Escaping in Gaza
Reageer (0)
2-2-2010
Many in Gaza ask me, ‘which is better, the (occupied) West Bank or Gaza?’
Not giving in to the devisive efforts of external forces and politicians, I answer that both are Palestine –it’s all Palestine– and both have their beauties and intense hardships.
The presence of Israeli occupation soldiers in the occupied West Bank, of remorseless settlers capable of shocking brutality, of Israeli land annexation, of humiliating and debilitating military checkpoints and roadblocks, of lock-downs (“curfews”) and raids, of daily kidnappings and imprisonment of sons, daughters, husbands, mothers, of the complete Israeli control and stealing of water sources, of the destruction of occupied East Jerusalem…is just some of the suffering of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The closed borders, years-long siege, wars on and military invasions in the Strip; the complete lack of hope, of work, of freedom to exit; the denial of medical treatment, of rights to education abroad, and travel freedoms enjoyed world-round; the ravaged streets, corpses of buildings and homes, devastated farmland, near-absence of clean water, destruction of wells…is just some of the suffering of Palestinians in the Israeli military-controlled Gaza Strip.
Palestinians in Gaza have known the physical occupation and all its savagery, and yet tell me they long for those days, “because at least then the borders were open and we could work and move somewhat freely.”
There are nearly no means of escapism in Gaza, though of all places there certainly is the need.
I escaped the other day, with farmers finally planting on their land near, but not within, the 300 metres decreed mortally off-limits by Israeli authorities. Although the Israeli jeeps stopped and did their routine of flashing lights and screaming at us, this time they only shot in the air. And when they left, the farmers resumed their planting and plowing. Every time we accompany farmers, it’s an effort to politely decline their insitant invitations to eat with them. We accept, when time allows, and it’s always enjoyable. The company is great –funny, a little crazy, exceedingly generous –and the food is field-fresh. Imagine how it was years ago, when farmers worked on all of their land, without being subject to Israeli gunfire and shelling.
Another day I escaped again with farmers, sitting on a swing, breathing the fresh winter air, listening to the impressive chirping of the border region birds, and drinking tea brewed on a fire.
I escaped today to the sea, one of the only places Palestinians in Gaza can find some whiff of freedom. It’s a clear, sunny, warmish day, and I’m not alone. Fishermen haul in their meagre catches, dropped from the small hassakas (slightly larger than a surfboard), a few majestic horses prance along the sea’s edge, a woman and her young children play on the sand. The sea is the one thing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have virtually no access to. It’s one of the things Palestinians in Gaza depend on. I’m told that the flood of a week ago –waters unleashed during heavy rains (the first real rains of the year, for which the farmers are desperately grateful) when Israelis opened their dams without warning and which devastated the communities in and around Wadi Gaza, rendering yet more homeless and killing yet more sheep and livestock –did one good thing: it pushed the simmering sewage slightly away from Gaza’s coastline, though perhaps only temporarily.
On a day like today, the sea speaks to those who listen, speaks of its freedom. It’s bittersweet to listen to, as Palestinians in Gaza know they cannot enjoy the sea like years before, cannot delve deeply into it, for leisure or urgently needed fishing, because of the Israeli gunboats always patrolling in Palestinian water, shooting and shelling. But people here always seem grateful for the smallest niceties, in a Strip where things are rendered backwards by the day. The siege has shattered Gaza’s economy; Israel’s war on Gaza last year completed the job.
It’s hard for people here to find hope, although there has been significant progress in the BDS movement, and in awareness of what is really happening in Palestine, occupied and besieged.
And even for myself, even though I am aware of these developments, I too get dragged down by the misery of hopelessness here and lose scope of the potential for real change.
It’s people like the BDSers here in Gaza, and the ever-resilient fishermen and farmers –facing Israeli assaults on a daily basis but still persevering –and the medics and civil defense rescuers, and the ordinary Palestinians who move along, that give me hope.
And today, it’s the sea, the breeze, the guys jogging on the coast, the colours of flowers –life– in Gaza that give me hope.
Knowing that Free Gaza is organizing yet more boats, a fleet, to come to Gaza and to really challenge the political aspects of the siege, give more hope.
But I am of the privileged, who can eventually leave when needed, who can afford the goods that still manage to get in through the tunnels (at the cost of human lives) (certainly not through Gaza’s closed borders), who hasn’t lost a loved one to Israel’s brutality.
What of those jobless, educated, formerly employed, yearning to study, needing medical treatment outside?
*hand-sowing the land with wheat.
Source
