Tag: Gaza Siege

Christmas in Gaza

by Ruqaya Izzidien

24 December 2011 | Al Akhbar English

(Photo: Ruqaya Izzidien, Al Akhbar English) – Click here for more images

This Christmas marks the third anniversary of the 2008-2009 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip; a winter in which 19-year-old Ramy El Jelda saw his home bombed just two days after Christmas. He returned to the site a couple of days later to find his Christmas decorations scattered across the road.

“The baubles and bells were on the floor. The tree had been blown out of the house and was in the street. We cried. That is how we celebrated Christmas in 2008.”

Today the small number of Christmas trees that grace Gaza are primarily plastic and limited to Christian households, hotel lobbies and uptown restaurants. The Israeli blockade leaves Christmas tree fairy lights in a ghostly darkness during the daily eight-hour rolling blackouts.

For Ramy and the 3,000-strong Christian community in Gaza, festive Christmas celebrations go hand-in-hand with isolation and travel restrictions to Bethlehem, despite Israeli public claims to the contrary.

But this year holds hope for a happier occasion, despite the obstacles that Palestinian Christians in Gaza continue to face.

“Christmas helps children remember they are young,” explained Ramy, describing the traditions of the Greek Orthodox community, which celebrates Christmas on January 7. “On Christmas Day we go to our grandmother’s house and my whole family has lunch together. It is a small Eid (feast) but we celebrate for three days, visiting each others’ homes.”

Jaber El Jelda, a distant relative of Ramy, is the director of the Orthodox Church, one of Gaza’s few churches, along with the Baptist Church and Holy Family Catholic Church. He explained how the Orthodox Christian community marks the occasion.

“We organize a party on the first of January and offer children gifts, celebrating Christmas with songs and folklore and the traditional Palestinian dabka dance. We, and members of the Baptist and Catholic churches celebrate in each others’ celebrations. We’re like one.”

Although Christmas in Gaza bears a resemblance to its portrayal in other countries, the echoes are overwhelmingly superficial, as Ramy explained, “We put up a tree in the home and decorate it with bells. We put candles and holly around the house and children receive gifts of money, called eideyya.”

Ramy considers Christmas in Gaza to be disconnected to festivities outside of the siege. “Christmas in Gaza is different; it is a local celebration, not connected to Christmas outside. We don’t really ‘do’ Santa and it’s not like I’ve seen Christmas celebrated in the movies.”

Bethlehem off-limits: Israel’s Facade of Tolerance

Christmas for Gaza’s Palestinians entails far more complications than complex wrapping and tree decorations. As a small minority in the coastal enclave, the Gaza Christian community would traditionally visit Bethlehem, Jerusalem or Ramallah for the festive season, joining their families and communities in a full celebration.

Ramy described how all Christians used to be permitted by the Israeli government to visit the West Bank for Christmas. “Now they only give permission to a few people and you must be over 35 or under 16. Invariably, if parents receive permission, the children don’t and vice versa.”

It is a loophole that many Palestinians believe is being exploited by the Israeli authorities. The Israeli authorities have advertised that 500 Christians are allowed to celebrate Christmas in their holy sites as a ‘goodwill gesture.’ But in practical terms, very few of those eligible are granted the right to make the fifty mile trip from Gaza to Jerusalem, and those who do have to sacrifice a Christmas with their families.

Jaber has given up requesting permission because his sons are at university and therefore will automatically be denied travel rights. “My uncle and cousins live in Ramallah, but I can’t celebrate Christmas with them because my children are over 16 and are therefore too old for permits. How could I go out of Gaza to celebrate Christmas if I can’t take my children? It’s ridiculous.”

Even the process of receiving permission is unreliable, Jaber explained. “My brother is 52 and wanted to go to the West Bank for Christmas, the Israeli authorities just told him that ‘although we know you aren’t a terrorist, we don’t want you in Israel.’ He had worked in Israel for about 25 years.”

For this reason, Ramy considers the Israeli publicity machine to be exploiting the Christian community, “The Israeli government does this to benefit from us, so that they can say that they allow Christians to go to Bethlehem for Christmas, but really we can’t practically go. They exploit us to improve their image.”

Jaber stressed how the Christian community in Gaza suffers at the hands of the Israeli authorities at other times of year too. “Our Greek priest and archbishop face problems getting to Gaza, even though they have diplomatic passports. They have to enter through Israel but sometimes access is denied.”

Muslim-Christian relationship

Ramy studies at the Hamas-run Islamic University, like a number of Christian students in Gaza. He was offered a place at Birzeit University, but he was forced to continue his education in Gaza, as Israel forbade him from studying in the West Bank.

Despite this, he enjoys his time at the Islamic University and says he is exempted from certain classes, like Quran study, to accommodate his beliefs. “All my friends are Muslims. I don’t care if my friends are Christian or not. My Muslim friends here in Gaza also wish me Merry Christmas and come to visit me at Christmas. So what the media says about Arabs and intolerance isn’t true.”

Jaber agrees that the relationship between Muslims and Christians is very good in general, although his church has experienced infrequent targeting. “Fourth months ago the cables for our church bells were cut, but now everything is good. The government told the community to leave us alone and this helped.”

He stressed that such attacks are unpleasant but not representative of Gazan Muslims as a whole, “It’s a minority of people who create problems; most people understand us and believe that we have our religion, and they have theirs.”

Rana Baker is a Palestinian Muslim who studied at the Catholic Holy Family School in Gaza City. “It was a great experience; at school, my Christian classmates fasted Ramadan with us and we celebrated Christmas with them. We had Islamic books and they had Christian books. I never saw any discrimination and, as a student, you were judged solely on your academic merit.”

Rana remarked that, however small the celebrations, the festive season is one that is marked and enjoyed in Gaza, even for Muslims. “I really love Christmas, I like to hang out with my Christian friends at this time of year. I wish them a happy Christmas and they do the same for me on Eid.

“The relationship between Muslims and Christians in Gaza is really good. Palestine is one of the few places left where Muslims and Christians are really close. We are brothers and sisters.”

Demonstration in the no go zone, Beit Hanoun

by Nathan Stuckey

20 December 2011

Photo: Rosa Schiano, International Solidarity Movement – Click here for more images

Every Tuesday there is a demonstration against the occupation and the Israeli imposed no go zone that surrounds Gaza, stealing much of Gaza’s best farmland.  Today, it was unseasonably warm, it felt almost like summer.  We started our march from in front of the destroyed buildings Beit Hanoun Agricultural College.  Music played over a megaphone as we marched down the road into the no go zone.  As we got closer to the no go zone the music stopped, it got quiet.  Usually, when the music starts the chanting begins, but not today.  Everyone seemed to be lost in thought, perhaps pondering the green that has recently appeared in the no go zone.  The bulldozers haven’t come for many weeks to kill all life in the no go zones.  Perhaps they were remembering the olive trees, and orange groves that used to be here.  Perhaps they were thinking of the families that used to live in the destroyed houses that we were walking by.  Perhaps they were thinking of the houses that no longer exist, the houses that have been completely erased by the Israeli bulldozers.

We entered the no go zone and went to the flag that we left here several weeks ago.  It flies in the breeze, a reminder that this land is Palestinian, that while the people of Gaza might have been driven from their homes they have not yet been erased by the Israeli military like the orchards that used to grow in the no go zone.  We took the flag down.  We marched further into the no go zone, to land which no one had been to since May of 2000.  We made our way across the no go zone, land scarred dozens of times by the blades of Israeli bulldozers, to a small hill.  We climbed the hill and we planted the flag.  The ground was hard, it has not rained lately, but we found a soft spot and drove the flagpole into the earth.  We piled rocks around its base to strengthen it.  We looked out over 1948, the land which many residents of Beit Hanoun had been driven from 63 years ago.

We began to walk back to Beit Hanoun.  Through the no go zone, on land no one had been to in many years.  As always, when you go new places in Gaza you see new destruction which you had no inkling of before you stumbled upon, but it was always there, another untold story in the crimes of the occupation.  We paused by some rubble that I had seen many times on our marches into the no go zone, I never knew what it had been.  It was a well.  It had of course been destroyed by an Israeli bulldozer, all of the trees which it used to water ground under the treads of the same bulldozer.  The well is dry now.  Perhaps someday it will be repaired and orchards will once again thrive on this land.  Someday, after the occupation finally disappears into the pages of history.  Until then, it stands alongside the hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba, alongside the thousands of homes destroyed by Israel, as a mute reminder of the crimes of Israel.

Israeli navy harasses Palestinian fishermen off Gaza coast

by Rosa Schiano

21 December 2011 | Civil Peace Service Gaza

Photo: Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza – Click here for more images

The Oliva sailed from Gaza Seaport at 8:15 am. The Palestinian captain and two international observers from CPS staff were on boardAt 8:45 am Oliva reached four hasakas in the north of the Strip, about 2.2 nautical miles off shore (31° 35.40N / 034° 26.29E).

At 9:20 am the crew sighted an Israelis navy vessel moving toward the four hasakas and Oliva at a high rate of speed. The four hasakas and Oliva started to move toward the coast. The Israeli navy vessel continued to run after the hasakas and Oliva reaching 1.5 nautical miles off shore (31° 34.68N / 034° 26.49E) and then hanging back.

At 10:20 am the same Israeli navy vessels approached the four hasakas which were within the area marked by the float located about 2 miles off shore on the northern limit imposed on Palestinian fishing area (31° 35.41N / 034° 26.57E), continuing harassing them and shooting several times in the water.

At 11:00 am the Israeli navy vessels hanged back and Oliva returned to the port of Gaza.

Background:

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of comparable significance to Palestinian livelihood. This area was supposed to be 20 miles according to the Jericho agreements from 1994 (under the Oslo accords), then it was reduced to 12 miles, to 6 miles and now to 3 miles since January 2009. The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.

Israel has been regularly attacking Palestinian fishermen within the purported 3 nautical mile fishing limit. The livelihood of many Gazans relies on fishing and Israel has been using live ammunition and water cannons to prevent fishermen from doing their work.

The Israeli Siege continues after more than 4 years, limiting the sea area available for the Gaza population.

The Civil Peace Services continue monitoring potential human rights violations at the sea in front of the Gaza Strip.

Drones in the shower, F-16s on the street: On leaving Gaza

by Radhika Sainath

20 December 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade

I made the long journey out of Gaza last week.  I must say, though I will miss the dozens of people who invited me into their homes, shared their stories, cooked me lunch, put up with my bad Arabic, boiled me countless glasses of rosemary tea and served me thick black coffee in petite rimless cups, I could not get out of there fast enough.

Gaza is not a pleasant place to be.  The Israeli occupation smothers and suffocates, it makes one highly attuned to one’s surroundings in unnatural ways, or ways that were once natural but should no longer be.

I never thought I’d look so forward to coming to Cairo, a congested, polluted city that I had little love for before the revolution. After a long journey though the Rafah crossing, across the Sinai and back to my hotel off Tahrir Square, I jumped in the shower. And then the humming noise started.  I froze, soap bar in hand.

“The drones are really loud,” I said, to no one in particular. They must be quite close.  And then I realized, it was just a malfunctioning bathroom fan.

I continued on with my shower, washing my face. The water had a curious scent to it. It also felt gentle and silky. I continue to sniff it, curious. Why, it was the scent of clean water of course! I had grown used to the salty, contaminated water I had been bathing in for two months; water that caused my skin to itch, my hair to smell like an old towel, and to fall out at greater frequency than normal.

Later in the evening, I met up with a friend for a drink nearby. Oh the joys of electricity! Not that the streets around Tahrir have street lights in the American sense — but the stores are lit. And those lights, in turn, made it possible to see where one was stepping! Not so in Gaza, where one has the pleasure of walking around in pitch blackness after 5:30 p.m., listening to Israeli drones overhead.  Indeed, the latter half of my going away party took place by candlelight.

Back at the hotel, the shifts had changed and Sami the “bill boy” from two months earlier waited outside.

“Oh hello!” he exclaimed. “Your head is very small,” he said in English. “Before, big, now small.” He gestured with his hand for emphasis. Indeed, I had lost a lot of weight. I switched to Arabic and told him I had been in Gaza, and he made fun of my “Palestinian accent,” pronouncing the “j” as a “j” instead of a “g” as they do in Cairo.

The next morning I awoke to the strange-sounding Israeli F-16s outside my window. Many of them. I unearthed myself from under the covers. I was in Cairo.  The Israeli Air Force was not outside, only morning commuters. What a relief! I walked around the city which was filled with things to buy, all kinds of things, spare car parts, stuffed toy camels, circuit boards, Bedouin necklaces, digital cameras and steaming bowls of delicious kushari.

Back in New York City, I found that Gaza had also rendered me unnaturally attuned to the normal sounds of industrial life.

I stepped out of the subway from JFK airport onto the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan in deep conversation about something. A helicopter suddenly flew overhead. I couldn’t concentrate; IAF Apache helicopters meant death. I kept walking past store after store, admiring New York’s creative uses of electricity, knowing full well that Eyewitness News wasn’t going to assassinate anyone, but unable to not keep an eye on it.

So I’m back in the United States, enjoying the luxury of knowing a foreign government won’t shoot at me, kidnap me, limit my electricity or cause my water to be non-potable.  But in the midst of the decorated trees, sparkly lights and mistletoe, I can’t forget that two days after Christmas 2008, Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead”, its 22-day offensive in Gaza, that Palestinians simply call “the War.”

Narratives under siege: Overcrowded living

14 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Muhammed Salman Abu Rashad, 45, Amna Abu Rashad, 31, and their nine children live in the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The family represent just 11 of the 1.1 million refugees who make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population of approximately 1.7 million people.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and is home to around 110,000 registered refugees in an area of only 1.4 square kilometres; unsurprisingly, the camp is infamous  for its overcrowding.  Israel’s illegal closure policy, first used to isolate the Gaza Strip in 1991, has been particularly devastating on the residents of Jabalia camp, who, like Muhammed Abu Rashad, previously relied on jobs within Israel to support their families. Since the beginning of the complete closure of Gaza in 2007, the now-unemployed residents have been forced to rely on UNRWA aid to survive.

The Abu Rashad’s home, consisting largely of a 3 meter by 3 meter room, is typical of many homes in Jabalia camp. A single room acts as the sleeping, living, studying and eating area for all eleven family members. With winter approaching, it is obvious that the house, which displays long winding cracks along its walls and an open doorway where there should be a functioning door, is entirely inadequate for the couple and their nine children, with a tenth on the way. When the rain comes it flows into the house and onto their blankets, and despite the fact it is a crisp dry day outside, the damp in the room is particularly noticeable. Muhammad is quick to point out that the conditions would be better in prison: “it is not a home but a cemetery”.

The crowding affect’s all aspects of family life, but for the couple’s 9 children the effect is crippling. A majority of the family’s children study during the evening shift in the local UNRWA school, which is forced to run double shifts to facilitate all the camp’s students. When the children return home it is dark and, given the constant power cuts, lack of space, and loud noise from electrical generators the children are unable to study. As a result, two of the Abu Rashad children have failed a year in school and been kept back.

With a lack of space to play – either in the home or in the tight, rubbish strewn, alleyways outside – the children have little physical or emotional space and tend to lash out against each other as a result. The boys resort to violence against their younger siblings and Muhammed tells me that his two daughters are unable “to behave like young girls”, instead imitating their brothers violence in an attempt to “hold their own”. Muhammed himself regrets lashing out at his children when they misbehave, saying that the stress of living in such close quarters leaves him anxious and prone to outbursts.

The crowding has repercussions not only on the family’s mental health but also their physical health. Greeting the children it is obvious they are all suffering from colds and flu. Muhammed says that “when one child comes down with an illness, with no space to isolate and treat them, the rest of the children are all rapidly infected”. Given the constant damp and cold getting the children well again once they become sick is no easy task.

While the crowding has left the family at crisis point, the situation is only getting worse. The children are currently young, the eldest being 15, but as they grow older the tiny room will become progressively more cramped. The eldest daughter Sundus, 10, will soon be too old to sleep next to her brothers. Muhammad tells us that with the neighbours building on top of their current houses in an attempt to alleviate their own crowding problems, the sun will soon be blocked entirely from the already dank family home. The result, according to Muhammad, will be “the families’ destruction”.

The Palestinian refugee crisis is one of the largest and most longstanding refugee problems in the world; today approximately one in four of the entire world’s refugee’s are Palestinian. The rights of Palestinian refugees, and in particular the ‘right of return’, are protected in numerous UN Resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 194. However, for as long as the international community refuses to enforce international law, these resolutions will continue to bear little relevance for the Gaza Strip’s refugees, whose fundamental human rights continue to be systematically denied.