Sharon Lock | Tales to Tell
8 February 2009
9 year old K is on the right with the blue backpack on her chair
Before the strikes, the group 14 Friends of Palestine asked E and me to make contact with a little girl they sponsor via Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children. It’s taken a while for us to catch our breath and follow … Continue reading
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
7 February 2009
On a visit to Ezbet Abed Rabbo during which I heard more harrowing testimonies of life under invasion, children shot dead before parents’ eyes, and being held captive for days on end, I took more photos than I could testimonies. Such is the widespread destruction in the eastern Jabaliya region that the testimonies will be spilling forth for weeks, if not longer.
Below are photos for which there wasn’t enough time that day to get the stories. Many of them speak for themselves, and the general theme is one of being … Continue reading
Sharon Lock | Tales to Tell
6 February 2009
You remember the Nadeems (I must ring and ask them how Firas’s knee operation went so I can tell you) who tried to escape from the Israel’s attacks on Tela Howa in their car, but it wouldn’t start. Also on January 15, an hour or so afterwards at about 10.15am, their neighbours the Al Haddads tried to escape in their car.
They only got a few yards.
The Kabariti family told me about this, because … Continue reading
Natalie Abou Shakra | Gaza 08
Wednesday February 4, 2009
Tears drop on her hands, hands that he had once kissed passionately, on her engagement ring, that ring he chose for her, on her cheeks that oust the redness of burning coals within her. The funeral is over now; his body is away, but the memory of him is as vivid as his own being yesterday. Dreams of a wedding, now written in the history of numerous deaths, is beyond of what reality can bring.
Her name is Hanaa, what means felicity. But, Hanaa shall know no felicity for many years now, … Continue reading
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
3 February 2009
I was fairly certain that one of us would be shot today.
This morning, farmers from Abassan Jadiida (New Abassan), to the east of Khan Younis , the southern region, returned to land they’d been forced off of during and following the war on Gaza. The continual shooting at them by Israeli soldiers while they work the land intensified post-war on Gaza. The Israeli soldiers’ shooting was not a new thing, but a resumption of the policy of harassment that Palestinians in the border areas have been enduring for years, a harassment extending … Continue reading
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
2 February 2009
Abdul Rahman Ghraben’s mother carried in a yellow plastic bag. “This is his pant leg, and tiny pieces of him,” she said, holding the knotted bag at the handles. Her husband had been explaining how fourteen year old Abed was killed on January 11.
“The Israeli forces had been bombing hard so we’d evacuated the house, gone to Fakoura (UN school which had been bombed with white phosphorous). The first 3 days at the school we had only the clothes we were wearing, no blankets, no food. At night in Fakoura it was … Continue reading
Sharon Lock | Tales to Tell
I’m told the bursts of noise that are currently shaking the net cafe a little are probably F16 sonic booms and not rockets, so that’s nice! Last night’s attacks involved seven rockets on the tunnel/border area of Rafah and a strike on an empty police station in Gaza city.
The military said Sunday’s attacks were the beginning of a new wave of raids over Gaza, but did not elaborate… Ehud Olmert, Israel’s out-going prime minister, said that the … Continue reading
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
1 February 2009
In Tuam, Attatra, on day one of Israel’s declared, and immediately-violated, ‘cease-fire’ an old woman stood beside the wreckage of her 2 room cement block home. The tracks of the bulldozer which felled her home were still deeply rutted, painfully visible.
The house next her to her pile of rubble was still standing, but gutted by fire. Mohammed Abu Khusah had 19 people depending on the house whose kitchen, along with all of … Continue reading
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
“Bissa flora,” he said. “Taste it, it’s delicious!”
“It’s used for stomach ailments, and is extremely healthy. Has vitamins A, B, C and D,” Osama translated for me. The botanist sat by his tree, his bulldozed tree, and went on extolling its virtues.
“The fruit helps to regulate your pulse and is good for blood circulation,” he confided.
How did he have so much knowledge about this tree, I wondered, and asked.
“I’ve got a catalogue inside my… house,” he said, gesturing at the re-piled concrete blocks, a portion of those which had formerly made up his home. … Continue reading
“If you stay here for five minutes, you will hear gunfire”, explain locals in Wadi Salqa. “They shoot at anything moving in the village”.
Palestinian radio stations have reported that people living in Wadi Salqa are scared to death. Arriving in the village, this seems no overstatement. “If you move beyond the end of this road, you will be shot”, explains Mohammad Abu Magaseeb, pointing to the end of the road we have just arrived on.
He takes us into his uncle’s house, situated just 1km from the Green Line … Continue reading
