But there’s a difference between being homeless and not having a homeland. For the first time in the cup’s eight-year history, there’s a team for Palestine, made up of players from refugee camps in Lebanon.

GREENSPAN: The Palestinian team is a pack of darting, weaving limbs that keeps the ball flying from end to end. Their opponent in this game is Hong Kong with a tightly woven defense that keeps the ball from getting too close. Palestine takes its time, passing the ball back and forth, looking for an opening, and then…

GREENSPAN: …they score. Ismael Mashaal plays striker for the Palestinian team. He has no job waiting for him back home.

Mr. ISMAEL MASHAAL: I’m still a student, study, but when I finish my study, I can’t work in Lebanon. When I finish my study, I have to find another country, like United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, USA. It’s difficult because I’m Palestinian.

GREENSPAN: For Mashaal’s team, the competition is about putting Palestine on the map, figuratively, if not literally. Back on the soccer pitch, the Palestinian team wins this game, beating out Hong Kong 8-2.

After shaking hands and hugging the players from Hong Kong, the teammates kneel and press their foreheads on the turf in a brief moment of thanks.

In Cuba, economic immigrants form the eastern part of the country to Havana, who often live raggedy slums resembling refugee camps are called “Palestinos”.  It is somewhat derogatory now, but one can guess how the name came about. Yes, there is a difference between being homeless and having no home, or homeland, but it may be a lot smaller than it appears.

By Mahmoud El-Yousseph
February 23, 2010

Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon face a very uncertain future. They deserve better. When Palestinians were kicked out of their homeland at gun point in 1948, some found a safe haven in Lebanon, where they were received with an open arms. Lebanese provided them shelters, food and other life essentials years before the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) took over. For that I am grateful, because I was born in one those 12 refugee camps 59 years ago.

Over six decades later, these refugees who constitute 17% of the total Palestinian population, continue to live in camps awaiting the right of return to their original homeland in Palestine. Until then, they have nowhere to go. Since most of the 450,000 refugees currently living in Lebanon (ten percent of Lebanon’s population) were born and raised there, why not grant them the basic civil rights enjoyed by their Lebanese counterparts and the rest of the world? With that I mean give them the right to work, own property and the right to medical benefits and social services.

Nawal Assadi is a young Palestinian writer who lives in Lebanon and writes extensively about the suffering of the refugees. In one of her articles she mentioned the story of Salah, who is a father of six children and unable to work for a medical reason. He relies on fishing to provide for his family, but that only nets him enough income for one meal per day to feed eight people. And if he is caught fishing, he has to pay a $1000 dollars fine.

Miss Assadi also met a family who lives only on deep fried potatoes [French Fries], never tasted fruits, and fresh vegetables are not part of their diet. Another heartwrenching story is about an elderly Palestinian living in a camp near Beirut who has to rely on the good will of others to survive and has no clue where her next meal is coming from.

Another heartbreaking story of mistreatment happened several years ago when a Lebanese-born Palestinian refugee was was refused entry at Beirut airport because of some trumped-up problem with his documents by Lebanese authorities; he could see his mother through the glass partition but had to turn back to Bahrain without being able to visit.

Late last year, my niece Nadia’s husband Mohammad, who works at a dairy processing factory, was picked up at a checkpoint as a result of mistaken identity. His family was forced to pay 2000 dollars in legal fees to prove his innocence. He was kept in jail for nearly 5 months. He is a father of five and the only bread winner. Mohammad told his wife who visited him weekly not to bring his children along, as he did not want them to see him behind bars. As a condition of his release, his wife has to come up with $1000 bond, which she had to borrow. Talk about coercion and embezzlement!

Generally speaking, Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon are not much better off than their counterparts living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank or under siege in Gaza. Their life is a sad chapter full of sorrow. They are denied basic civil and human rights and their movement is restricted. In fact, they are caged inside the twelve camps like animals with armed guards at the gate.

American researcher Franklin Lamb, along with several non-governmental organizations are trying to generate awareness and pressure Lebanon to grant Palestinian refugees their basic civil rights. Mr. Lamb, a leading expert on the Palestinian issue, recently published a letter arguing for the need such rights. After all, the U.S. government has given the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) a written guarantee in 1982 that Palestinian civilian refugees in Lebanon would be protected if they withdrew their fighters from Beirut following the Israeli siege of the Lebanese capital.

No one puts more smiles on the faces of Palestinian children in Lebanon and in other refugee camps throughout the Middle East than Susan Abulhawa. Abulhawa, who is a resident of Philadelphia, is the founder of Playground for Palestine. For the last serveral years, she has been busy building playgrounds in every Palestinian refugee camp. Abulhawa is the author of the book,The Scar of David.

As of late January, a three-member team of volunteers sent from the USA by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (www.pcrf.net) visited Lebanon to provide hundreds of Palestinian refugees highly specialized wheelchairs at no cost that were otherwise not available to them locally. The chairs were shipped by the PCRF in cooperation with ANERA and Hope Haven International Ministries, both of which the PCRF has partnered with in the past to help handicapped children in the Middle East. The team included Greg Skolaski, Tom Glumac and his son Michael, all three of whom have worked with the PCRF in the past in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syria. Throughout the country the PCRF cooperated with several Palestinian and international NGOs to ensure that each person got the proper chair to fit their needs.

Finally, the aforementioned stories of abuse and mistreatment of Palestinians are used by Zionists to counter critics of Israeli policies. For instance, how can the government of Lebanon or Egypt demand Israel comply with U.N. Resolution 194 granting the right of return, but at the same time deny Palestinian refugees living in their countries very basic human and civil rights. Case in point is the traitorous regime in Egypt who is currently aiding Israel in starving Palestinians to death in Gaza.These governments serve one master, and we know who that is.

That said, it would be unfair not to recognize and honor the Lebanese family who employs my niece Nadia’s husband. As of this writing, I have learned from my older brother, Nimer, that the “Koju family” has rehired Mohammad upon his release. Not only that, they provided his wife and children all of his lost income during his wrongful imprisonment. That act of compassion and generosity is what gives me hope that one day, the Palestinians I left behind in Lebanon in 1971 will soon have the same rights and freedom that my family and I enjoy in the USA.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Retired USAF Veteran
Feedback: elyousseph6@yahoo.com

New sources confirm that nearly 80 female students have been transferred to the local Nassir hospital in Khan Younis (South of Gaza City), as a result of food poisoning. The all-female elementary and junior high school has 500 students enrolled, of which 80 suffered the illness. As the report confirms, the food was donated by a relief organization that has yet to be named.

According to one comment on a news article, the food poisoning was mostly minor and most students have already left the hospital.

According to the hospital director, Dr. Yousef Abu Al-rish, it was the result of bad food, and not juice, as some earlier rumors indicated.

This shows that in life you get what you pay for. And in the Palestinian case, dependence on external aid is poisoning our society, as badly as it does our kids’ stomachs. It is making us sick, yet it is a dependency built into the Israeli occupation, American foreign policy, and the international institutions and NGOs who pay the costs of this deadly occupation.

While many aid groups have good intents, no doubt, the net effect is the continued downward spiral of life in Palestine.

A news story on Al-Arabiya, reports the emergence of a new trend in Gaza weddings. As a result of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the full and the partial destruction of many homes in the Strip, a large number of Palestinian families have been residing in tents provided by various NGOs. According to the article, the young men and women of Gaza who have lost their homes are not backing down on their marriage plans and opting out to spend their honeymoons in tents. The tents are provided by wealthy Arab donors from the Gulf, notorious for their own appetite for marriages.

Ahmad Darwish El-Harish, a 23 year-old Gazan is one of those tent honeymooners. His fiancé, Iman, approved the idea of substituting an apartment with a tent which they now call their little love shack. Ahmad had an apartment adjacent to the Nizar Ryan, the Hamas figure that Israel sent to meet his Maker, while destroying several nearby homes in the process one of which included Ahmad’s. An anonymous donor from the Gulf learned of Ahmad’s struggle and the plight of countless others and promised to cover their wedding costs and to provide them tents.

Apparently (like everywhere else in the world) in the strip, you strip to make babies, thus giving Israel the middle finger yet again. No one will stop the Palestinians from making babies. The downside however, screamers need not apply.

[Tarboush Tip: Carlos]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDDEozxtX3I]

Israel calls them “human shields,” “terrorists,” and “demographic threats.” Israel supporters deny Palestinian refugees exist, so may suggest “non-existent.” But none of those really do it for me. Any other suggestions?

But I just got off the phone with my uncle in Gaza City, and I realized that I have yet to experience real exhaustion. If all those fears and worries are hypothetical for me, for him they are very real. Every time he sees his kids, he knows it might be the last. Every time he hears a missile screaming towards a target, he knows it might be him. Every time an Israeli war plane, or tank, or warship, or artillery battery fires, he knows.

We woke up today and, as ever, turned on the TV for any news out of Gaza. There was no real news on the fight between the resistance and the Israeli occupiers on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City and northern Gaza. But throughout the night, Israeli missiles had been landing in the center of crowded Palestinian neighborhoods, killing 18 civilians by 10AM. Amongst the targets: a health center adjacent to the Shifa hospital.

As the day went on, the news seemed to be repeating itself, the only variation the area were the civilians were being killed. The strikes were being targeted at civilian homes, with several families completely wiped out. The Samouna family in the Zatoun neighborhood suffered horrific losses, when the home that dozens of the clan had crowded into was hit by four missiles: grandparents, two uncles, a wife and 4 children were murdered in cold blood. A surviving grandfather held the limp bodies of some of his grandchildren, chests and heads gouged by shrapnel, and spoke through the cameras in Hebrew to the man who had ordered their murders, Ehud Barak.

A pregnant woman and her young child were killed by shrapnel wounds when a missile tore through their home. Another family, a mother and children, was wiped out in the Tufah neighborhood. Seven members of the Abu Eisha family in Jabalya, parents and their give children, were killed when an Israeli missile destroyed their home and their lives. And on and on and on. The majority of these strikes were deep inside Gaza City, i.e. far from the areas where Palestinians fighters were resisting Israeli ground troops.

Throughout the night, Israeli forces were using white phosphorous bombs, illegal under the Geneva Conventions. It seems timid to speak of such conventions now, when every red line has been crossed by the Israeli army in its rampage against Palestinian civilians. The people of Gaza have been demonized and dehumanized to a point where the war crimes committed against them are acceptable, even acceptable. Too few fully comprehend that the people in Gaza are, well, people. They have names and lives and families and jobs, hopes and dreams and goals, and they are suffering through one of the cruelest wars waged in recent years.

Getting a mobile line through to Gaza City to check on its residents is now virtually impossible. I tried calling Abdelrahman and Mosab all day but to no avail. Gaza City is completely cut off from the southern Gaza Strip by the tanks at the site of the former Netzarim settlement. But those on the ground say the Israeli’s have not set up any type of camp in the area, that the troops have not left the tanks and that there has not been a column of Israeli infantry crossing over.

The deliberate shelling of homes continued across central and northern Gaza: Al-Bureij refugee camp, Al-Shati refugee camp, Zatoun, Jabalya, Tufah, Mighraqa, Nuseirat refugee camp, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahya, Al-Rimal, Tal al-Hawa, al-Sodaniya,Shujaya. All these heavily populated neighborhoods were pounded by the Israeli air force and navy throughout the day until the number of civilian deaths exceeded 80 today alone.

Over 50 Palestinians today alone, 550 over the last 10 days. The numbers are out of this world. Had a fraction of those killed been Israeli, the international community would have forced through a ceasefire last week. But, as has been demonstrated quite clearly by this massacre, Palestinian life is not held in the same esteem.

Luckily, there are millions around the world who identify with the Palestinian struggle and roundly condemn Zionist oppression and murder. Protests have been ongoing for the second week in a row across the world, but in the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Collaborationist Authority continued to repress any sympathy with our brethren in Gaza, violently breaking up a student demonstration at Birzeit University.

At around the same time, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stood next to the quisling Abbas in Ramallah and put the blame for the Israeli massacre in Gaza squarely on the shoulders of Hamas.

We called Gaza City just after sundown. My uncle Mohammad’s wife, Areej, was seemingly on the verge of nervous breakdown. Things had calmed down for a couple hours before sunset, but their hopes for some respite were shattered when Israeli artillery from across the border slammed into the residential building next door. She wanted to leave, all she could say was that she wanted to get out. But there is nowhere for them to go. She was fearful, rightly so, that they would be next. Out of the fifteen families living in their apartment building, only three remained. I begged her to leave and go downstairs to stay with one of the remaining neighbors, but she didn’t feel that it would make any difference. If the building was hit, they were all likely to be hurt or worse, no matter which apartment they hid in. She told me she wanted to get her kids out and just leave. I asked her where she wanted to go, and she said she knows there isn’t anywhere safer, but she just feels like she can’t accept staying where she is, with her kids in direct danger.

The reality is, every kid in Gaza is in direct danger. The air strikes on homes continued, parents and their children dying together.

I talked to Khan Younis next. They have almost total calm for two days now. There are still aircraft in the sky, but they have ‘only’ carried out two or three raids since the ground invasion began. My uncle Jasim tells me that he has been keeping in touch with my uncle Mohammad and others in and around Gaza City, and they seem to be in a different level of Israeli-created hell. I asked him if people in Khan Younis were worried that the relative quiet there was just the calm before the storm. He said it was a definite possibility, but Israel’s goal seems to be isolating Gaza City and destroying as much as possible in and around it. Again, the aim seems to be to punish the people of Gaza for supporting any resistance to their oppression. Yet Palestinian rockets, which had only targeted Sderot and the outskirts of Askalan before this massacre began, are now landing more than 50 kilometers outside Gaza. The military capabilities of the factions in Gaza seems to have barely been affected by this war, which leads to serious questions as to what Israel’s real goals are.

At around 9PM, Israeli artillery began shelling Gaza at a rate described by those living there as unprecedented. The shells were landing all over the eastern neighborhoods of Shujaya and Zatoun, while Israel’s F-16 jets were carrying low flyovers over civilian homes and bombing around the north and in Gaza City.

As I was watching a live feed from Gaza City on al-Quds TV, low-flying F-16s cut off the reporter, before 10 different explosions rocked the city. The sound of the aircraft was terrifying, their jet engines screaming above the heads of the coweri
ng refugee population. And the explosions were massive, reminding me of the explosions heard when the F-16s had attacked the Islamic University and left me shaking all the way in Ramallah.

I called my uncle Mohammad again. I thought I had woken him, because he sounded so disorientated, but when I asked him if that was the case he asked me, ‘What sleep? We don’t get any sleep.’

He told me the Saraya compound had been attacked. Again. The compound has been attacked many times over the last week, even though it is empty and destroyed. It proves how much they’ve failed, he said. They keep attacking the same destroyed places over and over again. Otherwise they’re attacking people in their homes. I asked him if the explosions had woken the kids. He told me the kids were probably awake, but Dina had been screaming until he calmed her down.

I asked him if he knew what was happening in the east, why there was such a heavy barrage over there. He said they were making absolutely no progress in Zatoun or Jabalya. For two whole days, they’ve been trying to enter Zatoun and have been held off, and they have been trying to take the Jabal al-Kashef hilltop just inside the border on the outskirts of Jabalya, but have gone nowhere. Local reports were saying paratroopers had landed just outside Jabalya and were pinned down by Palestinian gunfire. It seemed to be that the artillery fire was being using to cover an Israeli extraction force trying to get the paratroopers out. At the same time, news channels were reporting that an Israeli force had entered a home in the Zatoun neighborhood and suffered casualties when it was blown up by Palestinian fighters.

No matter. The strength and determination of the resistance has been, admittedly, surprising, but I suspect Israeli forces will eventually take Zatoun and Jabal al-Kashef. Those areas are the sites of real battles, albeit battles waged between lightly equipped Palestinians resisting the world’s fifth strongest military. But that is not where the casualties are falling. They are falling inside their homes, as Israel attacks cowering families with impunity. It is not attacking ‘Hamas operatives’. These are men, women, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and cousins, just like my Uncle Mohammad and Areej and Nada and Adham and Haya and Dina and Yazeed. And they are being bombed and killed from the air, the ground and the sea. They have been, for years now, trapped in the world’s largest prison. They are the children and grandchildren of those forced out of the homes and lands where they were living in peace and safety for generations. They are being massacred because they have not forgotten, have not capitulated and because their resistance to this injustice grows ever stronger.

That is why the people of Palestine, and especially the people of Gaza, continue to fight. And that is why no matter how strong Israel is militarily, no matter how many it kills, how many it terrorizes, and how many it scars, it will never have peace until it ends its oppression of Palestinian rights.

Remember Gaza.

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.

The long-awaited documentary, Chronicles of a Refugee, is now ready for purchase from the Palestine Online store or the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. This six-part series on the global Palestinian experience of displacement since Israel’s foundation is one of the most important documentaries about Palestinians to come out in some time. Why? It presents the actual, unfiltered voices of the refugees themselves. Too often, they are cast aside in political discourse, treated as an object of analysis or a rightsless piece of some peace puzzle. This series by Aseel Mansour, Adam Shapiro, and Perla Issa is a must-see.

Next paycheck I’m ordering several for Hanukkah, Christmas, and Eid gifts. Get your copy today. even if you know all there is to know about Palestinians around the world order it to support the filmmakers and the Palestine Online Store or Washington Report.

Also, KABOBer Tarik produced the musical score.

The poem is called “They asked me: do you love Egypt, I replied I’m not sure”. Enjoy it, its really nice.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nCegZza3IM]

Thousands of people converged Thursday on the land of Safuria to mark the anniversary of the Nakba and to demonstrate for the right of return of the refugees. The crowd included mainly Palestinian citizens of Israel, and some Jewish citizens. Chants included “Long live Palestine,” “Gaza is Palestinian and Golan is Syrian,” and “We are all one people” invoking the West Bank, Gaza and Arab countries along with the people of the Galilee, and “The White House is the biggest terrorist.” Some people released hundreds of black balloons into the sky to fly over the 60th Birthday of Israel celebrations and barbecues to remind them of those who were forced out 60 years ago.

Safuria was a town that was cleared of its residents and destroyed in 1948. It was larger than Nazareth at the time of its destruction. Many of the descendants of the former residents of Safuria now live in nearby Nazareth, while others fled to refugee camps in the West Bank and surrounding countries. The Jewish community that now lives on the land of Safuria is called Tsippuri. Each year for the last ten years, these Nakba commemoration demonstrations in the Galilee have been at the site of a different destroyed village.

When I left the demo, I saw riot police waiting across the street. However they seemed relaxed and simply there to make sure no confrontations took place with the Jewish people celebrating in the field on the other side. Then, the next morning, I saw this image of Member of Knesset Wasel Taha:

I learned that after a couple hours of the demonstration, the police moved in, some on horseback, and attacked people with tear gas and sound bombs, brilliantly setting the fields on fire. My coworker was there with her small girls still at the time the police and army came into the crowd.

My older daughter was so afraid. She never wants to go again, though I told her no, the police are just trying to make us afraid. There were people with blood, and smoke and bombs and gas. We are not used to this and we didn’t expect anything like it. There had been no problem- the police and the army came in and made the problem.

Six youth were arrested, and more were injured at the close of what was an otherwise peaceful demonstration attended by whole families with small children: