Tag: Cast Lead

Painting on the walls in Gaza

Asmaa

It is nothing new in Gaza seeing lots of words in great lines on any wall you pass it in Gaza. Some of them talk about the political situation, another is talking about the social events. Many of them are talking about whom left their families and died during the last war or previous Israeli military operations in Gaza, with their names and their painting faces.

It is the fast, cheap, easy way to express your opinion and to reach what you want the other Gazans to know freely. Even if it stays for a short time, because anyone else who will do the same on the same wall for another reason and subject, in the next week.

After 2006 many things changed in Gaza. The political situation affected many aspects of Gaza’s life. There is a government in West Bank and another one in Gaza. Most of the people in Gaza became don’t believe in these or those. Nothing is important except how they can get work and have enough money to cover their families needs.

Life became more difficult. You see the sadness and poorness all over Gaza. It is not just because the horrible war, but because of many reasons. The long and the unfair blockade from all sides (sea, air, and all the crossing points).

It is too hard sometimes to realize this strange ability for the Gazans to get over all that has happened to them and their families and continue the life with this fast. What happened in Gaza is hard to forget. And we still feel it In spite of our daily concerns.

But it seems that it inspires a lot of artists to get their feelings out in many ways in Gaza. If you walk in Gaza’s streets you will see every week a new painting wall by group of artists.

Many of them talked about the war. I was impressive of a long one made by 13 artists, girls and boys, all of them students in the Fine Art College in El Aqsa University. They made it on a particular type of white cloth because they couldn’t paint on the damaged wall opposite to the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

I asked one of the girls called Miysa, an art student at level 2 in the University, “What does this work mean to you?”

She said, “It means that even if they destroy our life in Gaza we will servive and stand up again to get all our rights back.“

I asked another artist who painted a big key and a complete map of all Palestine why she painted these and others that talk about the war.

She said, “I meant it to tell the world that dying in Gaza doesn’t mean we forgot our land and our rights to live freely in our home on our own land.”

Another of the artists is named Mohammed El Haj and he is an art teacher and a specialist in painting walls. I asked him why most of artists in Gaza go to use the walls to paint. He simply said, “It is the cheapest way during this long siege in Gaza. There are no good colors, no material that we use to draw like the cloth and brushes. And if we find them, they are very expensive because they enter Gaza by the tunnels.”

So I found the walls the cheapest and fastest way to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around. I will not let the siege or war effect on what I live to do, so I continue to draw my life.

Many of the artists I met come from from different backgrounds and studied English, public policy, economics, engineering, and other fields.

When I asked Ismaiel El Hefni, an architect, why he painted on the wall and not on a smaller canvas to put on exhibition, he said: “Painting on the wall is different, I found it more interesting for me to put it on the wall instead of an exhibition, even if the painting will only stay on the wall for one day. I like to paint on a big space with all this movement around me. You can share it with all the people around. You can share with them what you believe. And if the painting was good and interesting for others it will stay on the wall for a long time. I’m happy to share with another artist from a different field. We exchange ideas and create new techniques to produce good art collectively.”

After the war a lot of local and international organizations supported artists to provide a fun and enjoyable way to deal with the trauma Gazans lived, especially the children. We saw some paintings made by hands and feet of children in beautiful colors.

We can see the beauty in Gaza, even if a large part of it has been destroyed. We will see life next to the rubble.

When a second home isn’t due to wealth

Sharon Lock | Tales To Tell

Excerpts from Sharon Lock’s blog

J and L's kids - still alive because they've abandoned their house
J and L's kids - still alive because they've abandoned their house

We were visiting hospital dietitian S’s family in Al Fukhary. They all fled their home during the attacks, except for S’s dad who stayed behind to confront the tanks. And literally did – S shows us where the tanks got to: the back garden. At this point, his dad went to the back door and looked the solider in the tank in the eye. The soldier in the tank looked back. And then he turned the tank around and left. I guess Abu S has one great stern look.

As we are leaving we pass several houses totally destroyed, in amongst houses still standing. Why these houses? Nobody knows. A kindergarten is also destroyed, and there is no logic in that either. We notice that all the road ways are planted with dense cactus, and speculate if they are deliberately planted to obstruct border-originating bullets. They look fierce enough to do it. At S’s family land, near the border, Israeli tanks have destroyed the roadside cactuses, so maybe the soldiers have the same theory about them as us.

Earlier in the afternoon we were with J and L and their six kids (the youngest is 3) in Al Faraheen. You’ll remember before I referred to the fact that they stay in a house in the middle of the village now, because their regular home at the edge, about 500m from the border, feels too dangerous. Before the attacks, J and his oldest son at least were sleeping at their farmhouse, now, no-one does.

Behind this wall is J and L's bedroom;
Behind this wall is J and L's bedroom;

Before the war when ISMers were visiting, the Israeli army seemed to be trying to enforce (by shooting) a 300m no-go zone on the Palestinian side of the border. At the time, J was saying he was afraid it would shortly turn into a 500m no-go zone. After the Dec/Jan attacks, when E rang the Canadian embassy to tell them she was with Palestinians being fired on while picking parsley, the Canadian officials said something along the lines of “well Israel says you are in the 1km no-go zone.” The what? And who made them the boss of the world? as we used to say as kids. And does this remind anyone of how the government in the novel 1984 rewrites “facts” regularly and then everyone colludes to say those were always the facts?

What I didn’t realize til today, is that J and L are paying $100 a month rent for the village house, out of their small farming income. In the hope some compensation money might be available from UNWRA, J asks us to take photos of the damage to their house and help them make contact with the appropriate authorities.

A few minutes later, at the farmhouse, J points out the “donkey radar” – consisting of a donkey in the field on the border side, nose pointing towards Israel – insisting that the donkey’s ears will go up if jeeps arrive. It is easy to tell J’s heart and soul are in farming and he loves his land. He practices crop rotation on the remaining 4 denems, close to the house, that it seems worth risking his life to access. In the past he shared 300 denems with his brothers and neighbours – 3 denems were olives, 6 were fruit trees, 50 were wheat, 50 were peas… Israel totally destroyed the fruit trees in previous incursions and since the rest of the land goes all the way up to the border, he has given up on it.

...but then even the remaining chickens were poisoned by phosphorous.
...but then even the remaining chickens were poisoned by phosphorous.

Before the army incursion in May 2008, he also had 3000 chickens, but the army killed 2,500 of them then, also destroying 30 pieces (each 1m X 2.5m) of shed roofing, breaking his tractor and his wheat picker (worth about $12,000), breaking the pump for his well, and shooting up his kitchen fridge, water tank, solar water heater, self-designed solar dryer, as well as the walls of the house.

The remaining 500 chickens died in January 09 after eating plants poisoned by phosphorous bombs, and another 30 pieces of shed roofing went the way of the first lot. J had to destroy a crop of radishes still in the field when he realised they’d been similarly poisoned. What this will do long term to his land, no-one knows. The family’s TV and computer were destroyed in the Dec/Jan attacks as well when shelling caused part of the roof to fall in on top of them.

Mohammad’s story

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

10 March 2009

An elderly man saw me walking the other morning. “Bless you, bless you,” he said, holding out his palm as I gave him 20 shekels.

What has rendered a man in his late years impoverished and begging, in a manner Palestinians are not accustomed to?

I followed him home yesterday. It took some doing, as the name he had told me, while correct, didn’t seem to register with his wife when my friend Mohammed called. Establishing that he was the same man I’d met on the street took some time two days ago. Then locating his home in a swirl of alleys after the Sahaa market area took more doing.

But we finally reached it and I saw the same beaming older man, greeting us with the same enthusiasm and gratitude of two weeks ago.

Mohammad Ahmad Kahawish lives in the Tuffahh area, a neighbourhood in Gaza city’s older area. His family is unusually small for a Palestinian family, with only 3 children. His house is also small, and now is quite damaged from the intense shelling during Israel’s 3 weeks of attacks on Gaza.

“The house jumped from side to side with every missile,” his wife explained.

He’s fortunate that none of the missile hit his home, but suffers nonetheless from a combination of debilitating factors, including at least a natural one: age. He is nearly 70, born in 1940 in Jaffa, in the former Palestine.

Until Mohammad fell off of his bicycle 6 months ago, injuring his lower left leg, he had worked as a cleaner, on the street, in homes, wherever he could get work. Post-accident, his doctor strongly advised him not to walk excessively, though out of necessity he’s had to ignore this. When I met him, he was walking in the other end of town, by the marina, collecting sellable bits of rubbish and imploring passersby for some token shekels.

Out of work, injured, and also blind in one eye -[he has a cataract in the left eye (Left traumatic vitreous hemorrhage) which he cannot get treatment for in Gaza. Despite having a referral for surgery in Israel he has yet been denied an exit permit by Israeli authorities]-Mohammad has his family to provide for, and now a house to try to repair.

The reverberations for the bombing around his home caused cracks all along where walls meet ceiling. Some of the cracks are a couple of inches deep, wall torn from roof. Cold air and rainwater stream in. The entire ceiling leaks, there isn’t a dry corner in the tiny 2.5 room and a kitchen home. One room, where his daughters sleep, has no actual roof: the ceiling, a layer of overlapping planks of plywood, is all that shelters from the elements.

Mohammad’s son is 34 but doesn’t contribute to the family income. “He’s got psychosis,” the parents explain. “And at night he cannot see at all.” In 1987, during the 1st Intifada, Israeli soldiers had come to the house and beat the boy, around 12 or 13 at the time.

My original query, how did this dignified elderly man end up so, begging and grateful for the smallest scrap, was answered yesterday.

Amnesty: Evidence of misuse of US-weapons reinforces need for arms embargo

Amnesty International

Amnesty International
Amnesty International

Both Israel and Hamas used weapons supplied from abroad to carry out attacks on civilians, Amnesty International said today as it released fresh evidence on the munitions used during the three-week conflict in Gaza and southern Israel and called on the UN to impose a comprehensive arms embargo.

[Download report: Fueling Conflict: Foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza]

“Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes. Their attacks resulted in the death of hundreds of children and other civilians and massive destruction of homes and infrastructure,” said Donatella Rovera who headed Amnesty International’s fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza. “At the same time, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups fired hundreds of rockets that had been smuggled in or made of components from abroad at civilian areas in Israel. Though far less lethal than the weaponry used by Israel, such rocket firing also constitutes a war crime and caused several civilian deaths.”

Even before the three-week conflict, those who armed the two sides will have been aware of the pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by the parties. They must take some responsibility for the violations perpetrated with the weapons they have supplied and should immediately cease further transfers.

“As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights. The Obama Administration should immediately suspend US military aid to Israel,” said Malcolm Smart, Director for the Middle East.

For many years the USA has been the major supplier of conventional arms to Israel. Under a 10-year agreement to 2017, the USA is due to provide $30 billion in military aid to Israel, a 25 percent increase compared to the period preceding the Bush administration.

“To a large extent, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers’ money,” said Malcolm Smart.

In Gaza, as the fighting ended Amnesty International researchers found fragments and components from munitions used by the Israeli Army – including many that are US-made – littering school playgrounds, in hospitals and in people’s homes. They included artillery and tank shells, mortar fins and remnants from Hellfire and other airborne missiles and large F-16 delivered bombs, as well as still smouldering highly incendiary white phosphorus remains.

They also found remnants of a new type of missile, seemingly launched from unmanned drones, which explodes large numbers of tiny sharp-edged metal cubes, each between 2mm and 4mm square in size. These lethal purpose-made shrapnel had penetrated thick metal doors and were embedded deep in concrete walls, and are clearly designed to maximize injury.

In southern Israel, Amnesty International also saw the remains of “Qassam”, Grad, and other indiscriminate rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups against civilian areas. These unsophisticated weapons are either smuggled into Gaza clandestinely or constructed there from components secretly brought in from abroad. They cannot be aimed accurately and stand no comparison with the weaponry deployed by Israel but they have caused several deaths of Israeli civilians, injured others and damage to civilian property.

“We urge the UN Security Council to impose an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups until effective mechanisms are found to ensure that munitions and other military equipment are not used to commit serious violations of international law,” said Malcolm Smart. “In addition all states should suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions to Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups until there is no longer a substantial risk of human rights violations. There must be no return to business as usual, with the predictably devastating consequences for civilians in Gaza and Israel.”

From the ending we shall begin

Natalie Abou Shakra | Gaza 08

His green eyes divert in the opposite direction as I look into them. He smiles at me shyly, sadly, forlornly. I stand against the magnitude of a man, too great not to be noticed. His tall, dark figure directs me to the car, and his friend drives us to the sea. It is almost noon, and I peak towards his seat. The windows dark, the car white, the sun shining and we stop at the hotel. “We shall come in a minute,” he tells me, “find us a seat.”

The darkness of his skin makes his emerald green eyes fire with brightness. His name is Adnan, and he is a father of six children. “The pressure was immense, and its magnitude pushed me forward. It was a magnanimous sound with extreme pressure,” he spoke motioning his hands towards his face and his chest, his body leaning towards the table and his head rose forward not surrendering to the excruciating memory of the Israeli bombing of the Jawazat [passports] section of the Ministry of Interior. It was one of the first targets of the Israeli Apache planes at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday December 27, 2008 where around forty Palestinian citizens were slaughtered the day they were finishing their training course in being traffic officers.

Adnan was in the meeting room on the third floor, and in less than a second, he was under the rubble of a building leveled down. All he opened his eyes to, was a black void until sun rays from a nearby hole, in what seemed like a ceiling, was noticed. A flood of liquid poured down from his forehead, and he struggled to keep his eyes open against what he later realized was blood. Moments later, he was pulled out, and retrieved consciousness at the Shifa hospital full of people with amputated body parts, children with deep wounds on their faces and bodies. “I was shocked by the images. I forgot myself, I forgot my wounds, and I even forgot my pain. The images I saw were more shocking, were more painful than what my body was going through,” he told me calmly. But, Adnan is still alive, he goes back to work, he brings bread home.

The rubble of the Jawazat section are now cleared off. Days ago, however, as I walked through the eastern neighborhood of Jabalya town, the rubble of leveled down homes around me told different tales of resistance. I was greeted by families drinking tea above the ruins of their homes. As I walked past the uprooted olive tree orchards, a woman ran towards me crying “they killed the stones, the trees, the animals, the humans… they killed everything!” I observed the trails of the tanks, drawing images of the plummeting of the earth below them and devastating the life below their weight. But, I also saw a little green stem rise against the death of soil. As I ascended the staircase towards a still standing home’s roof, I saw two pigeons that the housekeeper had raised, killed. But, I also saw others flying around freely alive.

The core of this reality is not humanitarian. It is political. The core of this being is that it has been a being of 61 years of waiting, and the people are still waiting. The core of this absurdity is that there were around 483 children massacred during a period of twenty two days, and the criminal has not been tried yet. The core of this existence is that there have been numerous peace processes bringing about a series of episodes of massacres and acts of ethnic cleansing. The core of this actuality is that there is a society crippled, its development obstructed, its people repressed, oppressed, and imprisoned, and negotiations are still ongoing. From the tragedy of a siege to the tragedy of human slaughtering, and the sea still roars with pride along the coast of Gaza. “What can we do without the sea? I would die without the sea in Gaza” a friend tells me. There is always a sea.

Behind the sadness of tales, there lies a resistance, the roaring of a people with a meteoric amalgam of unforeseen power. The song of resistance has not ended yet, and the words of Frantz Fanon come again to ring in the ears of oblivion a narration of liberation. “Faced with the extent of the damage, colonialism begins to have second thoughts,” he writes, “a generation of people willing to make sacrifices, to give all they have, impatient, with an indestructible pride.” The war on Gaza was a spark, a calling onto morality and justice, onto the boycotting and isolation of an Aparthied ideology, regime and political entity. It is now that the ending is writing a new beginning, in a cause that witnessed the false notions of many new beginnings. From the ending, then, we shall start.