It is quite easy, against the backdrop of carnage and death unleashed on the Gaza Strip over the past month, to forget just how tough and how desperate life has been in Gaza for years. From the nakba in 1948 that saw Gaza’s population explode overnight with the influx of refugees that have never been allowed to return, to the occupation in 1967, the closure policy imposed in 1992 and the total siege that began in 2006, Gaza’s population, along with that of the refugees in Lebanon, has always been the most punished and the most oppressed amongst Palestinians.
Anybody who has visited Gaza, no matter how briefly, can attest to that fact. The experience makes the reaction of the oppressed population towards Israel not just understandable, but reasonable. Devoid of any freedom of movement, any freedom of business, any freedom to control their own destinies, the people of Gaza have an amazing resilience that should not taken by the rest of us as an excuse to forget their very real suffering.
My uncle Mohammad had left my grandparent’s house in the Khan Younis refugee camp after two days of rest and taken his family back to their decimated apartment in Tal al-Hawa. He sounded despondent, quietly despairing. The apartment was habitable-as a shelter, not as a home. The windows were all blown out, but no glass is allowed into the entire Gaza Strip, so flimsy plastic sheets are used to keep out the harsh winter cold.
They had managed to get the main door up on its hinges, but there is no wood to replace the damaged ones inside. There is no electricity, therefore no running water can be pumped into the tanks unless they manage to borrow a generator. The electricity company says it might be able to get them back on the grid in a few days. That might mean things going back to normal-back to having electricity for six random hours a day.
The street outside is completely destroyed after the tanks had their way with it. Cars cannot enter, the tarmac is torn up, the pavement pulverized. Mud is mixed with concrete and sewage from the burst pipes. The schools are starting tomorrow. His kids go to UNRWA schools. Tomorrow will be the first day of the new semester. Mid-year exams have been cancelled, and teachers given strict instructions to not appear agitated or angry in class. Because Gaza’s schools are so heavily crowded, students attend in two shifts: the morning shift, from 8-12, and the afternoon shift, from 12-4. My uncle’s kids switch to the afternoon shift this semester.
His 5 year old, Haya, didn’t want to go back to school. He had taken them out today to see the schools, and hers had been hit by three missiles. Haya’s school is also located next to one of the police stations that was bombed during the first few minutes of the war during the middle of classes. Her dad had rushed to pick her up and found her screaming and trembling. He was one of the first parents on the scene and the children had clung to him, an adult to comfort them in their terror.
Today, she had been crying and refusing to go back, but he had managed to calm her down by saying he would go with her. He told me he doesn’t know what she will do when he leaves at the gate.
Last night, he had heard his four year old, Dina, talking from the other room. He thought she was talking to her sister and went in to see why they weren’t asleep yet. They weren’t awake-Dina was having a loud nightmare, talking to herself, repeating the same words: Missile. Bomb. And then whimpering.
I asked him about work. He is meant to go back to the bank on Sunday, but he doesn’t know if he will be able to. He told me sometimes he just feels like quitting and sitting at home. He has wanted a career change for years, but he knows he is lucky to even have a job in Gaza. There is no hope for the future, he told me. You can’t plan to improve, to get better, because everything is limited. There is no way out, nothing comes in, there is no chance for improvement. You want to give your kids a better life than the one you had, but no matter what you do everything gets worse.
I told him how much I wished I could get them all out of Gaza to see the world, anything outside Gaza. Maybe, hopefully, someday the borders –the prison gates- will open. He told me that even if they opened tomorrow, they still couldn’t leave. Their passports, like those of tens of thousands of Gazans, were being held by Mahmoud Abbas’ authority in Ramallah. His voice got more forceful. We know who Israel is and how it has always treated us, he fumed, but why do Ramallah and Egypt treat us like this? Why does Egypt keep the border closed? Why does it ban food and supplies? Why is it banning doctors from entering Gaza again? Why does it interrogate the wounded in maimed in its hospitals?
He told me of a friend that had told him, “Abu Adham, I don’t want to live past forty. After that, there is nothing for us.” The man was killed in the war. He never reached forty.
He said he had absolutely no desire to put on a suit and tie on Sunday and go back to work. Who am I wearing a suit for? Do you know how stupid it feels to wear a suit and tie and walk through a destroyed neighborhood, with the streets smashed up and the houses demolished and smell of death everywhere? It just feels wrong.
The worst part of this, he said, isn’t the physical imprisonment. Yes, 1.5 million people are literally caged in, not allowed to travel, to escape, to leave, to export, to import, to use electricity or gas or water normally, to receive necessary medical care. But the worst part is the psychological imprisonment, knowing that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can never have a normal life. Your life is in the hands of the occupier.
This is Gaza. This isn’t Gaza now, or Gaza after the war. This is Gaza, this has been Gaza for decades. This is where, after caging the population in for years, one of the most advanced armies in the world will pulverize the besieged, impoverished, imprisoned civilians with its full might, leaving 50,000 homeless, 5,000 injured and 1,300 dead in 23 days. This is where international law is turned into a mockery, where human life is a numb statistic, where children learn, all by themselves, that the world doesn’t care about them.
This is where you are born with no future, where you lie to yourself to experience hope, only to be cruelly reminded of the harsh truth time and time again. This is where you grow up and play and sleep and cry and laugh and breathe and die in a prison, surrounded by warplanes in the sky, warships in the sea and tanks on the border. This is where you will do your best just to survive, and find yourself only being forced backwards.
I told my uncle to try to sleep, to get some rest. He told me he’d been sleepy for a long time. With no electricity, everything is dark by sundown.
In Gaza, everyday they live the longest night.
Remember Gaza.
Related posts:
- Gaza: Indefatigable Resilience
- Gaza: What is there to say?
- Gaza: the fight to keep the flame of liberty alight
- Gaza: Recovering, but not rebuilding
- Gaza: 24 hours into the ground invasion
“The worst part of this, he said, isn’t the physical imprisonment. Yes, 1.5 million people are literally caged in, not allowed to travel, to escape, to leave, to export, to import, to use electricity or gas or water normally, to receive necessary medical care. But the worst part is the psychological imprisonment, knowing that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can never have a normal life. Your life is in the hands of the occupier.”
Powerful, and to me thats the worst injustice of them all.
Posted by Arayus | January 23, 2009, 6:05 pmIt’s a shame the little ones have to go through such nightmares. I hope your cousins feel better going to back to school. It’ll be tough, but hopefully, sharing this experience with others who went throug the whole ordeal will allow them to move forward. Thanks for your update.
Posted by SouthAsianReader | January 23, 2009, 6:07 pmYou just don’t remember how things were before the first intifada. Ask your grandmother. Gaza and Israel were practically one economic unit. Israelis visited Gaza often and Gazans were free to go to Israel. You had the one state solution then. Till 1987, things were much better than under the Egyptians who you forgot to mention were the occupiers till 67.
You speak of dignity in facing the occupation. This post of yours shows there is no dignity, only hopelessness. Cut your losses now. Accept any two state solution. It is better than what you have now.
Posted by Anonymous | January 23, 2009, 7:11 pm“Gaza and Israel were practically one economic unit. Israelis visited Gaza often and Gazans were free to go to Israel. You had the one state solution then.”
That was apartheid, where one group exploited another.
“Accept any two state solution. It is better than what you have now.”
Tell that to Black South Africans who refused to accept the bantustanization of their lands.
Why cant Israel just end the occupation and lift the blockade? Why do the Palestinians who are already willing to give up 78% of their homeland (Hamas included) asked to give up even more?
Posted by Arayus | January 23, 2009, 8:04 pmyou’re the man
Posted by Kalash | January 23, 2009, 10:08 pmYou have no homeland. You lose every war you start. That voids your right. You can't just keep losing war and expect to keep your home. I'm not jewish or isrealy. I am Serbian. I don't know how can can stand having to deal with you all the time. Any otehr people would just thrown you all out. If you were fighting Serbs we would not have this weakness.
Posted by Anonymous | January 24, 2009, 4:04 pm