A UN human rights mission on the Gaza conflict is hearing from a range of experts on the social and the psychological effect of Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza.
On the second of the two-day inquiry on Monday, a child psychologist told the panel that an estimated 20 per cent of children in Gaza suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of witnessing violence.
Dr Iyad Sarraj said: “The amount of killing and blood that they have seen or that their relatives have suffered from … is a huge amount, and this leads to negative psychological feelings, to radicalism and a cycle of violence.”
Lost livelihoods
Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros in Gaza, where more than half of the population of 1.5 million people is under 18-years of age, said Sarraj told the panel that six months after the war the trauma is still present among children.
“During the war we spent the night with a family and we saw first hand the kind of trauma that Dr Sarraj was talking about in terms of the children and how frightened they were when the bombs were going off,” she said.
The panel also heard from the head of a women’s group in Gaza City, who said that most of those who died in the conflict were men, leaving behind the women they provided a livelihood for, Tadros said.
“Even months after the war the women are still suffering because they have lost their livelihood and have to go out and work,” she said, adding that this was flagged up as a “major problem”.
The hearing, which is being broadcast live for the public, will also include testimony from experts on the military operation on the Palestinian enclave.
The panel is to hold a second round of public hearings on July 6 and 7 in Geneva where it will hear from the victims of alleged violations in Israel and the West Bank.
The UN chose the Swiss city as the venue of the second round of hearings because the fact-finding mission did not receive permission to enter Israel.
The public hearings were called for by Richard Goldstone, the head of the 15-member team and previously a member of the South African constitutional court.
The mission is due to complete a report with its findings in August.
Israeli offensive
Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on December 27, citing rocket attacks from the enclave that caused injuries to residents and damage to property in Sderot and other towns.
The military operation killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, among them scores of children, according to Palestinian officials and human rights groups.
It also destroyed thousands of homes and heavily damaged Gaza’s infrastructure.
Israel says the death toll was lower and most of the dead were Hamas fighters.
Thirteen Israelis were also killed during the fighting.
Gaza’s reconstruction is being hampered by Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which dates back to June 2007 when Hamas took control of the territory.
Since then, Israel and Egypt, which control Gaza’s only border crossing that bypasses Israel, have kept the territory of 1.5 million aid-dependent people sealed to all but essential humanitarian supplies.
Israel has insisted that the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Human-rights groups say it is a “collective punishment” that wrongly hurts ordinary civilians.
The fact-finding mission is mandated by the UN to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations conducted in Gaza.
'At a time when Gazans are under a siege... the coast has become an important psychological tool'
Every day, as the sun sets on the coast of Gaza, people make their way to the coffee shop-lined beaches and the pot-holed streets that run parallel to its coastline.
On the terrace of the famed Al Deira Hotel, patrons jostle for position, sipping sweet Arabic coffee as the sounds of legendary Arab musicians delicately waft through the air, mingling with the aroma of flavoured tobacco.
They all share one aim – to gaze out into the Mediterranean Sea as its turquoise waters transform into blue, then purple and then disappear into the moonlit night.
Another day has passed in Gaza.
For the few minutes where the sun and water meet and the sky glows warm, people here are moved by a deep beauty and for those few minutes, the beaming smiles of children frolicking in the sand, the laughter of friends and the line of fishermen setting out into the horizon suspend Gaza’s seemingly eternal suffering.
It is that time of year again, when temperatures rise and where the coast of Gaza takes on a whole new different meaning.
In this tiny territory caged in by Israel on two sides, north and east, and by Egypt to the south, Gaza’s west coast becomes its gateway to a world of possibilities and a painful reminder of its limited realities.
Gaza’s shoreline is a deceptive one. Its long, white sandy beaches are the ideal location for luxury hotels, trendy cafes, a vibrant nightlife, boutique shops, a palm-tree lined promenade for the health-conscious jogger, the inspired artist seeking to capture its beauty or the local street vendor selling traditional Palestinian handicrafts.
With its year-round, perfect Mediterranean weather, rich history at the crossroads of continents and civilisations and Arab hospitality, Gaza should be a tourist haven and entrepreneur’s dream.
Businesses, corporations and financial towers should be vying for this prime real estate.
Instead, today its 41km-long poorly paved corniche road is marked with potholes. Sections of it have been destroyed by Israeli air raids over the years.
A journey from its northern border to the south can take hours to travel, as you zig-zag through the destroyed stretches of road and the rubble of buildings levelled during Israel’s recent war.
Refugee camps
All along the coastal stretch, crowded and dirty refugee camps edge closer to the water, squeezing every inhabitable inch available.
The drive along the coast is marked by the smell of raw sewage spewing out into the sea at various points. The coast’s most underdeveloped stretches are the scars from where Israel maintained its military outposts and illegal settlements that were a chokehold on the Gaza Strip.
When the Israeli military and settlers pulled out in 2005, they left behind the land and the coast but left Gaza in ruins, caged in and cut off from the outside world.
Since 2006, when Hamas won democratic elections that were recognised by international observers as free and fair, Israel has imposed an increasingly stifling siege on Gaza, restricting everything that comes in and out of the strip.
The vast majority of the 1.5 million Palestinians living here have not been allowed to leave this territory, which is approximately 360sq km in size.
Every facet of life in Gaza has been restricted beyond imagination by Israel, crippling the economy and increasing the psychological pressure on the territory’s people.
Nowhere else in Gaza is the economy more visibly in tatters then along its coast. Its hotels, once buzzing with vacationing Palestinians from the diaspora and the sounds of wedding parties during the summer, are a faint echo of their past.
A pyramid-shaped building on Gaza’s northern shore was supposed to be the Movenpick Hotel. But it, like Gaza, never realised its full potential. Today it stands nearly complete but hollow, scarred by war yet towering over the pristine sands of the sea.
Gazan fishermen are forbidden to travel more than three nautical miles from the coast
For centuries, generations of Gaza’s fishermen set sail from its port cities, earning a livelihood for their families, feeding hundreds of local restaurants and giving the territory a distinct fish flavour to its food.
In Rafah, fishermen annually prepared for the sardine harvest this time of the year. This would have been peak season for them. Today, these fishermen are not allowed to exceed three nautical miles off the coast, far short from what is legally permissible by international law.
When they do try to fish beyond the imposed limits, they are harassed, shot at and detained by the Israeli navy, which patrols Gaza coast ferociously.
Gaza City’s fish market was known for its colourful array of seafood, from crabs to shrimps, sharks to local catches. The fish market at the port was so renowned that it was the preferred market for Israeli Jews, whose own coast dwarfs the length of Gaza’s.
Back then, as it is today, Gaza was under Israeli military control but unlike now, Palestinians and Israelis were allowed to move freely between the two territories.
Gaza’s gateway to the world was through its port. The blueprints had been already drawn up. The Gaza City Port was to be transformed into a modern day commercial trading hub, bringing cargo vessels from Europe, Africa and Asia across the Mediterranean Sea.
But that, too, never materialised. Today, empty vessels and rusted and decrepit dinner-boats encrust the port.
Besides the economic potential – or lack thereof – the coast has also come to symbolise something immeasurable.
At a time when the Palestinian people are under a siege that has prevented them from exercising their most basic rights and freedoms, the Gaza coast has become an important psychological tool.
Escapism
It has become a vehicle to escape their daily struggles.
Anyone who approaches the coast and stares aimlessly out at the horizon is forced to dream. Dream about what, it’s up to them, but they find themselves thinking about what lies beyond their immediate physical limitations.
One simply cannot look at its beautiful waters and not imagine what lies beyond. Your brain begins to race with endless possibilities about the rest of the world. You immediately ask yourself “what if”?
What if Gaza was not under siege? What if I could take a ferry to Cyprus? What if Gaza was free to pursue its economic potential?
A few minutes staring at the coast and one suddenly realises the people are thinking about everything and anything that has nothing to do with Gaza. When people are thinking about Gaza – it is not about Gaza as it is, but what it could or should be.
As a good friend of mine who regularly frequents the Al Deira Hotel terrace put it: “Typical of the melancholy and pride of living in Gaza, its sea not only inspires unending spirit and wonder but it also, often times, instills a sense of sorrow as one sees this great symbol of freedom one is unable to touch.
But Gaza’s sea will continue to inspire freedom no matter the circumstances.”
So it is that, as the sun sets on its shores and the light merges with nightfall, days become weeks and months become years, Gaza’s besieged coast becomes an outlet to nothing but hope for its people.
Musa says Palestinians feel sorrow for the Holocaust, but question why they are being punished
In a small anonymous home in the West Bank, a Palestinian academic has set up a project which is almost unheard of in the Occupied Territories.
Hassan Musa is the curator of a museum exhibition dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.
The cracked white walls of this makeshift museum in the village of Ni’lin are covered from floor to ceiling with images of people forced out of their homes, tortured, imprisoned, starved and murdered.
In addition to the pictures depicting the Nazi brutality against Jews in Europe, there are also images of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the violence in Palestine since.
On one wall, there is a picture of a scared Jewish boy holding up his hands as Nazi soldiers look on; the caption reads: “Make your final account with Hitler and the Nazi Germans, not with the Palestinians.”
On an adjacent wall there are photos of dead children, demolished homes and women screaming during the Israeli war on Gaza in January.
Musa, who is also a member of Ni’lin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall, says pictures of the atrocities committed against both peoples were strategically placed side-by-side to not only reflect the suffering of both and help Israelis and Palestinians better understand each other, but also to demonstrate how victims of one conflict can become the harbinger of another.
“The Palestinians have no connection to the Holocaust in Europe, but unfortunately we are paying the price of a misdeed we did not commit,” he said.
‘Paying’ for the holocaust
Pictures of Jewish victims of the Holocaust are on the museum's walls
In the main room, a large banner sends a direct message to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, a message: “Why should we Palestinians continue to pay for the Holocaust?”
Musa believes this question is the impetus behind the exhibit, hoping it will challenge the international community on what is happening between Israelis and Palestinians.
“The world is shamefully silent about what is happening in Palestine as a way of expressing their sorrow for the death of six million Jews, but in the meantime, they are supporting the state of occupation,” he said.
Ni’lin has become synonymous with violent weekly clashes between Israeli soldiers and activists protesting against the construction of the ‘Separation Wall’.
The current path of the Wall will annex 10,000 acres of Ni’lin land to Israel, leaving its residents with 30,000 acres; this is a fraction of the 228,000 acres that constituted the village in 1948.
Since then, Ni’lin residents have lost more than 85 per cent of their land to confiscation and illegal settlement building.
People in the village also accused the Israeli military of killing four Ni’lin residents since protests against land confiscation began in May 2008.
Among those was Musa’s 10-year-old nephew, Ahmad, who died on July 29, 2008 from a bullet wound to the head; a number of residents and activists have also been injured in the protests.
In March, Tristan Anderson, a 38-year-old American activist acting as an observer with the International Solidarity Movement, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister, leaving him in critical condition.
Understanding the occupier
There are also pictures depicting the Nakba in 1948 and the violence since
It is these events that make the location of the museum all the more significant, Musa says.
In a place where Palestinians struggle to fend off occupation, Musa now offers them an opportunity to empathise with and further understand their occupier.
Israeli, Palestinian and international visitors continue to trickle into the museum, though they are fewer in number than the crowds that gather for the protests.
Remaining optimistic, Musa hopes this endeavour will encourage Israelis to pressure their government to halt the occupation.
“Our message to the Jewish people all over the world is that having been victims of such a brutal genocide, we expect you to be messengers of all the principles of justice, mercy and humanity,” he told Al Jazeera.
According to Musa, reaction from Palestinians, especially those in the village, has been positive; the exhibits are, in many instances, the first images they have ever seen of the Holocaust.
Musa says some Palestinian visitors leave the exhibit feeling sorrow for the Jewish people, but also with the same question posed in the messages plastered across the walls: “Why are they punishing us?”
“I lost my nephew and I know how painful it is for me,” Musa says, “that’s why I don’t want anyone else living on this land to lose their loved ones.”
Rami Hannoun keeps watch overnight in case the Israeli authorities come to evict the families
22 April 2009
The Hannouns are one of three families who have had been ordered by an Israeli court to leave their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.
The families, refugees who lost their original houses when they were occupied in 1948, say they were allowed to build new houses on land allocated by the United Nations under Jordanian administration.
A Jewish organisation, the Committee for Sephardic Jews which operated during the British mandate in Palestine, claims ownership of the land it says it lost during riots before 1948.
The Israeli foreign ministry, the prime minister’s office and the Jerusalem municipality all declined to comment on the case, saying the dispute was a “private matter” between citizens argued out in court.
East Jerusalem is, under international law, an occupied territory and Israel has no authority to change its composition.
The Hannouns are keeping watch for the Israeli police in shifts, with 21-year-old Rami, the eldest son of Maher and Nadia Hannoun, taking the night shift.
Rami has lived in the house all his life, along with his two sisters, 17-year-old Jana and 12-year-old Diala.
He will post regular video and text diaries on this page as both families anxiously await eviction.
Wednesday, April 22: ‘Today a group of priests visited our home’
Today I woke up late and I found the house full of our neighbours and my mother told me that a group of Palestinian students visited us who were coming from the [protest] tent in Silwan.
My father, just like always, explained our situation. Then after that a group of priests came by and visited us and we also told them our story.
During the day, some of the neighbours made a speech to all the groups.
Then one of my sisters took the camera with one of the international protesters and went to try and speak to one of the settlers who was going to pray at the cave where all the Jewish people come and pray because they think there is a rabbi is buried there.
My sister tried to take some pictures of him but the settler refused.
Today, I also had training to go to, but I couldn’t go because the house was full and I couldn’t leave my parents while the house was full of people.
Then I did an interview with my mom and she told me the whole story about our house.
After that my mom made us some food for the first time in two weeks because today she finally had some time to make us something to eat.
Tuesday, April 21: ‘My sisters left the house as my father is afraid for them’
“The Israelis are kicking us out of these houses because they say they own this land – that they have owned it since a long time ago.
Actually, they have a fake paper that says they own it since a long time ago, but we also have papers that go back to the Ottomans period which say that we own this land – that a Palestinian man owns this land and that this land was given to us actually by the Jordanian government and the UN built us these houses.
We are actually waiting every moment for them to come and evict us. My sisters had to leave the house because my father is afraid of them, and our house is completely transformed into another house.
It is not the house that we used to live in. It is not the house we grew up in.
We have lots of internationals [anti-eviction protesters] living with us. We are not living as a family any more, but they are supporting us.
Some nights I stay awake with some internationals, we play cards and smoke hubbly bubbly or something. This makes the time go faster so you cannot feel the time.
My father has not been to work in 40 days because he is afraid the police will come any second, and because he also has to receive lots of internationals and explain to them our story.
My sisters can hardly sleep. They sleep at my grandmother’s because we are afraid for them because of the police and soldiers.
They are too young right now and they cannot handle what is going on. And actually, in front of us they are showing us they are strong, but deep inside they are not strong, they cry to their friends.
Today there was an article in the newspaper. It says that the United Nations are asking Israel to stop evicting Palestinians from their houses in Sheikh Jarrah.
It made me just a little bit optimistic because I hope we will not be evicted from our house.”
Sunday, April 19: ‘I stayed up all night with Israelis who support us’
“It’s my 34th day [on nightwatch]. I woke up and I found the house full of people.
There were a group of Palestinian girls who studied at a college who had heard about our story and came to see us, to understand what is the real situation.
My father explained our case to them. After that, our lawyer came and he was searching for a solution for our case.
International campaigners, including anti-eviction Israelis, are camped out at the house
Then I went to my grandmother’s house. She made lunch for me because my mother wasn’t able to make food because the house was full of people and she didn’t want to leave them.
After that, we had a meeting with some of the international [anti-eviction protesters] who are supporting us. We sat together talking and then I stayed the whole night with them and the Israelis who have come to support us.
The whole situation I am passing through is making me stronger and stronger and it won’t make me give up even if I am getting a little bit tired.
I will always defend my house that I grew up in and lived in for all my childhood.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson has confirmed to Al Jazeera that it will not co-operate with a United Nations investigation into alleged war crimes during the 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.
Up to 1,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed before Israel ended the offensive in January.
Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, were killed during the same period.
The UN Human Rights Council has appointed Richard Goldstone, a South African judge and former UN war crimes prosecutor, to examine claims of human rights violations by both Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters during the conflict.
Israel has previously complained that the UN body is biased against it.
“The investigation has no moral ground since it decided even before it started who is guilty and of what,” Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman, said earlier this month.
Imprecise artillery
Human rights groups have called for the UN investigation to look into allegations that the Israeli fired imprecise artillery and controversial white phosphorus shells in built-up neighbourhoods.
It is also expected to examine the indiscriminate firing of rocket into southern Israel by Palestinian fighters, Israel’s stated reason for launching the offensive last December.
Sporadic rocket fire into Israel has continued since the war, and on Thursday Israel bombed a house in a Gaza refugee camp. No casualties were reported.
Goldstone’s four-member team is expected to travel to the region in a few weeks’ time and will issue a report to the council in July.
But Israel’s refusal to work with the investigators raises questions about whether an adequate investigation can be completed.
However, Israel said that Goldstone, who is Jewish and has close ties to Israel, is not the problem.
“[It’s] not about Justice Goldstone,” Aharon Leshno Yaar, the Israeli ambassador to UN organisations in Geneva, said on Tuesday.
“It’s clear to everybody who follows this council and the way that it treats Israel that justice cannot be the outcome of this mission.”
‘Imaprtiality’
In New York, a leading human rights group urged both sides to co-operate.
Human Rights Watch, noted that it has criticised the UN rights council in the past “for its exclusive focus on Israeli rights violations”.
However, Goldstone has the “experience and proven commitment to ensure that this inquiry will demonstrate the highest standards of impartiality,” the group wrote in a letter to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and 27 European foreign ministers.
Hamas has already welcomed the investigation.
The investigators “will find full co-operation of the Palestinian government and Palestinian people because the crimes of the occupation are clear and no one can underestimate them”, Yousef Rizka, an adviser to Ismail Haniya, the de facto prime minister in Gaza, said.
Israel is co-operating with a separate investigation into several attacks on UN facilities during the conflict, including one which destroyed a warehouse belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides food aid for the Gazans.
