Just months after the Israeli assault that killed 1,390 Palestinians, I visited Gaza. Among dozens of painful stories I heard, one family stood out. I spent several days with Kamal and Wafaa Awajah, playing with their children, sleeping in the tent they were living in, and filming their story.
Wafaa described the execution of their son, Ibrahim. As she spoke, her children played on the rubble of their destroyed home. Kamal talked about struggling to help his kids heal from trauma.
What compelled me to tell the Awajah family’s story? I was moved not only by their tragedy but by the love for their children in Wafaa and Kamal’s every word.
Palestinians in Gaza are depicted either as violent terrorists or as helpless victims. The Awajah family challenges both portrayals. Through one family’s story, the larger tragedy of Gaza is exposed, and the courage and resilience of its people shines through.
28 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
A demonstration commemorating the beginning of “Operation Cast Lead” was held Tuesday in the Gazan city of Beit Hanoun. Families of victims were in attendance, as were 5 International Solidarity Movement activists. Two years have passed since the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which killed over 1400 people in just 23 days. The vast majority of victims were civilians, including 350 children, according to the United Nations and other major human rights organizations.
The Local Initiative demonstration began at the railway street in Beit Hanoun, near some of the most horrendous attacks which occurred during the land, air and sea bombardment of Gaza. The group of around 40 continued into the ‘buffer zone’ to within 100m of the Israeli border, holding flags and photos of children killed two years ago. During the 23-day attack, none of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants (including 800,000 children) were safe.
Beit Hanoun was not spared this horror, and stories from the attacks continue to haunt survivors. Abed Hamdan carried a banner with pictures of his youngest brother and two youngest sisters, Ismail (9), Haia (12) and Lama (4). While marching towards the border, demonstrators stopped at an intersection with al-Seka Street. At approximately 7:45am on 30 December 2008, Haia, Ismail and Lama were taking rubbish to this intersection when they were hit by two missiles launched from an F16 fighter jet. According to the children’s uncle, their bodies were found in three different locations, each about 50 meters away from where the missiles hit. Relatives ran with Lama and Haias’ bodies to Beit Hanoun Hospital, but the girls had died at the scene. Ismail sustained shrapnel wounds to his abdomen and chest, and had several broken bones. He died the following day in Al Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City. According to witnesses, the Hamdan children had been directly targeted by the Israeli, US-made F16 jet.
demonstration in Beit Hanoun
Lama carried after attack
Abed with Lama
The demonstration passed a collapsed building, where a father described being the lone survivor from his family after the building was bombed. The group then proceeded into the ‘buffer zone’, the strip of land along the Israeli border where attacks continue, injuring and killing countless farmers and rubble-collectors and depriving many of their livelihoods.[1] Demonstrators gathered in the ‘zone’ for speeches, under surveillance from the Erez Crossing watchtowers where Israeli snipers frequently shoot at demonstrators.
Local Initiative co-ordinator Saber Al Zaaneen spoke about the devastation still felt two years after the Israeli military’s attacks. “We’re here to reject the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer-zone’ that takes away so much of our farmland, and in defiance of the 23-day Zionist aggression 2 years ago, horrors once again visited upon us the Palestinians of Gaza, told to the world by the United Nations Goldstone Report.[2] The burning and bleeding under the rubble of the killing from the air, land and sea will never beat us. Long live Palestine, our steadfastness is strengthened by the memory or our loved ones, the hundreds of children murdered while the world watched on their television screens. We emphasize our legitimate right to resist occupation, and use all methods of struggle and fight until the end of Israel’s inhuman siege and bring our eventual liberation.”
International Solidarity Movement activist Adie Mormech expressed the urgency required for the international community and solidarity movements to act.
“The world is now aware of these well-documented crimes against humanity, the massacres, occupation, ethnic cleansing and siege of the Palestinian territories – all collective punishment[3] and serious violations of the 4th Geneva Convention. We cannot stand for this. We cannot allow Lama, Ismail and Haia to die with no justice to them or their family, or the families of the 1400 others massacred in the Israeli attacks. So where is the action? Where is the compensation? Where are the peacekeepers? Where are the sanctions on Israel? How many will they kill the next time, perhaps soon, if nothing is done about the 4 year medieval siege of Gaza or the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children? It is up to international civil society to do all they can and to boycott, divest and sanction from the Israeli Apartheid regime.”
The demonstrators returned to Beit Hanoun, with talk of more violence ahead and the prospects of another impending Israeli assault on the Gaza. Israel’s blockade of Gaza continues unabated, despite being denounced by the European Union, The Red Cross and all major human rights groups as collective punishment, illegal according to article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
On 2nd December 2010, 22 international organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, and Medical Aid for Palestinians produced the report Dashed Hopes, Continuation of the Gaza Blockade[4] stating that there had been no material change to the devastating effects of the siege, and calling for international pressure on Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade.
The Hamdan family remains in ruins from the loss of their 3 youngest children. When their father, Talal Hamdan, spoke of their deaths in his home, there was still a quiet disbelief in his voice at what had happened to them. The family’s sorrow is unending.
“We’re just a simple Palestinian family”, Talal said, sitting in the garden of his home which is two kilometers from the ‘buffer zone’. Before the war, he and his wife spent their evenings watching the children playing in the garden, in the spot where he sat. “There is no life anymore. The children are now usually nervous, argue a lot, my eldest son has given up work and my other son Abed has stopped bodybuilding for which he used to train for competitions.” The family finds it impossible to deal with the terrible loss. “Haja was such a smart girl,” her father remembers. “She was the first in her class, danced dabka, and was able to read the whole Qur’an.” For his remaining four daughters and two sons, a small sum of money initially came from the Palestinian government. One of his daughters received psychological help from Doctors without Borders. The help only lasted two months however, and only reached on of an entire community stricken with grief.
Talal and his wife continue to sit in front of their house in the evening, watching their garden. However their world is now very different, like many others in Palestine. When asked if he had a message for the world, Talal shook his head. “I just want people to know that they were innocent children being killed, who never did anything wrong in their lives”.
Children of the Samouni family scrambling in the rubble of their Gaza homes days after they lost 29 family members in the 2009 bombings
When the story of the Samouni family of Zeytoun broke, news stations and media gathered to cover what was the epitome of the tragedy that hit Gaza during Operation Cast Lead – the Israeli military’s 3 week bombing and ground assault over the new year of 2009. The huge numbers of children left orphaned amidst the rubble on ’Samouni Street’ reached out to a worldwide audience. As is typical in Gaza, extended families are large and close; the Samounis, a family of mainly farm workers, numbered over a hundred and lived along an entire street. In just 3 days of intense Israeli bombing and shelling of their neighbourhood, they lost 29 family members as most of their houses were razed to the ground. The Samouni family deserves our attention, most of all for the resolve of the remaining family members and the ways they cope. The girls and boys now take care of each other, mothers and guardians at the age of ten or eleven.
I visit them twice weekly to teach English, and to play and draw with them. Originally just for 11 year old Mona Samouni, but now it’s a class of six and they’re keen to learn. Each time I walk the few hundred metres along Samouni Street I get an eerie feeling as I recall the television footage showing the air filled with dust around the rows of flattened houses, twisted metal wire, piles of broken breeze blocks with bits of clothes and school-books sticking out from under them. What flashbacks it evokes for families still living there I’ll never know.
But I’m not walking alone for long. Many children come and warmly take my hand, and we walk to the three story building at the end of the street. The only one left standing after the assault, it was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) for use as a base. There I meet Mona Samouni. She is thoughtful, still very playful, and eager to talk English. I’d been introduced to her by a Gazan documentary maker following her story. She’d previously taken Jeremy Bowen around the ruins of her house in his BBC documentary ‘Gaza, Out of the Ruins’.
I don’t ask Mona about what happened to her a year and a half ago, but whenever we draw there is only one thing on her mind. She draws pictures of herself with her parents and brothers, with a big sun shining. Then she draws them motionless beside her in the rubble. Apart from cousins, uncles and aunts, she lost 3 brothers, a niece, and both parents.
Mona was one of over 100 members of the Samouni family to be rounded up by Israeli soldiers at the beginning of the assault and forced into Wael Samouni’s house. Throughout the night of January 4th munitions rained in on the Samouni’s area, and three Apache helicopter missiles or tank shells (depending on the report) struck the single floor house into which the Samounis had been corralled. 21 were killed and over 30 were injured. Eight more were killed in separate incidents: those fleeing the area did so against the orders and gunfire of watching soldiers who shouted, in classical Arabic, “Go back unto death.” They replied that they would carry on and “die on the road.” The Samounis suffered more dead during the 2 day attack than the total Israeli victims of rockets fired by militants over a period of 9 years. The issue of what happened on Samouni Street is no longer contentious; the family’s version has been corroborated by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nation’s Goldstone Report.
Mona Samouni drawing
The family’s first victim had been Mona’s Uncle Ateya al-Samouni, on January 4th. He had walked outside when Israeli troops started firing on his house and asking for the owner. With arms raised, ID in one hand and an Israeli driving license in the other, he was shot dead in front of his children. During the firing his 4 year old son Ahmad was severely injured and two others were shot. The Red Crescent ambulance that came for him – responding to one of 145 calls from the neighborhood – was barred from entering until January 7th. Ahmad died the next day, having been forbidden from leaving the Wael house.
12 year old Mahmoud and his 10 year old sister Amal are still haunted by the sight of their father shot as he walked out. Amal told us, “Our mother started to scream and cry. The soldiers came in and destroyed the furniture of the bedroom, set fire to the furniture in another room. We begged them not to shoot, we are kids please don’t shoot. Then they started to shoot. That’s when Ahmad, Farraj and Fauzi were also shot.” Their story is presented in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary “Children of Gaza”.
13 year old Almaza Samouni remembers seeing her family piled on each other in the ruins of the bombed house, bleeding, with both her parents dead. Her story was covered in Al Jazeera’s, ’A Girl Called Jewel’
When the Red Crescent finally arrived in the Samouni’s area together with other family members, they found the entire street had been bulldozed. Picking through the rubble, an adult and two children were found alive in what remained of Wael’s house: Nafez Al Samouni whose wife thought he had died, 16 year old Ahmed Samouni and 10 year old Amal. Ahmed had been lying injured, unable to walk, curled among his dead mother and brothers. Like many other children, Amal and Ahmed have been left with mental and physical scars. Slivers of shrapnel remain permanently lodged in Amal’s brain, giving her headaches, nosebleeds and sight problems. Despite finally getting out of Gaza to receive treatment, Ramallah and Tel Aviv both told her there’s nothing that can be done for her.
Drawing by Mona Samouni
From the time I’ve spent with them, it’s clear the Samouni children have the courage to carry on. What surprised me was how little help was available for them; some still live in tents or asbestos shacks. Most of all though, I was shocked at how much the children have to fend for themselves – often when I teach, I don’t see an adult for my entire visit. For all the global media attention, and apart from occasional physiotherapy or counseling visits, there has been no replacement for their enormous loss. Literally nothing.
As the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights puts it, ’The attack on the Al-Samouni family was widely publicized . yet the survivors got no real help. What little they received has now stopped except for limited assistance from local organizations. The family now lives in deep poverty with no source of income, and no publicity about their plight.’
Fida Qishta, an independent Gazan documentary maker made a short and very moving film “Where Should the Birds Fly?” from footage she shot during Operation Cast Lead about Mona Samouni and what happened to her family. In it, while walking through the ruins of her home, Mona recited a verse by the Palestinian writer, Lutfi Yassini:
I’m the Palestinian child,
I carried the grief early,
All the world forgot me,
They closed their eyes of my oppression,
I’m steadfast,
I’m steadfast.
Fortunately, through another fearless Mona from Gaza, a grass-roots Palestinian group working closely with an international partner would provide some respite. Their work put to shame the many who closed their eyes and forgot Mona and the other Samouni children.
Doctor Mona El Farra and the Middle East Childrens Alliance
When the older Ahmed Samouni asked me if I could organize some summer schooling for the Samouni children I initially tried the United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA). Although from a poor neighbourhood, and with much of their life and homes in ruin after the bombing, the Samounis were not eligible for help. This was because unlike most Gazans, they were not a refugee family forced out of pre-48 Palestine by the then nascent Israeli army.
Samouni children Mona and Amal (centre) with Dr Mona El Farra
So I spoke to Dr Mona El Farra, a Gazan Dermatologist who has been tenaciously dedicated to health, children and women’s issues in Gaza for over 20 years since she began as a volunteer with the Red Crescent Society. She is the Projects Director for the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and I knew about her work with MECA through its Gaza partner organisation Afaq Jadeeda, or ’New Horizons’, where I also teach.
A remarkably resolute woman, Doctor Mona is involved in many grass-roots organizations throughout Gaza that provide the vulnerable with support. Originally from Khan Younis in Southern Gaza, her work continues to be with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and with MECA, who most recently funded the ’New Horizons’ psychosocial support program “Let the Children Play and Heal”. Last year the program reached over a hundred thousand children, helping to address their psychological needs after the 2009 Israeli attacks on Gaza through expression and participation in art, dance, music, story-telling, theatre and puppetry.
Once they heard of the situation with the Samouni children, Dr Mona and New Horizons Coordinator Ehab Abu Msalam immediately visited them to hear of Ahmed’s desire for an educational project.
“So we had this idea to teach them 6th grade primary school classes” Says Ehab,“to give them support in the most important subjects: Arabic, English language and Mathematics.”
Over 100 Samouni Children were taught in the ‘Learning on the Rubble’ Tent set up on Samouni Street
They acted fast. It took only days for New Horizons to have set up the month long ’Learning on the Rubble’, marquee classrooms at the end of Samouni Street. Operating four days a week, they taught, provided meals and organised trips for over 120 children from the area. Some of the older children like Mona Samouni helped organise the younger kids.
“We decided to call it ’Learning on the Rubble’, said Dr Mona,”because all that you see of the area is the ruins of houses, people living in tents. We thought it was important to give it that name despite what had happened, to show that the desire and willingness of people to live and to come up from the ruins is stronger than death.“
When I visited, the bright green marquee next to Mona’s house was a hive of activity; hands up in the classrooms, singing and physical games in the activity room, with some other kids handing out boxes of drinks and sandwiches.
I asked Dr Mona about how they managed to organize such a well tailored programme so quickly.“I went to visit” she said,“I had a meeting with the families there, asked about their needs. They were worried about the children’s missed education because of the trauma – losing your father or mother or both is a severe trauma – and I wondered how many years it would take them to get back to normal. So I quickly gathered the team from New Horizons, and spoke to MECA, who work with children all over the Middle East. On the one hand, the speed comes from our grass-roots work, the experience of many years, getting the trust of people inside and outside of Gaza. Equally MECA trusts the work of their Palestinian partners, were supportive enough to offer the funding immediately so we could cross the bureaucratic lines and set up before Ramadan and school begins.”
“The classes are educational but also fun, open air, mixing formal education with informal classes. The program also helped to fund 6 teachers who were willing to carry on as volunteers such was the warmth they had received from the Samouni children. This is the beauty of it; we are able to get volunteers in difficult circumstances because people see the value of the work, empowerment and participation being at the core of our philosophy over dependency and charity. I visited the place three or four times and every time I had a great feeling about the program.”
And the children? Most that I saw were excited, showing a terrific keenness to learn, cherishing the opportunity before them.“We are happy with our classes because it’s important to know how to read and how to write, we must have a good education in order to continue to struggle for our land that was taken away”, said 10 year old Mohammed Samouni.“We learned mathematics, English, and Arabic to be better in school. We hope these classes can continue.” Said Amal.
According to Ehab, it was also an opportunity to understand the real needs of the children:
“Children feel afraid in this place because every one of them has something lost here, so you’ll see that they want to be near you to have more safety, so we tried to give them what we could and we helped them to know how they can help themselves.”
Without question the most fun was had on the daytrips, with over 100 of the Samounis and some other local families brought in on coaches to a beach resort – a day dedicated to fun. They went in boats, had a great time in the sea, participated in some of the magic, singing and puppet shows before food and refreshments arrived.“We swam and were very happy with this trip and it’s very important to have a day like this playing and being more happy”, said Maysaa Samouni 11 years old.
Majdy performing magic tricks for the Samouni Children
One of the volunteers and magician, Majdy, said,“We are happy to work to help all the Palestinian children who want help – not just the Samouni family, that’s what we must do. We ask everyone around the world and all of organizations to do the same thing to help the children in Palestine and Gaza.”
But Dr Mona added that dealing with such trauma needs a lot more than what they could offer in this short time: “The importance is in the follow up for the children which involves a lot of effort, one month is not enough. We need to try again and again to follow up. For this we don’t need huge amounts of money. We need the will, having grass roots communications, the vision and knowledge on how to invest the money in the best way – that’s how it started.”
“Those children need love and sympathy and care and despite their smiling faces there’s a lot of stories of horror and agony they’ve passed through. We’re trying to let them heal. Let them forget. I’m not sure they’ll be able to forgive. Because what happened was a crime against humanity and against the civilian families who lived there.”
Drawing by Mona Samouni
For someone so young, Mona Samouni has reflected a lot on how to articulate her loss, her words and drawings full of thought and clarity. When I asked Mona what message she had to give to children in Western countries, she said:
“My message is to show as much love as you can to your parents, because I lost my parents and I am not able to care for them anymore.”
The caring and outward nature of the message epitomized the way the kids had not yet succumbed to the introspection and bitterness such a loss could bring about. What shines through when we see them is the support they have for each other in the absence of so many parental figures, the open hands they hold on to us with when we visit. My English classes often descend into an Arabic class for me, interspersed with hiding behind sofas and cat and donkey impressions.
A lot more is required from us in Western countries to help alleviate some of the pain caused by our government’s policies, and most importantly to ensure that Palestinian families like the Samounis never have to go through this again. Doctor Mona El Farra’s message to the world is an important reminder that what is happening to Palestinians is not a humanitarian issue, but a continuing wrong that can only be addressed when people on the outside begin to understand it:
“I want people to try to learn about us and try to learn that there is an injustice that has been imposed on the Palestinian people. Not just because of the siege, but for what has been going on for more than 60 years since Israel was founded on the ruins of Palestinian refugees. We are looking and working for peace despite the difficult circumstances – but peace without justice is not peace.”
Donations for Zeinat Samouni
We are raising money to help rebuild and improve the house of Zeinat Samouni, 11 year old Amal’s widowed mother. Since her husband and son were killed in the bombing she continues to live in a single room alone with her 8 children crammed into it. Cracked asbestos tiling covers the roof, which leaks when it rains in winter. In this the hottest summer on record, the sweat from the children forms condensation that drops down at night. She can’t afford cooking gas, and cooks over a fire. The material to improve the house of Zeinat and her children would not cost a lot and would substantially improve their living conditions. We are also trying to support Amal to find a neurosurgeon in Europe who would give further analysis for the shrapnel still lodged in her brain. She continues to suffer from headaches, inflammation, nosebleeds and tiredness and there are concerns about the effect of the shrapnel as she grows.
Tom Hurndall shortly before he was shot and killed.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Correction appended
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) condemns the early release from prison of the Israeli soldier that murdered photography student and ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall in Gaza in 2003. The Israeli press yesterday reported that Taysir Hayb will be released three years early from an already short eight-year sentence.
His murder was only a symptom of a much wider culture of impunity in the Israeli army. This early release serves to reinforce the notion that the Israeli army can continue to commit war crimes against Palestinians without fear of serious consequences.
Tom’s mother Jocelyn Hurndall told ISM London that: “this reduced sentence comes at a time when the world is becoming more sceptical about Israel’s investigations into its own actions. It’s a reminder of Israel’s disregard for international law and opinion.”
When Hayb was sentenced in 2005, human rights activist, Raphael Cohen, who was with Tom on the day of the shooting said, “On the very street where Tom was shot, two children had been shot just days before. This is why he and the rest of the group went to that spot, to protest against the shooting of children as they played outside their homes. There has never been any investigation into the shootings of those children.”
To this day, there has still been no investigation of these deaths or of the thousands of other Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli soldiers. Only last month in Jerusalem Ziad Joulani, 41, a Palestinian shopkeeper and father of three with no criminal record or history of political activism, was killed when Israeli police opened fire as he got out of his car. [1] His killing is not being investigated.
Tom’s family had to fight hard to achieve even the eight-year manslaughter conviction that they won in 2005, against a system of Israeli obfuscation and lies, and an indifferent British government. In a statement yesterday the Foreign Office merely said: “We note the court’s decision to release Taysir Hayb and recognise the grief this decision will cause to the Hurndall family,” describing the deliberate act of murder as “a tragedy”.
Tom’s father Anthony hit back in the Guardian today, condemning this as a “weak response” by the British government, and demanding to meet with ministers. He said: “I would like them to say that this is not just a tragedy but that the Israeli government is directly responsibile for Tom’s death and should acknowledge this and take steps to put matters right by changing policies to ensure that civilians are not shot or killed indiscriminately.”
Israel did not even bother to inform the Hurndall family in advance of the news reaching the Israeli press, and Tom’s sister Sophie only learnt the news when ISM London contacted her yesterday.
Hayb shot Tom in the forehead with a high velocity bullet using a rifle with a telescopic sight, while he attempted to rescue Palestinian children in Gaza from Israeli gunfire. According to an Observer report from the 2005 trial, Hayb was “an award-winning marksman”. [2] Tom never regained consciousness, dying nine months later in a London hospital at the age of 22.
Jewish nurse and peace activist Alice Coy, who saw Tom shot, said Hayb was only part of “a culture of impunity in which generations of Israelis are taught that Arabs hate them and are subhuman. They are then given guns and they know they can get away with killing Palestinians. The occupation and aggression of Zionist policy is harming ordinary Israelis as well as Palestinians.”
Amnesty International says that: “The shocking truth is that Israeli soldiers kill civilians in Gaza with near-total impunity, week in week out” [3]
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, report that “From the beginning of the [second] intifada, on 29 September 2000, to the end of 2008 (not including Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which began on 27 December), [Israeli] security forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians who were not taking part in the hostilities at the time they were killed. However, a Military Police investigation was opened in only 287 cases of suspected illegal shooting by security forces. This number includes investigations into cases in which civilians were wounded. Only 33 of these investigations resulted in the filing of indictments” [4]
Israeli human rights group Yesh Din clarifies that of these, Haib is the only soldier to have been convicted for an offence causing death: “From the beginning of the second intifada until the end of 2009, Courts-Martial convicted soldiers of offenses connected with the deaths of only four civilians: three Palestinians and one British national. One soldier was convicted of manslaughter, and he was the only one convicted of an offense of causing death. Four other soldiers were convicted of offenses of negligence.” [5]
For more information:
Alice Coy, UK: +44 7828 540512
ISM Media Office, Ramallah: +972 59 760 6276 or +972 2 241 0604
ISM London: +44 7913 067 189
REVISION, 21st July: The initial version of this press release erroneously stated that Ziad Joulani had been shot “last week”. In fact he was killed on the 14th of June, as stated in the text of our reference. This online version has been revised to read “last month”. The final paragraph with the Yesh Din figures on convictions was also added.
A press conference organised in anticipation of the Almathea aid ship
In a press conference at the port of Gaza city yesterday government officials, fishing associations, non-governmental organisations and civil society groups reiterated their support for the attempts by international activists to break the Israeli siege of Gaza by sea.
Yesterday (July 14th 2010) many people amassed at the Gazan port to urge on the latest attempt by activists to enter the strip, this time by a Libyan chartered aid ship. It was the first serious attempt to enter Gaza by sea since the horrifying attack by the Israeli navy on the Free Gaza Flotilla and the Mavi Marmara which saw 9 Turkish activists killed.
Mahfouz Kabariti, President of Palestine Sailing Federation and Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime Sports, was communicating with the Amalthea as it neared Gazan waters: “The last contact we had with them was at midnight and since then communication was cut by the Israeli navy. They told us the boat was surrounded by Israeli gunships, but that they were determined to attempt to dock in Gaza and not take the option offered by the Egyptian government to dock in El Arish.”
According to Mahfouz the roll of the Freedom Flotilla missions are two-fold: “First is the arrival with aid, and materials such as construction supplies still banned by the blockade. The second is to put a spotlight on the suffering of the people here. Even if they are attacked, the second message highlights even more the extent to which Israel will go to keep us in Gaza isolated from the rest of the world with this illegal blockade of our people.”
Amjad Shawa, Gaza Coordinator for Palestinian NGOs: "It is not enough to demand some kind of minor reduction of this illegal siege."
As well as government representatives and the Popular Committee to Break the Siege, Amjad Shawa, Gaza Coordinator for Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations (PNGO) was present. He emphasised the importance of international civil society persisting in trying to break the siege.
The need is especially acute because so far Israel’s response has only been to reduce the blockade on Gaza by a tiny fraction. The European Union, the United Nations, countless human rights groups and the International Committee for the Red Cross have all expressed the need for a return to the free flow of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip. This must include construction materials which are sorely needed to help rebuild the 17,000 houses severely damaged in the 3 week attack over the New Year period of 2009 that left over 1500 dead including over 400 children.
“Nothing has changed here,” says Amjad. “Just some more consumer products…but 80% of the people here still depend on humanitarian aid. It is not enough to demand some kind of minor reduction of this illegal siege. But we are thankful that the siege on Gaza has not been forgotten, and that our people are still in the minds of the world. These kinds of solidarity actions are very important for Gazans, we see that others share with us the values of justice and the principals of human rights.”
A Gaza resident holding pictures of Saif al-Islam Gadhafi - whose charity sponsored the aid ship - and his father, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhaf
When asked about the role of the international community to pressure Israel, Amjad is more critical: “We are so sorry that the international community until now has made no real intervention, put no real pressure on Israel to lift the siege totally or exerted pressure on Israel to have a transparent and accountable international inquiry into the Israeli crimes on the freedom flotillas.
“Still today we’re waiting for real international pressure from the international community. We hope that Israel will not use this silence as a chance to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people and international solidarity workers.”
The Libyan chartered boat was eventually forced to dock in El Arish, Egypt, after a wall of Israeli gunboats blocked its passage through to Gaza. But the Palestinians remain heartened by these attempts and the further missions planned this September. Says Mahfouz: “People here feel grateful to those internationals who try to arrive at the Gaza beach, it’s so important to us that other people worry and support us.”
