Eyewitness in Gaza: 1

Two weeks ago, a good friend of mine moved back to her hometown of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Palestine in order to implement a sustainable development project that she, along with Save Gaza, designed to assist the hardest hit of Israel's illegal military occupaton. With permission, I'd like to share with the KABOBcommunity an email that I received from her two days ago:

Dear all,

I hope you are all well. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and kind emails. I apologize for not writing sooner. Access to the internet has not been as easy as I expected. For the first couple of days I was here I was able to pick up the internet on my laptop through a wireless connection, but factions between hamas and fatah has gotten worse in the past ten days and the internet and phone networks go down. Not sure what the connection is or why. It's also been hard to find a space to gather my thoughts. It definitely feels like there is a Palestinian occupation, not a civil war; from an Israeli occupation to a Palestinian occupation of the people, and as much as I dislike saying this, its hard not to feel like it is. I say this because of the nature of the so called fighting between Hamas and Fatah. There's definitely been moments where I felt like I was in the horn or Africa, or Liberia with militias controlling and policing the streets without any mercy.

After dark is when it begins and they come out with their machine guns and tell everyone to get in their houses. The scary ones are the ones who wear all black and wrap their faces so you cant see their faces and have rockets in their hands. They're the ones that monitor the streets. And if you are coming home from somewhere in a taxi, the taxi is stopped, headlights are asked to be turned off (like the Israelis used to do), questions are asked and then they let us go. And during all this, there is a machine gun in our faces. In some cases, they tell the passengers to get out of the car and they take it, whether its a taxi or a personal car. So it's understood that there is now a curfew; people are in their homes, and Hamas and Fatah go at it with their guns and rockets in the streets all night. They start at 7:30 pm and continue until the call to prayer in the morning. I say Palestinian occupation because people are scared and aren't free. There are kidnappings; shootings at women and children, and in a couple of cases militants used children as shields so they can move from one house to another. Hamas and Fatah take a hold of the streets of Rafah and control our movement and stand at every street corner to make sure no one gets out. Just last night, they went on peoples' roves uninvited so they can shoot at each other. Israeli soldiers used to do this all the time; occupy someone's house and use it to set up shop so they can get a better aim to shoot from. I cant even tell them apart anymore, whether its Hamas or Fatah roaming the streets.

And all this fighting for what….for political power….not for the people of Palestine….not for the right of return, and not for the ending of the Israeli occupation. And while this is happening in the middle of Rafah, there is an Israeli invasion of Sofa (area in Rafah that borders Israel), where 30 olive trees and 5 homes have been demolished, 10 of the olive trees being ours. I haven't been there to see them yet, as its been hard to find a taxi that will go there because of the Israelis going in and out of Sofa.

Aside from all this, I'm doing very well, and still very glad to be here. More and more everyday I realize the importance of being in Gaza. People here feel forgotten, and most certainly unrepresented, and have gone beyond hopeless. I think whats worst is that most people have gotten comfortable with their situation. In just talking with local organizations in rafah, the blame is on the international community and in their efforts. There is no investment in Gaza; money does not actually enter gaza, but food aid and medical supplies do. One man I met with even went as far to say that international aid was the worst thing that happened to gaza because during the intifada people had no handouts, so they organized, they worked, they built their own sustainable projects. Now the international community gives us floor and sugar so can fill our stomachs and forget about the occupation and organizing ourselves, so people have gotten comfortable with just the handouts. If you don't work, you can get food aid; if you cant afford tomatoes, UNRWA gives it to you, so you don't need to garden and grow it yourself. I don't know, maybe Gazans are just tired, but its hard not to believe him. We did it to Africa, conspired against the Africans, and kept Africa right where we want it, so why not Palestine. We have to rethink our strategies and shift our activism....especially now that there is an reoccupation of Gaza.

I'm sorry for the long email, just wanted to share some of my thoughts. I have more to tell everyone, especially about the border, but I'll save that for another email. Internet is really poor here. Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Love and miss you all.

Yasmine

Apparently we have another disturbing and illegal military occupation on our hands. If you'd like to help, please donate to Save Gaza.