I just got off the phone with different members of my family in Gaza. Their voices transported me into the midst of their terror and apprehension. What is happening in Gaza cannot be justified. It cannot be justified in a historical context, it cannot be justified in a political context, and it most definitely cannot be justified in any humanitarian context.

What is happening in Gaza is pure terror, albeit terror visited upon a destitute and imprisoned refugee population by the military might of the world’s fifth strongest army. It is the deliberate targeting of civilians, in their homes no less, or in the schools where they have taken refuge. Dozens of homes, mosques and several schools have been directly targeted by the Israeli army, killing and wounding hundreds at these sites. Israel claims, lies, that it was targeting Palestinian fighters in these areas. No proof has ever been given, and the steady stream of casualties into Gaza’s hospitals reveals only the twisted limbs and bloody, shattered corpses of civilians.

Israel’s paid and unpaid spokespeople peddle the lie that Palestinian fighters are storing and firing weapons from mosques and homes. Recently, they have been giving press to their claim, always unsubstantiated, that the Hamas leadership is hiding under hospitals. If Israel has used unsubstantiated claims to bomb civilians throughout its history, what guarantee can be given that Israeli F-16 fighter jets will not reduce Gaza’s hospitals to rubble?

That Israel is targeting civilians is unquestionable. The vast majority of the 697 Palestinians (six hundred and ninety seven human beings) killed in Gaza over the past 11 days have been civilians. That entire families (the Baloushas, the Abu Eishas, the Samounas, the Dayahs, and others) have been wiped out in their own homes is undeniable. That 120 civilian policemen were murdered in 5 minutes by targeted Israeli air strikes on December 27th is celebrated by Israel’s leadership. That 40 refugees-refugees twice over because they were taking refuge from the refugee camps-were murdered as they sheltered in a UN school, has been well documented.

That every single man, woman and child in Gaza has been living with the very real fear that they will be the next to be killed in their home is a fact. There have been few instances in history when such terror has encompassed an entire population, but it is happening in the prison that is the Gaza Strip.

I was listening to the radio when I heard my aunts husband, the doctor at al-Shifa, give an account of how severe the conditions had become. He maintained that the hospitals were still struggling with the massive influx of casualties, that medicines were scarce, that medical equipment was failing and breaking down and could not be serviced or maintained because of an Israeli ban on importing spare parts. He said the hospital has been trying to coordinate around the clock with international humanitarian organizations and the Red Cross to get urgently needed aid in and the wounded out, but Israel and Egypt have made it virtually impossible to get more than meager amounts into the besieged and bombarded territory. He said that, during the temporary ceasefire (more on that in the next paragraph) medical personnel had attempted to enter Gaza City from the south and been fired on by Israeli tanks.

Probably in response to the harsh rebukes it had received around the world yesterday for its massacre at the Fukhara school in Jabalya yesterday, the Israeli army announced today that it would start implemented a 3 hour ‘humanitarian ceasefire’ from 1PM to 4PM. Apparently, this is designed to get enough food into Gaza to keep people alive, so that they can die of bombs and tank shells instead. It is designed to be portrayed in the Western media as a sign of Israel’s intent to protect Palestinian civilians, but it was fooling precisely nobody here.

Five minutes after the ceasefire was supposed to have taken place, Israeli warplanes bombed five homes, completely destroying four in Rafah and one in Zatoun. An hour later, Israeli helicopters strafed wide areas of Beit Lahiya with machinegun fire.

Of course, we’ll be hearing the coming days how Palestinian fighters have no regard for the lives of their own people because they probably fire back at Israel during the ceasefires it imposes and violates.

After the horrors of yesterday, today started relatively calm in Gaza. I was woken by my phone ringing-it was my uncle Mohammad. He never called this early. I panicked. As soon as I picked up I blurted, ‘Has anything happened to anyone?’. He told me to calm down. He told him he had left the house to buy food, but only had Jordanian Dinars. He needed to exchange them but didn’t know the exchange rate. It was difficult to know with no power and all the banks closed. I laughed with relief, but I let him know that his call had scared the hell out of me. I gave him the exchange rate and hung up.

The day went on, as ever, with the TV blaring the latest news out of Gaza. Israeli ground forces had made an incursion into Khan Younis’ eastern area but pulled back. There was a lot of shelling in Rafah. The clashes were ongoing in Zatoun and Jabalya, where for the fifth day Israeli forces were having trouble breaking through the resistance.

As the sham of a ceasefire expired, Israeli helicopters, which had not left the skies, went back to launching missiles all over the Gaza Strip. Images of the latest casualties being brought in to al-Shifa in civilian cars were broadcast on the news channels, as they have been since this slaughter began. There is a reason most of the casualties do not arrive by ambulance. There are very few of them available, and they are being attacked by Israel too. The spokesman for Gaza’s hospital services, Muawia Hassanein, gave the latest statistics: in the last 11 days, Israel had killed 11 paramedics and medical workers, injured a further 22, and destroyed 4 ambulances.

But Israel doesn’t target civilians.

I called Gaza at around 10PM. My first call was to my uncle Mohammad, who was at his neighbor’s house. I asked him if he’d been able to exchange the money. He had, but at a much lower rate. He said he’d walked around looking for an open store until he had found one with some foodstuffs left. Lentils and salt. Egyptian. Smuggled through the tunnels at Rafah. Most of the food in Gaza is smuggled in from Egypt. And Israel has been bombing those tunnels.

I asked him if Gaza City was being bombed. He said its been calmer than the day before. There were very few air strikes at the time, but artillery and tank fire some distance away. I asked him about his wife, Areej, who had been hysterical the past couple of days and had seemed disoriented when I last talked to her. He told me she was calmer today, but that she wasn’t feeling well. I told him how she had sounded disoriented last night and he told me nobody could blame her. Everybody hears the bombs and missiles and feels they could be next. You’re just sitting, expecting to die. It was natural that the fear was getting to her. I told him I’d call her next, and for him to try to take advantage of the relative calm and sleep.

Areej was again the only one awake back at their apartment when I called. Her neighbor had come over to spend the night again, but everyone else had already gone to sleep. I asked her how the day had been, and she told me it was strange, it was calmer. There were still planes and helicopters in the sky all day, but they had bombed less. It seemed they were concentrating artillery fire on the east. She told me she had been calmer today. I let her know that her husband had mentioned she wasn’t feeling well. She said it was true, that she hadn’t slept at all last night and in the morning she had been to weak to stand up. She tol
d me the fear was smothering her, that she couldn’t deal with it anymore.

I asked her if she had been eating much. She said she wasn’t a heavy eater anyway, but that at meals all the neighbors in the building were sharing their cooking, helping make sure nobody went hungry. She said she had eaten alone today though, because her husband had found some macaroni and made it for her since she had been feeling so unwell. She told me he had given her the plate, then left. He barely stays in the apartment anymore. I told her it was hard on him being in there for long, that he feared for the kids as much as she did, but he probably couldn’t stand being around them and knowing he was helpless to protect them. She told me I was probably right. I asked her if she had used the lentils or salt he had bought. She told me she hadn’t even bothered to open the bag and see what was inside. It’s on the table where he left it, she said.

I asked her if her family in Khan Younis was okay. She told me they were so far, but they had been warned to get out of their homes because Israel was threatening to bomb the Hassan al-Banna mosque nearby, and the family home of a young man she had known when they were growing up as neighbors. He had been arrested years ago when he had crossed inside an illegal Israeli settlement that had been built inside Gaza. He was still in Israel’s prisons. And now they wanted to bomb his family’s home.

I asked next if they had any water. She told me they were using a generator to pump water into the tanks once a day. It was a meager amount, barely enough for washing dishes. She told me they hadn’t showered in a week.

I pleaded with her to try and sleep while things were relatively calm. She didn’t think she would. I promised to call in the morning.

I tried calling my cousin Mosab next. I had been trying for days to get through to him, but the lines were not working. I managed to get through tonight though. He told me they hadn’t had electricity for days, and his battery was about to run out. He gave me the house number to call instead.

I asked him if there was any bombing in his area. They live north of Gaza City, just to the south of Beit Lahiya and minutes away from the pristine Mediterranean Sea. He said for the past two days, the area was going through cycles of bombings and sudden calm. They had just bombed the al-Taqwa mosque, he told me. I told him he must be mistaken, it had been bombed in the morning. 5 children were killed. He said he knew already; this was a second attack.From what he told me next, their area seemed to be even more dangerous and terrifying than Gaza City.

There were no women and children in their area. All had been evacuated to the homes of relatives or friend deeper inside the city. He had been staying in the house with his dad and newly-wed brother, who had also sent his bride away. They had no electricity, and no water. The tanks were about a kilometer away. I was surprised. He told me Beit Lahiya was very open, made up mostly of fields. It was impossible to stop the tanks in that terrain. He said if the tanks began to move forward, they would have about ten minutes to escape. He told me three quarters of the houses from the main road to his home (the approximate distance to the tanks) were empty. I asked him how life had been the last few days.

They don’t go out much. People in the area gather together in the mornings to drink coffee, but people don’t linger. They were under continuous sniper fire, so people ducked and kept close to the walls when moving about during the day. He told me the sniper bullets were all over the streets (the streets in that area aren’t ‘streets’. They’re sandy alleyways). The only electricity was at the local mosque, which was being run by a generator. People go there to charge their mobile phones, or cook.

He went on. As soon as the sun went down, everybody went indoors. There was absolutely nothing moving. Even indoors, they tried not to move. His dad and brother were lying down, trying to sleep. They don’t go near the windows.

The whole area was silent.

He told me they wouldn’t even light an oil lamp. They were scared that the Israeli’s would shoot at the house (or worse) if they sensed any movement. If they needed light, they used a small candle, before turning it out. They barely talked amongst each other. He told me he was surprised he was talking to me so loudly.

He had been whispering the whole time.

I know Mosab. Nothing scares him, but in his voice tonight I heard true fear. It was unsettling, and disturbing. Their living conditions are despicable, unable to wash or walk around or even talk. They are ducking inside their own homes, and they know that if the tanks move forward, their neighborhood would be the target. I told him I’d call him tomorrow. He said he might go charge his phone at the mosque. I told him I’d keep trying if the lines were failing, and that I’d call the land-line at night. He asked me if I had any idea why people were getting random calls from overseas. They had been getting calls from people claiming to be from Algeria or Egypt. He asked me if I thought they were just trying to be supportive. I told him the calls seemed extremely suspicious. He agreed; the callers always asked if they had left their home, or about any activities going on around them, rather than offering words of support or solidarity. He said they had gotten three of those calls tonight. He hadn’t answered the questions the first time. The second time his dad had picked up and immediately hung up. And they hadn’t answered the third call.

They were prisoners in their own homes, and the guards were watching their every move. The conversation had left me shaken.

I called Khan Younis next. They were gathered at my uncle Mahmoud’s apartment. There was bombing all around but nobody could figure out exactly where. My uncle Jasim joked that they had had enough of a break the last two days, it was time to live the war again. He told me they had just gotten electricity and were watching TV coverage of the UN Security Council debate on Gaza. I told him not to hold his breath; there would be no ceasefire until Israel wanted one. I asked if anything was going on in Rafah. He said the entire Block O refugee camp, located right up on the Egyptian border, had been warned to evacuate. Israel was telling the residents that it would wipe out the refugee camp tomorrow, to ‘clear the tunnels’.

I talked to Mahmoud next. He sounded a bit more upbeat than usual, despite the bombs. His wife, whose brother had been amongst the 120 policemen killed on December 27th, was slowly getting back to normal, and it seemed to lift him too. His apartment was crowded, with Jasim and my grandmother and his brothers-in-law, who had been staying with him ever since the attacks began. Their home, like all the homes on Khan Younis’ eastern border, were empty. Mahmoud told me the Israelis were shelling that area continuously, and firing into the fields of the village of Abasan, also to the east.

He told me to talk to my grandmother. She was too scared to sleep. She told me there were bombs everywhere, and she could hear the planes in the sky. I told her it would all be over soon. But even if that were true, I wasn’t sure what kind of consolation it would be to a woman who had witnessed the nakba, had lived in a tent for years afterwards, had raised her children and grandchildren in the alleyways of an overcrowded refugee camp, and was still waiting to go back home.

And I think that sums it up. What is happening in Gaza today isn’t removed from what happened to Palestinians 60 years ago, when Zionist militias forces drove them from their lands to create Israel. In fact, it is, and will continue to be, the root cause of what happens in Gaza and the West Bank and the rest of Palestine. It is a fight for the fundamental human rights, a fight that over the years has taken many shapes and been waged in many places.

These days, it is being fought in Gaza. When the world-but especially Israel-understands that people cannot be made to forget their rights, that they will fight when they must, then Gaza and all the other oppressed ghettos in the world will be at peace. No matter how mighty your military is, you cannot crush the flame of liberty that burns in every soul.

Remember Gaza

Related posts:

1. Gaza: Fighting for liberty even if the price is death
2. Gaza: Where families die together
3. Gaza: raising us up from the terror
4. Gaza: 24 hours into the ground invasion
5. Gaza’s New Year doesn’t break from the last