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Eight
tanks rolled into Rafah (southern Gaza Strip) early this morning
to quell a "disturbance" by the people. It seems some
Palestinians were upset over the death of a four year old girl.
Did the news there even bother to inform you that she was shot?
Yes, on Thursday a four-year-old girl became one of the latest
recipients
of Israel's "restraint" policy. She was hit in the head
by a bullet but wasn't pronounced clinically dead until yesterday.
There was a lot of
open anger and protesting as a result. Imagine that: a community
of
people upset because a child was killed in cold blood. How dare
they show
such a lack of respect for Israel's need for security.
Here in Gaza City the streets are calm; people are going about
their business shopping, having lunch, talking to friends, working
– or trying to get to work. Mahmoud, my immediate supervisor,
arrived here at the Mezan Center for Human Rights today after
spending 3 hours at the Netzarim (north/south) checkpoint. His
co-worker, Muhammad, spent six hours there yesterday. That's a
good day. Thirteen hours is the record, I'm told. It would take
less than half an hour to drive here directly from their homes
in Rafah if there were a normal road and normal traffic. "Normal"
here is abnormal, however. Mahmoud and his friend Samir both sleep
and eat in the office five out of seven nights a week because
there is no way to get back and forth from their homes on a daily
basis. Every time Mahmoud calls his wife, his seven year old son
Sharif runs to the phone to ask his father if he is coming home
today.
Not likely. Not if he wants to keep his job and keep his family
out of
the poverty that engulfs nearly 80% of the population here.
Gaza City is calm on the surface, yes. For a few short days people
here were breathing a little more easily. Zinni was here and Cheney,
too. Nobody had any illusions that these American "envoys"
were going to make a difference. They just knew that Sharon would
put on another charade of good behavior in order to appease the
paymaster. So, for a brief few days, people here could go to sleep
at night without fearing F-16s or Apache helicopters – or door
to door searches in the nearby refugee camps with the accompanying
murders and vandalism. Things are back to "normal" again
now: you can feel the tension in the streets especially around
the soldiers. Everyone is tired, overworked, ill at ease.
This is a maximum security looney bin for 1.1 million people who
have delusions about human rights, freedom, and dignity. They
pose a serious threat to their rational, genetically superior,
keepers, which accounts for their inability to leave under any
circumstances. The secretary here, Ghada, is 23, speaks beautiful
English, wants to study English literature and travel. She has
never been outside of Gaza. Her crime is being Palestinian. Same
old, same old: A fair target for any IDF soldier because she's
a "militant" – that is, she opposes the Israeli occupation
of her land. Letting crazies like her out of this cage would be
far too risky.
I wish you could see this with your own eyes. I wish you could
walk through the streets of the Jabaliya refugee camp (the biggest
in the Middle East with 100,000 residents piled in on top of each
other in 2 square km of land), or past the Ansar compound bombed
into rubble last week. I wish you could see the ill-clad children
and the tired street vendors; spend a day in Gaza where you can't
ever count on having electricity when you need it, or hot water
– or water at all – from your sinks. The half starved cats stare
at you through glazed eyes and the mangy donkeys pulling their
carts around the strip bray for relief and nibble at trees no
bigger than they are. Car horns blow, ambulance sirens screech,
radio news hums on in the background, the phones keep ringing,
the voices in the other offices drone on in soft echoes, children
play in the streets, women shop for food at the markets, and Anwar
brings me my third cup of Arabic coffee this morning.!
The noose tightens around all our necks.
Jennifer Loewenstein lives in
Gaza City, and works for the Mezan Center for Human Rights.
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