Some days in Gaza, if you are in an area where you don’t hear the drones hovering, spying, menacing…nor the Israeli gunboats harassing or injuring fishermen by shelling and shooting live ammunition…nor see Israeli soldiers shooting at farmers and civilians in the region along Gaza’s borders to Israel… nor see the manufactured, grinding poverty…nor see… Read More one day in Gaza
Naama Barbakh stands in the yard beside her farmhouse in southern Gaza’s As Shoka district, east of Rafah. She gestures to the ground and the surrounding area, pointing out where the dead and dying bodies of her husband and three of her sons lay after an unmanned drone missile strike on the morning of January… Read More widowed and orphaned by Israeli drone strike
I visited Anwar in his Rafah home last week, 2 days after April 17th Palestinian Political Prisoners’ Day. Prison is a theme for all Palestinians living in occupied Palestine, whether they themselves have been abducted and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces, or whether someone in their family (a brother, father, son, daughter, mother) is being… Read More everyone knows a prisoner
April 20: As we drive through Khoza’a village, east of Khan Younis, en route to the border area (“buffer zone”) farmland we will accompany farmers onto, OJ narrates what happened to this village during Israel’s bloody war on Gaza. On January 12, Israel began to seriously work on Khoza’a, ramping up the shelling, shooting and… Read More Khoza’a after the destruction
Bassem Abu Rahme, white t-shirt, photo Active Stills I mourn the death of Bassem Abu Rahme, the 18th to be murdered, along with scores injured, while protesting against Israel’s illegal annexation Wall in the occupied West Bank. The death and injury toll at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces includes minors, countless local residents,… Read More Bassem Abu Rahme, killed in Bil’in protest against the Wall, rest peacefully
*6 fishermen from the Beit Lahia region who were abducted while fishing just 200m off of Gaza’s coast on March 19, their boats thieved, by Israeli naval soldiers patrolling less than 1 km from Gaza’s coast. In one of the latest acts of aggression against Palestinian fishermen fishing well-within their internationally-recognized legal limits of 20… Read More The words of fishermen under fire
*march 3, Sejah al Helo, her re-training herself to use her right arm after she was shot by Israeli soldiers during Israel’s 3 week war on Gaza. Sejah’s grandfather, baby sister, and elder brother were all killed. *April 8: a month later, Sejah is healthy and strong
After a PRCS (Palestinian Red Crescent Society) shift in Rafah, Anwar stops to show me a friend’s honey shop where the liquid gold flows pure, fresh from the comb, not tarnished by corn syrup mixings like jars of honey often seem to be here. Ahmed Zohrob has learned bee-keeping and honey processing from his father,… Read More honey
Mohammed told me of a family living in Jabaliya, on the outskirts of Beit Lahia. “They’re very poor,” he’d said. “Can you please just visit them.”
“White donkeys are better,” Hamsa said. Curious as to how colour might make a difference to performance I inquired. “They’re more beautiful,” he answered, explaining the obvious. But Hamsa did have practical information on what to look for in a donkey, or as it was, a horse. “Females are better. They bite and kick less… Read More Hamsa’s new horse
In Gaza 