5th February 2009
Barcelona basketball fans receive Maccabi Tel Aviv with dozens of Palestinian flags and a chant of: “Boycott Israel – Viva Palestine!”
Tag: Cast Lead
One million and a half broken hearts
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, overcoming the killing of her lost love, Mohammed, who was killed by IOF whilst at the Abu Middeen police station on December 27th, 2009. Red roses are thrown over Mohammed’s tomb as he is carried through the streets of his neighborhood. Hanaa, her head bent towards the ground, stroking the ring on her right hand, nods her head accepting a reality imposed, one of which she had no choice in determining.
This is the case of many here in Gaza, where love has been targeted, where intimacy has been destroyed, where sentiments are victims of slaughtering and massacres. “We are just numbers in the media,” says Hanan, a student at the Aqsa University in Gaza. “But, behind the numbers are stories, are loves lost, are childhoods devastated, choked.”
As I visited my friend’s house in the eastern neighborhood of Jabalya Town, I saw beds being torn apart, as the holes in them mark the aiming of an Apache rocket in the middle during the twenty two day attack on Gaza.
Since we are living in a culture of a so-called ‘human rights’ production, then perhaps those that declared those aforementioned rights can issue a declaration of a right to love.
“How can one express the broken dreams inside of him? How can one express himself?” asks the late Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani in “I have Married You, o Freedom!” a similar rhetoric now demanded on the streets of Gaza.
“There are no theatres, no cinemas, not even public libraries!” There is not even the right to go to the sea… to smell the ocean. Three years ago, the adolescent Huda Ghalyeh came out of the sea after she was swimming to find the eleven members of her family, slaughtered on the coast. The Israeli gunboat had missed shooting at her as she swam far from where her family was walking. Huda came out of the ocean as she heard the nearby sounds of the ambulance siren and people screaming to the images of killings. From three years of living within what is now described as the largest collective prison modern history has witnessed to what has become a largest concentration camp of killings and slaughtering, that many compare to the Warsaw and Auschwitz concentration camps, which still bring shivers to those who recall it during WWII.
In Gaza, where normality of habit and routine does not exist, in Gaza where the thought of a coming death is a consistent companion, amid a struggle to maintain a meaning to one’s life. “After one’s home is demolished, leveled down to ruins, one’s love, one’s family no longer existent… can you tell me what is worth living for?” asks twenty five year old Firas, who lost it all. He works at a local media agency, and manages to control the torn life that dwells bellow his childlike facial expressions.
“I missed eating fruits. We had no fruit. But, after the killings, they opened the crossings for a day or two to bring in fruit… I was nauseated by the fruit they [IOF] allowed to enter. I do not want to eat any fruit anymore after they killed 1500 of us” I hear from a young lady.
On the balcony of a friend, I observe the sun setting down on Gaza. My friend’s eyes are now an ocean of sadness. His expressions changed since before the war; he now looks into empty space, losing everyone around him. When he jokes and we laugh, his smile returns back to the land of forlornness, and it leaves a façade of an expressionless existence. We speak about the numbers of the dead, but there are also those six thousands citizens who have lost a body part, who are now physically challenged. How will they live the rest of their lives? How will the rest of the million and a half broken hearts in Gaza go on living in a time where the human condition is too worthless to be a condition from the start?
When asked about hell on earth, my answer is not Gaza: Gaza’s hell is… other people.
The University of Manchester occupation in solidarity with Gaza
University of Manchester Students in Occupation
Over 150 University of Manchester students have occupied the main university administration building in a demand for a stronger and more proactive position from the university on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The students have proposed a set of demands on the university’s Vice Chancellor Alan Gilbert, including a boycott of Israeli goods on campus, support for a day of fundraising with proceeds to the DEC fund, and that the university end research into manufacturing arms.
Students at other universities have taken similar actions over the last three weeks and have been successful in their demands.
The conflict has killed over 1,300 Palestinians and injured thousands. Tens of thousands of civilians have been left homeless. Head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, John Ging, is now joining international calls for an investigation into the war crimes of the recent action, wherein Israel stands accused of using banned weapons such as white phosphorus and cluster bombs, attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles, and killing large numbers of policemen who had no military role.
Over 500 students attended an emergency general meeting of the students union to discuss a motion on the issue of the crisis in Gaza, whereby the students marched on University administration headquarters, the John Owens Building, to draw up a list of demands.<
The peaceful occupation is planned to continue for as long as it takes to achieve its demands, and promises to welcome high profile speakers during the week.
DEMANDS
1. University of Manchester should issue a formal statement condemning Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, acknowledging particularly the effects on educational institutions such as the bombing of the Gaza Islamic University and expressing concern about war crimes allegations.
2. Support a day of fundraising across campus with the proceeds going to the DEC Gaza appeal.
3. University to publicise DEC advert in any way possible (including banner on the website) and put pressure on the BBC and sky to show the DEC advert.
4. All furniture & surplus supplies from buildings that are being renovated to be sent to Gaza on the Viva Palestina convoy.
5. Join the BDS movement through stopping sales of Israeli goods on university premises, the University should also stop buying any campus supplies from Israeli companies.
6. That the university divests from all companies directly involved in the manufacture of weaponry. We also demand that the university takes the issue of transparency in their investment seriously.
7. That the university publicly supports its students’ right to protest, such as occupations. That in line with this, the university will provide its facilities for a “Students for Palestine” conference, second week of April 09.
8. To send a public message of solidarity to the Islamic University in Gaza, whose campus has been virtually destroyed, and publish it on the university website and distribute it to the university wide e-mail addresses.
9. To give at lease five scholarships for Palestinian students as well as providing at least five scholarships for Israelis who refuse to serve in the IDF.
10. That the university make a module on the history of Palestine available as an optional module for any University of Manchester student.
11. That home fees apply to Palestinians students wanting to study at the University of Manchester.
12. No victimisation for those taking part in the Occupation, and free movement in and out of the occupied spaced.
NLG Members in Gaza Document Executions of Civilians, Blocking of Humanitarian Aid, and Destruction of Civil Property
For Immediate Release—February 5, 2009
Contact: Paige Cram, NLG Communications Coordinator, 212-679-5100, ext.15
Gaza—On its second day in Gaza, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation witnessed the rubble of the American International School in Gaza. An Israeli aerial attack killed the watch guard on duty and completely demolished the school at 2am on January 3, 2009.
“Israel doesn’t want anything good or bright in Gaza. They want us to live in the dark ages, just waiting in line for gas and bread,” said Ribhi Salem the school’s Director, who previously spent 20 years living and teaching in Chicago. Salem noted that the school is modeled on American schools and teaches “American values.” Because of that, he said, the school has been attacked on two previous occasions by local extremists since it opened in 2000.
The American school was only one of thousands of buildings destroyed in the recent Israeli offensive. Guild delegates were alarmed at the indiscriminate attacks against civilian neighborhoods, which left thousands of Gaza’s residents homeless and living in UN-provided tents. Israeli forces also targeted local businesses, including a tahini and sweet factory in Jabaliyya, leaving the poverty-stricken population more aid dependant.
John Ging, Director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told the delegation that although the need is much greater now because of the war, less food aid is getting in now than before the war. “Nine hundred thousand people need food aid now but on the amount of food we are receiving we can feed only 30,000 each day,” he said. “Thousands of tons of aid are piling up in Al Arish in Egypt and Ashdod Port in Israel,” said Ging. “People need food and blankets. . . its been two weeks and two days [since the ceasefire] and we can’t get enough food into Gaza . . . where’s the accountability?”
The seven delegates also witnessed the remains of the entire residential neighborhood of Izbit Abed Rabbo. Resident Khaled Abed Rabbo told delegates Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath how he witnessed an Israeli soldier execute his 2 year-old and 7 year-old daughters, on a sunny afternoon outside his house there. Two other Israeli soldiers were standing nearby eating chips and chocolates at the time on January 7, 2009. “I will never eat chocolate again,” said Abed Rabbo, who was formerly employed by the Fateh-led Palestinian authority. His third daughter, Samar, was also shot and paralyzed by the same Israeli soldier. Samar, 4 years old, is currently hospitalized for treatment in Belgium.
Founded in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
From beneath the rubble
Eva Bartlett | In Gaza
4 February 2009
“This is at the beginning, when they started digging survivors and bodies out of the rubble,” Abu Qusay said. Just a few weeks after being buried alive by the bombing which attacked the building he was in, only a mere scar at his left eyebrow hints at the ordeal.
Abu Qusay is in his thirties, is the father of 6 kids between the ages of 4-15, and has worked as a policeman and security guard for 14 years now. When the late President Yasser Arafat was alive, Abu Qusay was a bodyguard for wife Suha Arafat.
In recent times, since the election of Hamas, he has continued in his role as security guard, these days accompanying VIPs as well as being the Manager of security for international guests.
It is in this capacity that I met Abu Qusay and Hamsa, the latter killed during the war on Gaza.
In one of Gaza’s coastal hotel cafes, seascape in the background and F-16 flying overhead, Abu Qusay related his story: he is a survivor of the first attacks, during which an estimated 60 Israeli warplanes simultaneously targeted around 100 police stations, police training academies, civil and governmental offices, and other security-related posts throughout the Gaza Strip.
We had a meeting at the Montada, the Presidential compound. There were about 15 of us and we’d entered the 3 rd floor meeting room shortly after 11 am. I was sitting 2 seats from the manager at the head of the table, with a friend in between us and the other attendees spread around the table.
The manager was speaking when the first strikes hit.
[2:35, an F-16 flies low overhead, growls loudly. Abu Qusay stiffens, stops speaking suddenly, then resumes after a pause.]
The explosion itself was strange, unlike other bomb blasts. I felt an immense air pressure which pushed me to the ground. Then I heard the explosion of the buildings nearby. It was such a foreign sensation, I didn’t know what was going on.
I tried to open my eyes and found that I couldn’t. The air was thick with dust which blinded me. I felt something running down my face. I tried many times to open my eyes but the dust stung them so much that it was impossible for a while. Finally, I was able to keep them open but I still couldn’t see anything. Just a small hole of light. It seemed like I was facing a wall with a tiny break in it.
I felt someone’s foot at my head and told the person to get their shoe away from my face. I was still disoriented, still had no idea what had happened.I tried to push the shoe away but found that my arms were pinned behind me, as if handcuffed. There was still liquid streaming down my face and I realized it was blood.
I began to hear the screaming and moaning of people around me. Then I heard a woman’s voice, which I recognized as one of my colleagues. Then Hamsa’s voice, telling us to be patient.
I felt the crushing weight moving off of me and then realized I was being pulled out from what had been burying me: concrete blocks and the rubble of our building. I realize that the 3rd floor room where we had been meeting was now on the ground floor. Three floors brought down to ground level.
I woke up at Shifa hospital, realized I’d passed out at the bomb site. Around me, all around me, all I could see were bodies. Corpses and wounded were scattered on the floor of the emergency room. There were so many, too many for the beds. People with legs and arms amputated. People with hideous open wounds.
It was surreal: I had been in a meeting, then was buried under rubble, then was surrounded by so much death. I couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t understand what had happened.
I forgot myself, I lost myself. I forgot my pain when I saw a child who had been at a school near the Montada. His head was pierced with wounds. I got up, was walking around looking at everyone. I was absorbed by it. Doctors and others were telling me to sit down, stay put. Where are you going, you’re injured? they asked.
Living in Gaza, we expect anything from Israel. Any attacks. We’ve lived through so many invasions and bombings. But I couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe the scale of what they had done. And I didn’t even know about the other areas of Gaza at the time.
I used to drive ambulances. I’d learned how because I believe its important to broaden my skills, and I’m always trying to do so. But in all my days of driving ambulances, I’d never seen injuries and dead as horrific as what I saw that day. So many amputations, decapitations even.
And I keep remembering that child, the one from the school nearby. Were there fighters in the school when Israel bombed nearby? What had that child done? What had any of us working for the government done? Could this ever happen to policemen in America, Canada, England…? How can these criminals who would bomb in areas where there are civilians, children coming from school, who kill animals and uproot trees not be recognized as terrorists? They’ve committed massacres on us.
Abu Qusay is obviously one of the luckier, having survived the bombing with limbs intact. Like so many Palestinians in Gaza, though, he lost a number of friends in the attacks. I try to imagine how it would be to lose more than one friend, say 10, or more than one family member, say 7, or like the Samouni family, 48. It’s impossible to imagine.