No new year’s resolutions, just resoluteness
Friday, January 2nd 2009. The seventh day of one of the most asymmetrical wars in recent times: the state of Israel and its mighty army versus the besieged refugees of the Gaza Strip.
I was woken by a text message from a friend in America, who wanted to talk about some of things I’d written about my family and what they’re going through in Gaza. We talked for a while before I left for Friday prayers. The walk to the mosque is meant to be a peaceful, spiritual journey, but I could not stop thinking of how harrowing that journey has now become in Gaza, as the Israeli airforce has been destroying even mosques over the last week.
The prayers were longer than usual this week, as we prayed for our families and people in Gaza, and prayed for the souls of the more than 430 killed by Israel this week.
I went home and turned on the TV, and saw live pictures of a large demonstration in Manara Square in the center of Ramallah. Noting the large numbers, I decided to leave the house and head there. But on the way, I was shocked at what I saw. The streets were full of Palestinian Authority security forces, hundreds upon hundreds of them, clad in military fatigues, helmets, rifles, their faces hidden by black balaclavas. All around me as I walked, PA security in plainclothes milled about with their walkie talkies, taking note of who was present. I reached the square to find it almost empty. When I had left the house 10 minutes earlier, the TV had shown thousands of people crammed into the area. But now, there were barely 200 people in the square. The air was extremely tense, and a few protesters were trying to get the chanting going again, but it was obvious something had just happened.
It turned out the PA police and their plain clothes colleagues had beaten and arrested tens of young men and teenagers who had somehow made their affiliation with Hamas known. I saw a woman, close to tears, screaming at a plainly clothed officer that she had seen him take her son away. He told her to get lost, and the woman’s husband held his wife back and tried to comfort her. As the woman was led away by friends and family members, the husband calmly walked up to the young officer, who cannot have been more than 21, 22 years old, and told him that if anything were to happen to his son, he knew it would be on his hands.
The son, it turned out, was still in high school, but the father knew that should anything indeed happen to him, there was no way to hold the plainly clothed officer accountable. The policy he was implementing had come from the very top, in an official statement by the illegal, appointed Fayyad government earlier this week.
I was enraged. In Malaysia, Pakistan, Australia, Afghanistan, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, the UK, Ireland, Spain, the United States, South Africa and Kenya, hundreds of thousands of people were taking to the streets, demonstrating against the inhumane slaughter of the people of Gaza. Yet in Ramallah, we were not allowed to freely express our views, our solidarity with our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends in Gaza, our anger at the occupation. As the protest petered out, a group of 50 or so young men and women began marching down the street. As they walked, a Palestinian police car turned into the street, and the men and women scattered in fear. This kind of fear amongst peaceful, nonviolent protesters had previously only been witnessed at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces. It was disgusting. I kept thinking that it was our people being massacred, but our so-called leaders were demanding that we sit on our hands.
I turned to walk home when I stopped by a member of Abbas’ American-funded and Jordanian-trained Presidential Guard. He asked me where the protesters were planning to go. I told him I don’t know and walked away. I was taking the long way back home, and everywhere I went I saw those black-clad security men. My anger continued to build. I was sick of it; I was sick of the way the Palestinian Authority had now decided to take its alliance with Israel against the Palestinian people into the open in such a brash, open way. Five minutes from home, I was stopped outside the Muqata’a gates by another member of the Presidential Guard. He demanded I show him what was in my hand. It was a kuffiyeh. I had worn it when I left as a scarf against the cold, but it had warmed up and I’d been holding it in my hand while I walked.
At this point, my anger boiled over. I asked him what he wanted with a kuffiyeh. He said he wanted me to open it up so he could see what was inside it. I unfolded it and held it out so he could see there was nothing in it, but he made a move to grab it. I snatched it back and he began screaming at me. I started screaming back, asking why even holding a kuffiyeh had now become a source of suspicion. He shoved me against the wall and a patrol car screamed to a halt in front of us. About 6 Presidential Guards got out and rushed towards me. I figured the one that arrived first was in charge, so I changed my tone and tried to explain what was happening. I was cut off by another of the arrivals, who forcefully told me to answer him in a respectful tone. I told him I was trying to, but he cut me off again and asked what had happened. I told him I was asked to open my my kuffiyah and when I did the guard had tried to take it away.
He screamed at me asking me if I didn’t like doing as I was told, I didn’t answer but stared right back. He screamed three more times asking if I didn’t like doing what I was ordered. I refused to answer him and continued to hold his gaze. He screamed that he’d make me like it and ordered them to take me inside the Moqata’a. One of the guards told him there was no big deal, and a couple of bystanders tried to calm the situation, but he continued screaming, saying that I needed to be taught to respect the ’soldiers’. It is ironic that they consider themselves soldiers. They are occupied by a real army, but only use their force and weapons on their own people. The first guard grabbed my arm and marched me to the gate, but I shook him off and said I was walking, I didn’t need to be dragged. The screaming guard told them to smash my face in until I learned some respect.
I was taken inside and told to line up faced against a wall. The first guard began calling a sergeant, yelling at me whenever they saw me move. The guard who had tried to calm his colleagues came up to me and said I could sit on a chair if I wanted, so I did, much so to the annoyance of the first guard. Eventually the sergeant arrived, a heavy set older man, who asked me what had happened. His voice was calm, so I responded, calmly, by telling him that the guard had tried to snatch my kuffiyah even after I had shown him it was empty. The guard interrupted, screaming that I had been holding it like a pistol. The sergeant asked me to show him how I was holding it, and I folded it in a triangle, the way I usually fold it.
He asked for my ID, but I told him I didn’t have one because I had been living overseas for most of my life. He asked for my name, which I gave him, but when he asked for my work I told him I was unemployed. He asked me which university I had attended, when the first guard interrupted again, screaming that I needed to be taught a lesson, that I had been walking down the street acting like I was mad. I told him I was mad, that while he might not have noticed, there is a massacre going on in Gaza, that people do care, and that I had family there.
As soon as I mentioned that I had family there, another guard suddenly became interested in the conversation. He asked me how many members of my family live in Gaza, and who I was living with here. He wanted to know what my family members in Gaza did for a living. They were trying to find a connection to Hamas. Their stupidity is astounding, for they believe that the only people who can dissent against the PA or have solidarity with Gaza are Hamas me
mbers and supporters.
The sergeant walked away to make some calls, trying to figure out who I was. The first guard saw his chance and made me stand facing the wall again, and when I stepped to the side he rushed up to me and began shoving me back. Eventually the sergeant walked up to me and told me that, in the future, I shouldn’t lose my temper. I began to thank him for dealing with the situation when he slipped his hand around my waist, checking for guns. Finding none, he let me go.
I could have avoided the incident had I kept my cool. But I think that is our problem in Ramallah. We’re too passive, too willing to maintain the rotten status quo. We have let Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts lead us to nowhere, infinitely waiting for his ‘negotiations’ with Israel to bear fruit even as Israel continues to kill, maim, arrest, colonize and deny our freedoms. The PA, and particularly its security forces, are doing all they can to ensure that we remain ‘behaved’ so that Israel might deem us worthy of our human rights. Actually, those who control the PA know this is not realistic, but they have managed to convince many people otherwise. However, in order to remain in power, they know they must operate primarily as the occupation’s security subcontractor.
The first and second intifada’s interrupted because of the hopelessness and rage against the Israeli occupation. But Mahmoud Abbas has managed, more than Yasser Arafat, to place the PA as a wedge between the Palestinian people and their Israeli occupiers. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to convince Palestinians to rise up against their rotten leaders, no matter how openly they collaborate with Israel. The longer the PA continues in its role as security subcontractor, the more legitimacy the occupation will gain.
In Gaza though, the leadership (which nevertheless has many, many faults) does not collaborate with Israel. And in Gaza, more than 430 people, a stunning figure, have been killed by Israel over the past seven days, with more than 2,200 others injured. Today was calmer than recent days, with less air strikes. To demonstrate just how heavy the bombardment has been this week, today’s relative calm included more than 50 different attacks.
Amongst the targets today: The Taqwa mosque in Khan Younis, The Ali mosque in Gaza City, Beit Hanoun’s central mosque, a vocational college in Gaza City. The bulk of the bombing, however, was concentrated on open spaces on the eastern and southern borders, where the type of missiles dropped penetrate into the ground before exploding. Their aim seems to be to destroy any tunnels that might be used by the resistance in the event of a ground invasion.
As I was sitting down for dinner at my aunts house, breaking news came over the Arabic channels that a house had been bombed in Khan Younis, killing three children of the same family. I immediately picked up the phone and called my uncle Mahmoud, but the call would not go through. I tried my uncle Jasim and the same thing happened. I began to worry, calling back and forth to no avail. I called my uncle Mohammad in Gaza City and told him what happened, and he said he’d try to call and see who had been hit. Eventually, Mahmoud’s phone rang, and he picked up. Relieved, I asked him whose house had been bombed. He told me it wasn’t a house. Just to the east of Khan Younis, some children were playing in the street when an F-16 missile landed amongst them. They had seemingly been targeted. Three boys of the Al-Astal family were killed-two brothers and a cousin.
That night an American radio station asked me if they could interview Tarek, my aunts husband, a doctor at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, which had become a disaster zone. I called him and woke him up again. The doctors have been working around the clock in the hospitals to tend to the wounded and try to save the dying, and only get a few hours each day to sleep. I talked to my aunt instead.
She told me that even though the bombing had slightly eased up today, the sky was still full of helicopters and spy planes. They had no power, and were all getting ready to sleep in one room. I asked her how morale was and she told me, defiantly, that people’s morale was very high, that they were now trying to get on with life in this new reality. It’s stunning how quickly Gazans have learned to pick themselves up and go on with life, no matter the circumstances. I asked her what they had eaten today and she said they’d had some cabbage. We have no cooking gas, she says, so we use kerosene burners. She said that when Israel had completely stopped the entry of cooking gas into Gaza three months ago, a large amount of antiquated kerosene burners had been smuggled in from Egypt and many people had bought them. The only other choice was to burn wood, or even trash, and cook over the fire. She told me that she sometimes felt like she was in the beginning of the last century. When the power goes out, they only light they have comes from an oil lamp, and when that runs out they rely on candlelight. She said that despite that, people learn to make do and get by.
She told me about how destructive the missiles were, particularly the ones launched by the F-16s. She said people had taken to calling the bombs and missiles launched from the Israeli navy ‘Silly Missiles’, because they didn’t cause the amount of destruction the people had gotten used to from the F-16s. Suddenly she laughed. “Mohammad, do you realize its already January 2nd? I hadn’t even realized its a new year!”
But she told me that, while morale was high, I shouldn’t think that there was no fear. She worries the most for her sons, who tend to go out during the day. A missile had landed in the neighborhood and showered it with shrapnel, narrowly avoiding her oldest son. The fear, she said, never disappeared, as the bombs have been landing everywhere, but people were determined to get on with their lives as much as possible. I talked to her 13 year old, Mustafa, who told me that when the neighborhood had power for a few hours in the afternoon, the local internet cafe had opened and he had gone there with his friends to play videogames. We were playing inside and the missiles were flying over outside, he said.
It was very interesting talking to Mustafa. Despite being only 13, he spoke with the calmness and clarity of somebody much older. He told me he was thankful for what he had, despite the horrors around him, and that he was confident that Israel could not defeat the people of Gaza. As his mother told me later, the children of Gaza have become much older than their ages.
I talked to my uncle Mohammad next, who was also getting ready to sleep. As usual despite the bitter cold, the windows remained open to prevent them from being blown out by any of the missiles. He told me today had been better than the other days, that very few buildings had been hit, just the three mosques and the vocational college. His wife had just earned a diploma from that college this summer.
I could hear the helicopters buzzing outside his windows, louder than usual, and he said that even though the bombing hadn’t been quite as heavy as before, the skies were packed with aircraft from the Israeli Air Force. I asked him about his kids. They’d just gone to sleep he said. His oldest son, Adham, had been sitting with him all day and wouldn’t leave. When he tried telling the boy to go sleep, Adham had teared up, not wanting to sleep away from his dad.
I told him if the concentrated bombings on open areas in the east and the allowing of 450 foreign passport holders to leave Gaza meant that a ground invasion was now imminent. He told me there were still thousands of foreigners trapped in Gaza, and that he doubts there would be a full scale invasion. The Israeli leadership had stated that any incursions would be small and limited, but featuring large numbers of soldiers. He again reiterated the point that many know is true: assuming Israel was to re-invade Gaza, what would it do next? Isra
el is not going to go back to dominating Gaza from the inside, it is too costly politically and too dangerous militarily.He said he truly believed, that despite the ever-present war planes, Israel could not stop Gaza from fighting. He said all he wanted was for calm, to try and raise his kids in some semblance of normality. I asked him about Haya and Dina, his youngest daughters, who have both been traumatized by the last seven days. He told me they were better today mostly, except when a nearby target had been hit and they had gotten hysterical at the sound of the blast and shaking.I cannot imagine what it must be like, as a parent, to see your young children suffering from this trauma and know very well that they may be affected by it for a long time, yet be helpless to put an end to it.
We talked for a bit longer about the possibility of a ground invasion, then I told him to get some sleep and that I would call him tomorrow.
I called my uncle Mahmoud in Khan Younis next, who was taking advantage of having electricity to watch some TV. He said he was watching Aljazeera Mubasher, which was broadcasting a live session of Bedouin poetry on Gaza featuring poets from across the Gulf. He laughed, saying that although it sounded really good he could barely understand a quarter of what they were saying due to their heavy accents. He said the power had just come back an hour ago, that it had first come on at round 5 before going out again at 6, then coming back at 8 before going out at 10. Again, more than any other night before, I could hear the helicopters and drones buzzing outside and above.
I asked him about Hanan, his youngest daughter who had been refusing to sleep for fear she might die in an air strike. He said she had managed to sleep today, but only after the drone that had been buzzing overhead all day had left the area. Hanan announced to her family that the plane had gone to sleep, so she would too.
As for the other kids, he wasn’t letting them leave the house. He knew the pressure was getting to them, it was getting to him. He said he doesn’t even tell them to study anymore because he knows they just can’t. He says he can’t even bring himself to open a book, so he knows the kids can’t either. I asked him if his wife was dealing better with the death of her brother. He said he’d be lying if he told me she was. He told me it would probably take a long time before she could be herself again. Her other brothers were, as they had been all week, staying with them, because their house near the eastern border was too dangerous to stay in.
As we were talking about Israel’s apparent failure to make much of a dent in Gaza’s morale or will to resist, he told me that a missile had just been launched. As he finished his sentence, I heard thundering whoosh as the missile flew directly over the house. In moments like these, I find myself unable to understand the fear and terror these attacks sow into people, young and old alike. As it passes overhead, you realize someone, something, is about to be destroyed, that the hundreds of pounds of metal and explosives are screaming towards some predetermined target, with the goal of complete destruction. Just as the missile flew overhead, the power went out again, and did not return.
The missile hadn’t been launched from the west, it was launched from either over the shore or from out at sea, but did not land nearby. It seemed to have landed on Khan Younis’ eastern outskirts. I told Mahmoud I would call him back tomorrow.
My last call was to my uncle Jasim, who began telling me about the missile as soon as he picked up. I told him I had just heard it, and asked if he knew what the target was. He said the radio hadn’t reported it yet, but that news would come through soon.
I asked him if he had gone to Friday prayers, after we had both agreed yesterday that since Gaza was having a war waged against it, the requirement to attend the prayers would probably be dropped. He said that he had decided to risk it and go, but that the whole thing had taken less than 15 minutes when it would usually have taken an hour at least. People were definitely aware of the danger of having mosques bombed, and wanted to get back home as soon as possible.
As I was responding, news of the missile strike was broadcast over the radio, which announced that a small room built off the side of one of Khan Younis’ main streets had been the target. He said he couldn’t believe they’d use an F-16 missile to destroy one room. I asked him what it was used for and he said it had probably been the last remaining police property in Gaza. It was used by police patrols as a resting room between shifts.
I asked him if the police were still off the streets following their targeting on Saturday, but he said they had been out for a few days now, regulating traffic, trying to maintain law and order, making sure those shopkeepers who did open their stores were not inflating prices. They are carrying out all their work, however, in plain clothes, because since Saturday Israeli planes had targeted any policemen in their uniforms. It is nothing short of amazing to me how so many people in Gaza accept death and injury as a normal part of daily life and do their best to keep living through the risk. Whether it is worshippers at a mosque, children playing in the street, shopkeepers, policemen, electricians or many others, everybody tries, in their own way, to keep living where Israel wants them to die.
There is fear in Gaza, yes. There is terror and there is worry and the living conditions are extremely difficult. There is minimal electricity, there is a shortage of medicines, there is little fuel. There are bombs and missiles and war planes and they never stop-never stop bombing, never stop buzzing, never stop killing. But the people of Gaza go on. They remain resolute. They remain confident Israel cannot do what it has set out to do. In bombed out neighborhoods, they go on with what they can of their lives. On Saturday, Israel murdered 120 Palestinian policemen in 5 minutes. Today, their colleagues are working their shifts from temporary offices, in plain clothes, under extraordinary conditions, by trying to maintain a sense of order for the people.
13 year old boys try to do what 13 year old boys do; play video games, even if the bombs and killing on the screen is mimicked just outside.
And parents do what parents do; try to take care of their kids. But raising the next generation of Palestinians in Gaza might be the most difficult challenge of all. The fear they have endured, the siege and malnutrition and constant warfare they have grown up in, will have a devastating impact on their well being and psyche. The one thing I know that they will inherit, however, is their parents’, and their grandparents’, resoluteness. In Gaza, there is no other way.
Remember Gaza.
