travelled between the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are forced to stay in a big prison all their lives.”

With similar aspirations to the Gaza Tourist Map, UCAS also has a webpage devoted to promoting Gaza and tourism. The page highlights Gaza’s history and beauties, as well as practical information regarding climate, currency, culture and economy.

Under economy, UCAS notes Gaza’s historic reliance on growing and exporting produce and making furniture, food products, and textiles. UCAS also lists tourism as a key aspect of Gaza’s economy, as well as fishing and trade, all of which have become virtually impossible under Israeli occupation and the Israeli siege on Gaza which since 2006 has banned virtually all exports from the Strip.

A visit to Gaza’s Arts and Crafts village near the Islamic University offers a glimpse at Gaza’s historic culture and of the array of goods once produced and exported from the besieged Strip.

Handiwork like embroidered clothes and decorations, as well as pottery, tiles, and paintings are among the crafts on display in the buildings themselves, which are examples of Gaza’s old-style earthen architecture.

Gaza City’s coastal al-Deira hotel is another example of the earth-tinted architecture and is one of the few upper-end hotels in the Strip. It is also one of few that hasn’t been seriously damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombing.

Other than receiving solidarity delegations, hosting foreign journalists and catering to international NGO staff, the Deira is an escape for the very few of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents who can afford to have a meal or smoke a water-pipe in its restaurant-café.

Rami Mortejer, 35, director of al-Badia, says that the well-known Gaza City restaurant fared better when borders were open and some tourism was allowed.

“When there was no siege, more people came. They loved the décor,” he says of the restaurant’s wooden beams, tables and chairs, and bright embroidered cushions. “Yes, more foreigners come to Gaza now, but not for tourism. They work in the NGOs,” says Mortejer.

Despite his enthusiasm for foreign guests, Amir Shurrab is also pragmatic about the realities of living in the Gaza Strip.

“Due to the hard situation here, and the obstacles that occupation creates, I don’t think that Gaza would attract tourism nowadays.”

With daily power outages of eight hours or more, generators emitting smoke and noise as they make up for cut power, and the means of getting into Gaza limited for most potential visitors to the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing, entering and living in Gaza is far from a tourist’s ideal.

Instead, Shurrab says, Gaza attracts solidarity: NGO workers, journalists, and solidarity activists who come to witness life under siege and Israeli military occupation, and who are willing to put up with the trials of life in the Strip.

Many governments issue warnings against travel to the Gaza Strip.

“This was another reason we created the tourist map,” says Amir Shurrab. “Our message is, ‘Welcome to Gaza. The people of Gaza are friendly and hospitable to visitors.’”

Two hotels destroyed during Israeli bombing of Gaza Strip in 2008/2009

Resort destroyed by Israeli bombing

see also:

Virtual Tour of Gaza

A United Nations truck removes waste from a Gaza refugee camp.     Photo by Emad Badwan

First Published at Inter Press Services (IPS)- By Eva Bartlett

“For the past five years we’ve collected garbage by traditional means: donkey and cart,” says Abdel Rahem Abulkumboz, director of health and environment at the Municipality of Gaza. The municipality of Gaza alone produces 700 tons of waste daily, Kumboz says. More than half of this waste is collected daily by 250 donkey carts.

“It’s a means of doing the job, but not an optimal one,” says Kumboz.

Among the growing problems facing waste management throughout the Gaza Strip, even this simple solution nearly came to an end this month.

“The funding allotted to garbage collectors finished at the end of February,” says Kumboz, noting that it is not slated to resume until June at the earliest.

Hamada al-Bayari from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the emergency response came recently after the intervention of Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), an Italian aid group. Bayari says that COOPI provided the funding for the waste collection to continue until the already-slated June funding begins.

One potential disaster avoided, the Gaza Strip’s waste management problem nonetheless remains near crisis point.

The most critical issues include overflowing landfills, non-functioning collection vehicles, waste site toxins leaking into the groundwater, and no means of hazardous waste disposal.

“The severe siege over the past six years has affected all aspects of waste management,” says Kumboz, referring to the Israeli-led siege, which bans entry of construction materials into the Gaza Strip.

The municipality has 75 collection vehicles “over half of which are completely unusable,” he says. “The rest have been in use for more than 15 years and are in need of repair. Because of the Israeli import bans, we can’t get the parts we need for maintenance. We get some of them through the tunnels from Egypt, which is expensive and not guaranteed.”

The most urgent issue, Kumboz says, is the overflowing landfills. Expansion of Gaza’s landfills has thus far been impossible due to lack of construction materials and the routine Israeli army attacks in border regions where the three main dumps are located.

A February 2011 World Bank report had noted even back then that the Gaza Strip’s three main landfills are “reaching their maximum capacity.”

The report further noted that the landfill situation “has been further aggravated by the Israeli military actions” which resulted in “substantial amounts of demolition debris of damaged buildings, some of which is contaminated with hazardous substances.”

Other hazardous substances in Gaza’s waste sites include asbestos, used on many roofs in Gaza and found amidst bombing debris, chemicals and toxins from Israeli bombs, and hazardous healthcare waste from hospitals including infectious or pathogenic waste, blood and body fluids, and radioactive or chemical waste, according to a September 2009 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report.

During the winter 2008/2009 Israeli attacks on Gaza, “incinerators did not function due to electricity shortages. All landfills thus indiscriminately received hazardous materials such as healthcare waste,” the UNWP report notes.

Add to that more than 35,750 cattle, sheep and goats and more than a million birds and poultry killed in the attacks, which Gaza’s landfills did not have the means to dispose of hygienically.

Eight days of continued Israeli attacks in November 2012 further complicated the demolition debris and hazardous waste problems.

Of the Strip’s three main landfills, only the Strip’s central Deir al-Balah site was built according to acceptable sanitary standards, according to a March 2012 World Bank report.

All three landfills lie close to the Green Line border separating Gaza and Israel, and routine Israeli army incursions and attacks along the border limit regular access for landfill maintenance.

As the World Bank report notes, any future expansion of another of the three main landfills, Johr ad-Deek, “entails risks.”

On Jan. 5 this year, the Israeli army fired on a waste truck on the Beit Hanoun landfill. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that the truck was 150 metres from the border when fired upon. It reports that a worker, Awad al-Zaanin, was injured by bullet shrapnel to his head.

“Much of Beit Hanoun is a border area. There are many Israeli army invasions and bombings here. All of this causes problems for solid waste management,” says Sufyan Hamad, head of Gaza’s northern municipality.

On an aerial map of the northeast border, Hamad points out the dump’s location. “We were forbidden from reaching the dump, the Israelis banned us from going within 300 metres of the border.”

On Mar. 12 this year, Israeli rights group Gisha reported that the Israeli army spokesperson confirmed that the 300 metres along Gaza’s border remains off-limits to Palestinians. This is in spite of the Israeli army-Palestinian November 2012 ceasefire which stipulated that access be allowed up to 100 metres from the border.

Of the Strip’s three main landfills, the World Bank notes that only the Sofa site in south-eastern Gaza has the potential for expansion.

Yet, the report cites the need for “construction of two sanitary landfills” to serve the entire Strip, as well as the need to “close and rehabilitate all remaining dumpsites” and to “replace the old collection fleet with a new one.”

For Kumboz, who has been waiting for years for already purchased collection vehicles, getting enough vehicles just to replace Gaza Municipality’s broken vehicles scarcely seems possible.

“We have waited for five years for trucks already in Ramallah to be allowed to enter Gaza,” says Beit Hanoun’s Hamad. “The problem is with the Israelis, they say the trucks aren’t allowed to enter.”

The March 2012 World Bank report confirms the delay of 22 new trucks destined for Gaza which “have been waiting for the last three years in Ramallah for the necessary permits from the Israeli authorities in order to enter Gaza.”

Palestinian fishers are hit hard by the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Credit: Emad Badwan/IPS.

First Published at IPS – By Eva Bartlett

*blog version longer than published version

“An ark is literally a large floating vessel designed to keep its passengers and cargo safe,” say the group preparing ‘Gaza’s Ark’. But their ark, they say, is “a vessel that embodies hope that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip can soon live in peace without the threat of the Israeli blockade.”

An initiative by Palestinians in Gaza and international solidarity activists, Gaza’s Ark entails “purchasing a run-down boat from a local fishing family,” says Michael Coleman, a member of Free Gaza Australia and on the Gaza’s Ark steering committee.

“The refurbishing will be done by Palestinians in the port of Gaza, and the sailing will be with a mixed crew of Palestinians and internationals,” says David Heap, spokesperson for Gaza’s Ark in Canada and Europe. The sailing date has not been announced yet.

Pointing to a weathered fishing trawler with a ‘for sale’ sign painted on it, Mahfouz Kabariti, president of Gaza’s Fishing and Marine Sports Association, points to fishers’ poverty.

“Why sell?” he asks. “Because of years of poor incomes from Israeli restrictions on sea, many fishers have debts they cannot pay off. Fishers were optimistic when the Israelis re-extended the fishing limit six miles. We hoped that maybe it would be extended to 12 miles.”

The Ark initiative includes exporting a token amount of trade goods from Palestinian artisans, an act which Coleman admits is “symbolic” but necessary. Exports will include date goods, embroidery, and crafts from the Aftfaluna society for Deaf Children and other associations in Gaza.

“Gaza was the economic capital of Palestine no more than a decade ago. Their economy has been slowly strangled to the point where now somewhere around 80 percent of the population are reliant on aid for the basic essentials of life such as food, shelter and medical care,” Coleman says.

The steering committee for Gaza’s Ark comprises mainly well-respected Palestinian scholars, doctors and rights activists from Gaza. International supporters include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, various UK and Canadian former and current members of parliament, two former UN assistant secretaries general, and Hedy Epstein and Suzanne Weiss, both Holocaust survivors.

“Palestine is a very politically sensitive issue. There is a quite a strong Zionist lobby all over,” says Coleman. “This is very much a civil society project, no money from governments.”

Since 2008 solidarity boats have sailed, or attempted to sail, to the Gaza Strip in efforts to challenge the Israeli-led siege on Gaza and bring awareness over it. The Free Gaza boats of 2008-2009 were followed by the Freedom Flotilla of 2010, and various non-violent attempts afterwards to bring an end to the naval blockade of Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla is most known for the Israeli naval commandos’ execution of nine and the injury of over 50 of the flotilla activists on board the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara while it was in international waters. The rest of the over 600 people on the flotilla boats were taken to Israel and deported home.

“It was a completely illegal act, Israel had no right to board the ship,” says Coleman.

“That has been the theme of how they stopped Freedom Flotilla 2, the Freedom Waves initiative and the Estelle which sailed at the end of 2012,” he says. “Israel has a long history of targeting peaceful, non-violent direct action with violence and sabotage.”

“Gaza’s Ark is the evolution of the flotilla movement. We’ve moved away from sailing into Gaza with aid,” says Coleman. “We now focus on sailing trade out, because it’s quite clear that if the Palestinians were able to trade, their dependence on aid would be diminished quite significantly.”

The Ark website emphasises the need for trade, their slogan is “trade, not aid.”

Aid, the website notes, “does not address the root cause of why the Palestinians of Gaza are in need: the Israeli blockade. We believe that aid provides a ‘cover’ for the actions of the Israeli government against the people of Gaza, alleviating the consciences of international powers while leaving the blockade in place.”

The Gaza’s Ark initiative aims to “challenge the blockade of Gaza from the inside out. By purchasing Palestinian exports from Gaza, buyers around the world can bring critically-needed public attention to the blockade while supporting Palestinian businesses in Gaza,” reads the Ark website.

The siege on Gaza, which was enforced by the Israeli occupation authorities shortly after Hamas was democratically elected in 2006, came into severe force in 2007 when virtually all exports were banned and imports severely limited.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights notes that “it is common for the (Israeli) navy to open fire on fishermen, pursue them in Gazan waters, and destroy and confiscate their equipment, including their nets and boats. Such acts constitute flagrant violations of Israel’s legal obligations as an occupying power under international law, and violate the fishermen’s rights to life and work.”

Gaza’s fishers once numbered over 10,000, but under the Israeli siege and assaults, the vast majority have given up on a trade that was passed down to them by their fathers and grandfathers.

“A generation of fishers are becoming fish-mongers, selling fish imported from Egypt. Only nine miles out there is a plentiful amount of fish. They should be coming in on boats, not on trucks,” Coleman says.

With the siege, Israel has also enforced no-go zones along the Green Line border separating Gaza and Israel, and in Gaza’s sea, to which Palestinians under the Oslo accords have the right to fish as far as 20 nautical miles from the coast.

Since 2008, Israel has unilaterally enforced a limit of between six and three miles. Although Israeli authorities expanded this limit back to six miles following the cessation of Israel’s November 2012 attacks on Gaza, in March 2013 Israel again unilaterally declared Palestinians can go no further than three miles.

Fishers and human rights groups report that the Israeli navy shoots on, harasses and abducts Palestinian fishers even within three miles, as close at times as less than a mile from Gaza’s coast. The Israeli navy has killed and injured numerous fishers while shooting at their boats.

“The act of the blockade is an act of collective punishment, which is outlawed under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Coleman says.

“We have to continue to oppose the blockade, but in creative new ways,” says David Heap.

Rachel Corrie, killed 10 years ago today by a Zionist soldier in his massive, armoured bulldozer, the kind the Zionists use to destroy Palestinian homes to this day. No justice 10 years on for Rachel’s family, nor the families of the thousands of Palestinians rendered homeless by Zionist bulldozers, bombing, and racist laws.

*photo by Joseph Smith, ISM, taken before Rachel’s murder. In this instance, “Rachel was pinned between the scooped earth and the fence behind her. On this occasion, the driver stopped before seriously injuring her.”

*photo from internet search, source unknown

The Electronic Intifada reported: an e-mailed report from the Palestine Monitor stated:

“Rachel Corey [sic], 23 years old from the state of Washington, was killed while she was trying to prevent Israeli army bulldozers from destroying a Palestinian home. Other foreigners who were with her said the driver of the bulldozer was aware that Rachel was there, and continued to destroy the house. Initially he dropped sand and other heavy debris on her, then the bulldozer pushed her to the ground where it proceeded to drive over her, fracturing both of her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died.”

A later report from ISM Media Coordinator Michael Shaik in Beit Sahour offered more details about the events:

“The confrontation between the ISM and the Israeli Army had been under way for two hours when Rachel was run over. Rachel and the other activists had clearly identified themselves as unarmed international peace activists throughout the confrontation.

The Israeli Army are attempting to dishonour her memory by claiming that Rachel was killed accidentally when she ran in front of the bulldozer. Eye-witnesses to the murder insist that this is totally untrue. Rachel was sitting in the path of the bulldozer as it advanced towards her. When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it wearing a fluorescent jacket to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing. The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble. After she had disappeared from view the driver kept advancing until the bulldozer was completely on top of her. The driver did not lift the bulldozer blade and so she was crushed beneath it. Then the driver backed off and the seven other ISM activists taking part in the action rushed to dig out her body. An ambulance rushed her to A-Najar hospital where she died.”

A number of good articles on and by Rachel here

A wealth of resources, including how to become involved in justice issues Rachel was working on here

From the Rachel Corrie Foundation website:

Memorials and article archives on Rachel

• Electonic Intifada has a detailed photo story regarding Rachel’s killing in Rafah, a list of links to subsiquent court actions, Eyewitness reports and official statements and numerous articles on Rachel Corrie.
• MIFTA.org has set up a tribute page that includes several photographs and links to articles.
• Archive of articles on Rachel at the International Solidarity Movement website
• All articles on Rachel at the Electronic Intifada
• The Rachel Corrie Memorial Website has Rachel’s E-mails, public statements, news Reports and editorials regarding her death, videos of memorial events and more.
• Song: “The Death of Rachel Corrie” by David Rovics
• Poetry: “On the brink of…” by Suheir Hammad

Driving to Gaza one morning, the shared taxi enters a traffic jam outside the UN school. The street is jammed with children, cars trying to butt ahead, a motorcycle sitting in the middle of the mess, clogging everything.

“The police are there when you don’t need them, not there when you need them,” grumbles the driver.

Roadside vegetable vendors: spinach, cauliflower, romaine lettuce, oranges imported from Egypt because the vast majority of Gaza’s trees have long since been bulldozed by the Zionists.

A young man jogs along the sand, past beached fishing boats. Those boats that have ventured the few kilometres out, risking Zionist navy attacks, are not visible through the heavy fog descending. Hassaka fishers 1/2 km out, valiantly fighting choppy water and cold for whatever meagre catch can haul in.

A refugee camp rider gallops his horse along the water’s edge.

Boys play soccer in 1/4 field sized pitch of sand.

A big tour bus filled with children passes –the company makes a deal with schools, kids pay each month. No actual school buses. “We get the junk from Israel,” Emad explains.

Another morning:

Past a burning garbage bin, nauseating smoke: people burn trash here because its easier than waiting for it to be collected, as it often is not.

The driver stops every time he sees a potential fare—backing along highway to check…in vain. Passengers put up with this delay: the cheap fare we pay means we have to tolerate the trawling. The driver inevitably doesn’t own the vehicle, just works for a company, so needs to maximize his fares, in order to earn whatever paltry salary he can for the day.

He whips down highway, playing chicken with oncoming traffic as he tries to make up for lost time.

Over low hills that are central Gaza

Over the newly re-constructed coastal bridge, still being optimistically hand-painted red and white checks, as bright and new looking as the felled inner bridge (also only recently re-constructed before its re-destruction in Nov 2012).

Past plots of grape vines, twisted and arid—its not grape season, but when it is, these plots provide Gaza’s best grapes.

Past battered wooden lifeguard huts on empty beach. In 2 months the beach will swarm with people desperate to cool off… equally desperate for some sort of recreation in a Strip devoid of theatres, bowling, any ‘normal’ universal recreation, where even tv reception is marred by zananas (drones) above.

Two young men collecting used metals and old batteries clog the road with their rickety homemade tuktuk, slowing our driver, who immediately guns it upon passing them.

A donkey cart and a toddler pushing his tricycle into the road again slow our driver. He curses.

Children walk along the road –there are no sidewalks on most busy streets –from their early morning shift of school, make room for 2^nd shift in overcrowded schools.

Past the 2 schools heavily damaged in the bombing of the Ministry of Interior building, adding to the already critical schooling crisis…

Past the Red Crescent cultural complex, bombed by the Zionists in Jan 2009 and still not re-built, only a shell of new construction. And the likewise bombed Quds hospital, thankfully functioning.

Two female university students, anxious to get to classes on time, argue mildly with driver who has delayed them in his search for fares. “I was going 140 on the coastal road, wasn’t I?” he defends.

A youth sells strawberries outside Gaza’s two main universities: they sell for almost nothing; these succulent strawberries flood the markets, cut off from their former European markets. The Zionist state has banned exports from Gaza since 2006, save a paltry amount now and then for propanganda purposes.

Returning home:

Past the Nusseirat hilltop café with the best view of Gaza’s sea and the Gaza valley, a quiet place for a glass of fresh lemon juice, whose owners and workers treat us life family, and whose modest chipped walls only recently have been re-painted.

Past the rusted MAERSK container, around which a shelter has been constructed, equally weathered.

Back in Deir, trash is still burning, adding to who knows how many other pollutants Gazans are choking in. 80 million litres of sewage in the sea daily, and then seeping into the aquifer, Zionists’ bomb chemicals in the soil. Diesel fumes from taxis and the generators needed for the power cuts every 8 hours.

One Day at the ATMs:

Long lines today, Palestinian Authority employees waiting for their months-delayed salaries

“Askeriya, willa mehdiniya?” a woman asks me. Police or civilian employee? She, a mehdiniya, is waiting for the civilian pay to be issued through the bank. The police and related salaries were apparently issued first.

Men are crowded around one another, overlapping… Some men are telling a man using the second of two ATMs to push the green button, leaning in close as he does his banking. No privacy or personal space, but no one is put out by it, no worries of being mugged or pick-pocketed here. For all the Zionist bombs that are dropped here, Gaza, Palestine, I have felt safer here than back home.

Oh, the “angry Arabs” image that Zionists and the ignorant like to portray… it doesn’t exist here.

Frustrations do, being exasperated like any human in inhumane conditions. But people here act and live the opposite of my own inclinations were I subject to a lifetime of oppression, the killing and imprisonment of my loved ones, and just a generally unfair life full of missed opportunities…I would be no where as loving and forgiving as people I meet here are.

I give up on this bank, the lines not moving, and go to a different ATM, also with long lines, all men this time. “Come here, to the front,” a man ahead of me in line gestures.

“No, go over there, to the front of the other line, it’s moving quicker,” another man tells me.

I’m conflicted: I don’t want to jump the line. Yet, here, in bread lines and apparently in bank lines, women are not meant to wait with the men, they go ahead and make their own line, which in many cases tends to be shorter or non-existent.

A man solves my indecision, gestures me to follow him, like a lost pup, to the front of the left line, in case I hadn’t understood the other guy.

The person at the ATM finishes and another steps aside to usher me forward.

Yet, even as people are eager to help me, a woman, a visibly foreign woman, get through the sometimes muddy waters of cultural appropriateness, they themselves are exhausted, anxious, desperate for their own money to be given to them. Many have been waiting for months for part or all of their salaries, with no other income.

These lines, as Palestinians wait for their money to be delivered and dispensed from the bank, are another attempt at degrading them, killing their will, stealing their dignity. They don’t allow it, but the anxious crowding that comes with waiting for hours at…an occupation checkpoint, a closed border crossing, a food-aid depot, a depleted bank ATM…these all attempt to rob Palestinians of their dignity, rights, time, patience.

I grab a shared taxi to Sahaa, to get some herbs for tea and more zataar, the ground wild thyme and sesame grind eaten with gorgeous Palestinian olive oil.

Another passenger gets in, recognizing the driver and jumping into dialogue with him. “Tfudl,” (here) he says shoving the shekel (roughly 25 cents) at the driver, grinning. “La, walla,” (no, really, I can’t take it) replies the driver. Tfudl. La, walla. Tfudl. La, walla.

I miss the end of the exchange but think the passenger won. He tells the drivers he has picked up some sort of construction work. “I make 60 shekels a day,” (roughly $15) he says, still smiling.

scenes of Gaza, where only very little reconstruction has taken place after the Nov 2012 Zionists’ bombing of the Strip. Photographer and text: Emad Badwan