May 2006 Report

29 May 06

A Palestinian boy waiting at gas station in Gaza

Palestinians mourn the death of their relatives in Gaza

In the most crowded area in the world, Gaza, the news from Palestine, not so different from what has been going on yesterday, today is even worse, cooking gas shortages in all Gaza and West Bank, many families had run out of cooking gas which is no longer available, as a result of the Israeli closure. Last week, The Israeli Forces shelled a house in Beit Lahiya, killing two members of the same family, medical sources at Kamal Adwan hospital mentioned. Their identities were not immediately known.

Separately, a Palestinian farmer was killed inside his farm earlier when Israeli artillery shelled the northern Gaza Strip east of the Jabaliya refugee camp.

The victim, Omer Abu Warda, 42, was working in his fields at midday when he was struck in the shelling, medical sources from Kamal Adwan hospital said. The man died later on as a result of his serious injury.

The Gaza situations are getting worse, many Palestinian workers are demonstrating at the moment close to Erez Crossing in the north of Gaza, the demonstrators are mainly the workers whom are no longer able to feed their families since the siege imposed on Palestinians by the whole world and mainly EU and the mother of democracy USA.

One of the demonstrators:" I don’t blame Hamas government, they were elected in a democratic way, but I blame those who punish us for our choice and make us all starve" said, Wasfi Abu Madi, a worker and father of 9 children who's no longer able to afford food for his kids.
The demonstration is still going on till the moment with the participation of hundreds of workers from different parts of Gaza.

Minister of Health warns in an interviews with him that they had run out of medicine from the main hospitals in Gaza and they are not able to afford different kind of medicine for patients, this caused doctors and nurses to imagination for other countries outside Gaza.

20 May 06

Car of the family that was travelling near the targetted car

Two Palestinians have been killed and several were injured in an Israeli air strike by Israeli helicapters in Gaza City. No more information about the attack is available, although some news says that the target was an Islamic Jihad leader, Mohammed Al Dahdouh. Reports from the scene of the strike say a second vehicle appears to have been involved - possibly caught in the blast from the attack on the jeep. Some reports say a family was travelling in the second vehicle and some of its members are among the injured in Gaza Strip.

The attack came after a day of horrible tension in Gaza Strip and mainly in the middle of Gaza City, which saw the Palestinian intelligence service chief seriously injured in a blast at his very well protected office on the shores of Gaza beach. At least one person was killed in the blast, which staff working for intelligence chief general Tareq Abu Rajab called an assassination attempt.

The night comes here, again no way to get out as clashes starts between militants and by the Israeli helicapters which raid Gaza often, in the North, the Israeli helicapters are shelling by tanks canons the houses of civilians.

All this violence and tension is taking place while Gaza citizens have no money due to the cutting of AID by the US, EU, Norway and all over the world.

A Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was cuaght bringing man as a donation from Arab countries to the families of prioners whom are no longer able to afford buying food for their sons in the Israeli jails, EU observers and Palestinian Abbas guards promised to get back the money to the ministry of interior after they had a meeting between EU, PA and Hamas leaders.

The economic crisis is getting no better: here in Rafah you find children who had to go to bed hungry.

19 May 06

The Keys of Catastrophe

Refugees in Gaza are still waitting for hope to reutern to their orginal homes

“They come into our house and tell us we don’t live there anymore.”
Statement in the Oscar® Winning Film, Shindler’s List describing how the Nazis appropriated the homes of Jews without compensation, warning or compassion.

An old man, his once thick black hair, thinning and peppered white sits quietly. Slumped over from years of disappointment, his back arched near permanence in the shape of a crescent, he speaks slowly, the weight of lament wheezing between each word.

"We are getting old; time is running out,” he states. Though aging, his memory remains clear, transporting him back to a time he was young. “It seems only a few weeks or months ago we were kicked out from our homes in Yebna village. It seems, yet it has been 58 years since then".

The old man looks up, spying his grandchildren running across the street. Within their hands they clutch the wooden keys symbolizing the lost homes, businesses and life of a time since past. Each year these wooden keys serve as commemoration of the anniversary of Al Nakba. Beside him, with admiration of a newlywed bride, his Umm Zuheer (wife) sits silently, allowing her husband to speak.

He stares as his grandchildren disappear further into the Rafah refugee camp, a tattered sigh escaping his lips. Reluctantly his head sways side to side.

"The people of our village (Yebna) realized too late the guests we allowed were in truth gangs of occupiers, armed with British guns and weapons. We had the tools of farmers, axes and scythe for harvesting as weapons. Yet we resisted, creating sand barriers and obstacles in attempts to protect our homes." he begins.

"In our village seven martyrs were killed by the Jewish gangs. Israel did not exist yet. Many were killed by the Jewish gangs throughout the area" he adds.

"In our village, rather than attack us, they lay siege, surrounding our village on three sides with the fourth flank left open for the British tanks that showered our village with canon fire day and night. The power of the tanks, we were no match for this. We were kicked out from our homes beginning with Yebna, then Al Isdud, Al Majadal and here. Ultimately we ended up in Gaza. Here we live since 1948 in this refugee camp, supported by the donation of the United Nations.”

Professor Ibrahim Abu Jaber, author of “The Future of Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque " states, “The number of the Palestinian refugees around the world is seven million with 1.8 million living as refugees within the Palestinian territories.

FACTS ON THE GROUND
Jaffa based Israeli politician and secretary for the Israeli- Palestinian Committee Dialogue, Mr. Latif Dori comments on Al Nakba.

"It's a catastrophe to the Palestinians who were kicked out by force from their homes in 1948,” he acknowledges before quickly adding the obligatory deflection.

‘But don’t forget that it’s a catastrophe for the Jewish people. What I mean by that, it is a catastrophe for the Jewish people because of what was done to them by the Nazis in World War II."

In 1935 laws were passed in Germany that instituted a ten year persecution of persons of the Jewish faith along with Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, handicap, Catholics, Communists and Poles. This persecution, resulting in millions of deaths, hardships and loss, mercifully ended ten years later in 1945. This pogrom against the Jewish people and others deemed racial enemies to National Socialism provided the final catalyst for the establishment of Israel. The Palestinians were not involved in this event.

Asked to comment on the status of Israel and Palestine, Dori replies,
"Israel has no right to be in this land,” he observes.

“But what should we do? More than fifty years have past since we began living here. For the Palestinians to return to their homes…this is not a practical solution. I know that without resolving the refugees right to return, there will be no peace in the whole region" he admits.

Dori goes on to mention that within Jaffa city 40,000 Jews currently reside within the city. Of these, fifty percent occupy houses originally owned and taken from Palestinians whose families often occupied these homes and land for centuries. In most cases, the homes were appropriated by force or flight (simply being absent for twenty-four hours was enough to declare the home ‘abandoned’). These homes were taken without consideration. Today their Jewish residents enjoy living in secure and well appointed homes, while the majority of the real owners have been removed and relegated to the hell of refugee camps.

Challenging his logic as a friend I asked, ‘If I Mohammed Omer, a Palestinian refugee, could prove the home you currently live in is the property of my grandparents, would you leave?’

Dori responds, “I would say welcome, and you can have it!” He offers enthusiastically before continuing with the inevitable ‘but’.

“Though from a humanitarian or emotional viewpoint this may sound right, it (relinquishing the home I live in to the real owners upon proof) would not be a practical solution. Emotions will not solve these problems. And unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to set the wheels of history in reverse.”

Pausing for a moment he further rationalizes, “I would imagine you would allow me to keep the house. After all, I have been living here for fifty years."

Surviving rather than Living
In the Swedish village section of the Rafah refugee camp, a few hundred Palestinian families carve out a living atop the filth and waste of a long neglected sewage system, the smell of fecal matter, rotting food and a bacterial stew seeping through the ground. Parents watch as their children become instantly sick. The stench is constant, increasing in pungency with each escalating degree centigrade. It is a smell to which no one will become accustom.

Amanh Abu Sulimah, now a seventy-five year old woman and refugee most of her life remembers the day in 1948 when she was forced to leave her home on the Palestinian side of the border with Egypt in Al Jauura.

"We were forced to leave,” she begins. “My family and I moved into a school and eventually into this refugee camp.” Her words still carry a jagged sense of disbelief. "As you know,” she states pointing to the rickety home around her. “My sons and I are living in this tiny house, where my 25 grandchildren are sleeping all inside this one room"

Justice’s key
Nestled today in nearly a million Palestinian pockets, jingling between coins, papers and cash rests a key. A key representing the love of a land, a society, a culture still present yet temporarily out of reach. For fifty eight years the Palestinians have waited to return home. The United Nations agreements with Israel prior to statehood provided for their care and dignity, to be treated as equals. To be given a home. To be protected from racism, prejudice and injustice. Still they wait, hope yet never despair, a simple key symbolizing their dream.

This key, a legacy held by an old man passes to the young, the representation of justice, a symbol of the inevitable ending. As the symbol transcends generations, the hopes and dreams it represents cradles within the young hands of the future. Ever protective of the fragile realities it represents, the old man softly closes tiny fingers around the cut metal and whispers, “Next year, in our home. Next year in Palestine, next year.”

With keys held in hand, tucked safely in boxes or hidden from view, the Palestinians continue to demand. They continue to hope for the day when their precious keys of the catastrophe may once again unlock the doors to their homes and businesses allowing them to live as human beings and prosper in peace. They look to the day when independence no longer equates with catastrophe. They look to the day when their keys will again open the doors to their homes.

10 May 06

I have heard from a friend in the U.S. who has told me "Judith passed away."

I was thinking this is impossible. She is alive, her voice is still in my mind when she is telling me: "It will improve Mohammed, this injustice will end one day" and even her simple Arabic words are still coming to my mind.

The mother of the little Rolla fell on the floor when I told her about this.

Goodbye, Judith. Thank you for all you've done and for your patient, kind, and gentle voice -- for the love you shared with us all. Safe travels, be well...and thank you.


Judith was known to many as "Erika" on her blog, RafahNotes, and in the blogosphere at large.
She will be horribly missed.

2 May 06

No different from yesterday's situation -- the same as usual.

Two people have been killed and four others were injured in a blast at a security forces compound in northern Gaza.

It is not yet clear what caused the explosion which destroyed a building and killed two people. Ambulances arrived on the scene to take the injured and the bodies of the dead. A Palestinian interior ministry spokesman said the explosion in a compound in the Jabaliya refugee camp could have been caused by artillery fire from Israel.

A man mournes the death of his brother, a Palestinian security officer.

"We have suspicions that it was an Israeli shell but an investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the explosion," Khaled Abu Hilal said today.

Another suggestion -- though unconfirmed -- was that the blast may have been caused by unexploded Israeli artillery shells, which were being stored in preparation for their destruction.

In the north of Gaza, 8 Palestinians were injured as well by the artillery shelling which caused damage throughout the area. Most of the injured are children under the age of 15 as well as a 50 year old woman named Intisar Abu Audeh, who was injured along with three of her children while they were inside their house.

The lives of Palestinian people are so cheap here. It seems as though Palestinian people have no right to live while the United States and Europe boycott and punish Palestinians for their democratic choice. And here again, we would still call it the democratic US and Europe?

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