Category: Journals

Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.

How can you send love with a missile?

writing from Shatila refugee camp, Beirut, Electronic Lebanon, 6 August 2006

My name is Usama Abu el-Sheikh, and I am from Tabaria, Palestine. I am of course a refugee and have never been to my hometown in Palestine though I learned about it from my grandparents and I read some books about it. I have never been to Tabaria, but I am Tabarian, and will remain so, as I am from Shatila too and will remain so. Although I always dreamt of corresponding with my country and my hometown to see if I still have relatives there, I was unable to because there is no mail between Lebanon and the State of Israel. Ironically, only the missiles of Hizbullah can be sent to Israel. We are not allowed to return, but the missiles go where we cannot. But how can you send love to Tabaria with a missile?

I am nineteen now, and I grew up in Shatila camp. As a child I wanted to be many things, sometimes a doctor, other times an engineer or a journalist. As a child, you know, I could dream whatever I wanted to and I wanted to be many things. As I was growing up though, my dreams started to be hit by my reality, by my being a refugee in Lebanon where we have no civil rights. Being the oldest son of a widowed mother with seven children and no one to care for after the death of my dad when I was just seven years old, I lived a real struggle inside. My father’s words as he was on his death bed asking me to “care for the family” are words that keep echoing in my head. I got to be the “man of the household” without choosing it, without knowing it. As a child, it was ok, but as I was getting to be a teenager, I wanted always to fulfill this responsibility, always. I was not able to stand the fact that I’m not fulfilling my responsibility as the head of the household. My mum, like all Palestinian mothers, wanted me to get my education. For her it was the way to help the family out, because the identity “educated” is kind of a compensation of our lost identity as Palestinians — not lost in terms of our own feelings but in terms of how the world deals with us. It was hard to focus though, especially because I couldn’t see a future. How could I be a doctor in a country where we have no rights? So I left school, and now I work in a telephone calling shop in the camp.

Maybe you are wondering why I am writing to you about my personal life at a time of war. I just wanted to express that this war reinforced my ideas that what we need is a collective solution for everyone, not individual solutions such as are offered here and there. Just as being “educated” will not replace my loss of identity, a solution for Palestine, separate from Lebanon or Syria or Iraq is not going to be possible. I sit in the camp and think about how much effort is put to separate us all from each other. And now we have the F-16s over our heads joining us together all in one camp. I do not mean Shatila camp, but a much bigger camp for all those whose lives are cheap in this world, the camp of those who die like bugs, the camp for those on whom they test their weapons. As proud as I am of Lebanon’s resistance, I do not think I will be returning to Palestine soon. I will keep sending my love to my hometown in Palestine. I know that the world never hears our cries. But they do hear the roar of the missiles. Can you send love on a missile?

With love from Shatila.

Rafah Tonight and The Morality of the Israeli Army

By Mona El-Farra from her blog From Gaza, With Love

12:30 am 4th of August
The Israeli army continues its military operation, in the south of Gaza (Rafah town). Army tanks are heading into the refugee camp under the cover of helicopters that fired several shells. At least 4 civilians were killed including a woman and 2 children. Tens of severely injured are reported to be received at the Rafah’s only hospital. The number will increase. Many of the in-patients were discharged to make space for the injured. The shelling is too severe, as I was told by colleagues there, ambulances can’t reach many of the injured, the army tanks are very close to the hospital, one of the houses was specifically targeted.

It seems that the military operation into Rafah will continue…….as noticed by the increasing number of the army tanks in the area.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Morality of The Israeli Army
Gaza Strip 1st of August 2006

Today the Israeli Occupying Forces redeployed into the area south east of Rafah, targeting Alshoukas village. They launched a big military operation against the village in a desperate attempt to demolish alleged tunnels. At least 50 army tanks along with helicopters and drones took part in this operation. What concerned me is that 8 people were killed, amongst them 2 Palestinian fighters, and the rest were civilians including one boy age 11. Twenty-six people were injured, ten are in serious conditions.

The health emergency teams were not allowed entry to rescue the injured for 12 hours, leaving the injured to face their destinies. I am sure, as are my colleagues at the Rafah hospital, that this inhuman act increased the number of the dead and seriously injured. During the operation, ambulances were also attacked by shelling at the hospital’s gate. Tens of families in the village were forced to leave their homes; children, women and men left their homes because the shelling was too severe.

What of morality? Of the Fourth Geneva convention and its charters regarding civilians and the safety of health teams working during war times? This accord means nothing and is not respected by the Israeli army. For us here in Palestine, we know very well that Israel, with its colonial-Zionist ideology, aims to kill more and more Palestinian civilians. During its so called military operations to “defend its security”, hundreds of civilians including entire families were unnecessarily killed.

Israel aims to break the Palestinian people’s will and determination to achieve their inalienable nationals goals. I said before they will not succeed and I am saying it again and again. It is impossible to control an entire nation using collective punishment and continuous occupation. It is impossible to confiscate an entire nation’s right of freedom and self-determination. Israel and the United States should read history lessons.

Here in Gaza City the artillery shelling continued in the east and north. We don’t have air raids shelters, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have clean water. The war boats patrol the sea and the helicopters continue their shelling at all times of the day. Lately, Israel has also been distributing of flyers against resistance movement.

I was in the Omar Elmukhtar high street and watched the sarcastic expression on the faces of a bunch of teenagers as they picked up these flyers and read them. I remembered myself as a teenager during 1967 war time. I read the same sort of flyers and laughed. Israel aims to make Palestinian people hungry, thirsty, to make us face humanitarian disaster after humanitarian disaster, and dependent on the world’s sympathy.

We are a nation with a noble cause; we resist injustice and occupation. We are not alone and we know that very well. What we face is the most ugly version of the United States’ imbalanced policies in the Middle East. The immorality and injustice of these policies will reflect itself on the future of USA, let us wait and see.

P.S. I was asked by some of you why I keep referring to the Israeli army as occupying army. This is the truth AND I AM SAYING THE TRUTH. The disengagement plan from Gaza last Septemper did not end the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. All it has meant for me is that I can visit my mother in the south (20 km drive) without passing through the Israeli checkpoints. But I am still under the threat of the jetfighters, sonic booms, and continuous shelling from the north and east. Israel still has control of the commercial borders and has closed them at will causing shortages of baby formula, bread, food, and medicine. Israel and the rest of the world have imposed economic sanctions on us as a collective punishment for our choice during the January election. How would you define the above but occupation?

In love and solidarity,
Mona

My Head Might Burst with Irony

by Alizarin J. Crimson

Sometimes I feel like my head is going to burst with irony.

Like walking through Arab East Jerusalem and seeing Palestinian men wearing tshirts that say: “F.B.I. anti-terrorism unit”. And I wonder if they are wearing it out of irony or if they don’t actually know what it says. Clothing covered with English words and phrases is very popular in the West Bank. Many of the phrases make absolutely no sense at all, while some of it is quite sexually suggestive. So it blows your mind when you walk through extremely conservative Hebron and you see a Palestiniain kid wearing a t-shirt saying “No, you’re NOT coming home with me tonight.” or “Mad licking skills.”

Today I had some business in Jewish West Jerusalem and stopped in a few art galleries that were on my way. To be confronted by a nice Jewish man who tries to sell you some Judaica painting for $3000 and who happens to be dressed in the exact same manner as the people who just spit on you and called you a Nazi the day before is irony. When enough of these people harass you, you have a physical reaction everytime you see them because your body is preparing you to be harassed.

So is kneeling down and feeling the pain in your right thigh where the gigantic rock hit you a few weeks before, (courtesy of the religious Jews in Hebron) as you examine a painting of a bunch of
religious Jews praying. This particular injury which has not healed yet came from an adult male this time (never got around to writing in detail about it, but the official report is here) who was never arrested despite a police complaint by both me and Joe Skillet.

More irony is when I ran into a border policeman who happened to be in the police car which took Joe and I to the police station that day we made the complaint. He saw me going through the checkpoint from Palestinian controlled H1 into Israeli military controlled H2 and told me that if I ever saw the guy in there (pointing to Palestinian controlled H1) who hit me with the rock, he’d arrest him. I informed him that it wasn’t a Palestinian who threw the rock, it was a Jew. With a look of shock and disbelief, he asked, “Why do they throw rocks at you ?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask them ?” I replied. Suffice it to say, he didn’t offer to go into Beit Hadassah and find the Jew who hit me with the rock.

To Israel: “You just want us all to die, and no one in the world seems to care”

A story from Maghazi Refugee Camp, central Gaza
by: Rami Almeghari

It was just after 1am when the Israeli jeeps and tanks, backed by war planes, invaded Maghazi, telling the story of Palestinian refugees anew. It is a story that not only pacifica radio, but all of us who live in Maghazi, know already, having seen it repeated again and again in Gaza. Less than one hour before, the Washington Based Pacifica had phoned me about doing a live interview about Maghazi camp in central Gaza, where I live. I laid down my head on the pillow, under darkness because there is no electricity, in order to have some peace of mind before the live interview the next day.

War planes began shooting heavily overhead. Abruptly, I rushed to my children beside me, waking them up and taking them downstairs in case of any stray bullets hitting from above. My mother was crying, my father was worried, my sister listening to newscasts.

In the darkness, everybody has been anxious, with kerosene lamps showing their wary faces and hushed voices.

My six year old son asked me, “Dad, will i be able to be in the second grade at school?”, as we got the news that Israeli war planes had dropped a missile on his school. The Palestinian News Network reported that this bombing killed one Palestinian cilivian and injured 20 others, who were all children. He noted that all of the children were transferred to a nearby hospital, where nine are being treated for “serious injuries.”

This morning’s raid marks what is merely the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on the Gaza refugee camp. Since Israeli attacks began on Maghazi Camp just a few days ago, eight civilians have been killed, and a staggering 90 have been wounded.

My eight year old daughter sat on the sofa, awake all night looking at me with frightened eyes, her face yellow and pale. I was worried about my brother and his children (like many refugee families, we all live together in one house), so i went upstairs to wake them up. I found my brother sleeping on the roof, due to the hot weather under darkness.

Unfortunately, I was sorry to break his rest, because the sky was raining in such a summer night, but an Israeli-made ‘Summer Rain’ [The Israeli military code-name for their ongoing Israeli invasion in the Gaza Strip is ‘Operation Summer Rains’].

Now, the whole family has been crowded in one small, much safer room, listening quietly to the summer rains and to my mother’s cries, which I tried to dry, but in vain. Because she was so worried, lest her other son, who was out with friends, seeking summer breeze and summer air, get wet by the ‘summer rains’ that have started to fall on Maghazi.

From 1 am to 9:30 am as I write this, the ‘summer rains’ have been falling, making a flow that has swept away six lives, wounded several others, devastated the camp’s transformer, hit a wall of my son’s elementary school, and inflicted damage to many homes and buildings.

My fear, as well as my family’s, is the same as that of thousands of Palestinian refugee families throughout the past six decades starting from 1948, 1956, 1967, and ending with 2006’s latest invasion of Maghazi and other refugee camps since june 27th.

However, Palestinians in the past century have found safe shelters to which they have fled. It now seems we have only one choice — staying in our homes under candlelight. This is the story of Palestinian refugees. Now, in the 21st century, I ask Israel — where else do you want us to go? It seems that you just want us all to die, and no one in the world seems to care.

I am writing this by pencil, on used paper, I can no longer type on my computer. The electricity is fully gone, the backup systems have all been hit. I have to dictate my writing by cell phone to a friend in the West Bank who can type it up – but soon, most likely, my cell phone reception will be gone as well. Now I have heard that two of my relatives were killed in the ongoing attack…..I’ll have to attend their funerals this afternoon. Will Israeli forces attack the funeral? Lately every time there is a funeral, their warplanes buzz overhead, dropping bombs on the attendees and making more funerals necessary. I just hope the next one will not be my own, or that of my dear, dear children.

Gaza Diaries: Cry Freedom

By Mona El-Farra

16th of July, 1.30 am
A loud explosion woke me up. My daughter was frightened and covered her head with the blankets as I switched on my little transistor radio. The F16 hit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building with one rocket, it is the second time in less than one week. Straight away I thought of Fawaz and Nawaf, my childhood friends, and their families. I did not dare to contact them! The sound of the explosion was too strong, it shook my flat (500 meters away).

16th of July, 7.30 am
After a struggle to sleep, I decided to get up and hurried to my friends’ house. They were not injured but, the scene was shocking: Fawaz was startled and unable to focus, causing his brother and the children to be traumatized. He showed me the garden: tall, old trees completely destroyed, so were the windows of their building, and the garden was covered with the rubble of the destroyed Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.

Why to hit the same building twice in one week? They did the same with the Ministry of Interior building, which my friend Hoda lives close to. It is a massive systematic terrifying collective punishment.

No electricity, no water, no milk for babies, no safety, closed borders. 1.5 million captured in their own country. 4 weeks of continuous shelling from sea, land, and air against civilian targets causing 145 deaths (45 were children) and hundreds of injuries in three weeks.

The captured soldier was a pretense for a well-planned systematic assault and collective punishment against a whole population. It is a desperate trial by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) to destroy our will and our determination to achieve our just national goals. But they will not succeed and they should learn from our people’s history: we get tired sometimes, we complain other times, but fortunately Palestinian people do not have the psychology of victims. We have the psychology of freedom fighters, and with the support and solidarity of other people who are fighting daily against injustice: we shall overcome.
With every pain and suffering we cry: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

19th 0f July, 4pm
Al-Magazi Refugee Camp, East Gaza

Today is the second day of IOF incursion into the Al-Magazi camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Shelling continues from the sea, land, and air. So far 9 people are killed, at least 45 (mainly civilians) are injured in the first hours of the incursion. Still no water and no electricity. Hospitals are struggling with increasing causalities. They are working through the emergency off the alternative power source and medical supplies are exhausted.

Beit Hanoun village North Gaza
Today the IOF withdrew from the village, leaving 40 houses demolished, 12 people killed, tens injured, large areas of fruitful agricultural land were destroyed, 2 journalists and 2 health emergency workers were injured. Our surgical team at Al-Awda Hospital was overwhelmed with the large number of the casualities. The army stayed for 3 days in the village, and left it destroyed.The UN OSO team reported some very poor families are in great need of baby formula but the UN does not supply this sort of milk. I shall make sure to distribute this milk via Middle East Children Alliance (MECA) tomorrow.

While I write, continuous explosions can be heared from the gunboats, Apache helicopters fill the sky with a drone sound. Still no electricity. I do not find it easy to write with the candle light and the old fashioned kerosine lamp.

In Solidarity,

Mona El-Farra