Gaza, a cornered and extremely vulnerable people

Extreme scarcity and desperation define life in the Gaza Strip today. The population has been subjected to a cruel blockade by the Israeli government since 2007. Before the current crisis, after the Hamas attack on Israeli territory with taken of hostages, Gaza had already been bombed by Israel several times, killing hundreds of people and destroying many buildings. and structures. It must be remembered that the 2 million residents who live in the small territory of 375 km2 have been suffering multiple hardships. Before the current total lockdown they had lived on four hours or less of electricity a day. It had been the case for a long time that most families did not have access to clean water because the supply system was contaminated with sewage: For some school children, breakfast was a cup of hot water flavored with a pinch of salt. Today not even that. Said Omar Ghraieb, a journalist and digital media manager who lives in Gaza. "Despair is not even the right word to describe what is happening here because things are getting worse," he said. "We wake up to a world of fighting every day." For more than a decade, Palestinians living in Gaza had suffered major escalations of violence and an Israeli-imposed air and sea blockade that has decimated infrastructure, stifled economic growth and living conditions so bleak that United Nations officials They said, before the Israeli bombings, that a humanitarian disaster was inevitable.
"We are really seeing a collapse on the ground," said Matthias Schmale, director of the UN Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provided humanitarian assistance to more than 1.3 million refugees in the autonomous Palestinian territory.

You can imagine that some reaction from the population was inevitable. The Hamas attack, as well as other reactions of Palestinian rebellion in Gaza, were predictable.
To all of the above we must add that there are nearly 3 million Palestinians in the Western Bank of the Jordan, constantly dispossessed of land and homes due to the advance of Israeli colonies in their traditional lands. In their jobs and transfers they are permanently humiliated with controls on all the main routes in the territory. As if that were not enough, something similar is happening in the Arab and Muslim sector of Jerusalem. The Palestinians themselves, who have been incorporated into Israeli citizenship for decades, are constantly discriminated against and their rights are not taken into account. Added to the above is that there are several million Palestinian refugees in neighboring countries. Jordan, which in practice has been and is a country with a majority Palestinian population, is threatened both politically and militarily by the Israeli state. Something similar happens in the south of Lebanon and in the southwest of Syria, a country that has already lost the Golan area since the 6-day war and Yon Kippur in 1967 and 1973. Something similar can be said of Egypt, particularly on the peninsula. of Sinai, which was already occupied by Israel in 1967. There are also several million Palestinians who were forced to migrate to different countries in the world.
In this situation it seems difficult that the solution of eradication of the Palestinian population from their former territories becomes impracticable. Netanyahu's policy of taking advantage of the reaction generated by the Hamas attacks on his territory to annihilate the Palestinian population, both those actively involved in the resistance struggle and the civilian population made up mainly of women and children, has generated and is generating rejection in Arab and Muslim governments, as well as in numerous social and political organizations throughout the world. It would be easier for Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Palestinian Hamas leaders to achieve the release of hostages captured by Hamas in exchange for the release of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons. This would allow time for Israel's political forces to rethink their relationship with the Palestinian political leaders, and advance the constitution and demarcation of an internationally recognized independent Palestinian state. While that would be the solution, it is not likely that due to the racist and Islamophobic reactions that have developed in a part of Israeli society, it can happen in the near future.
Israeli decisions are influenced by the United States, which constitutes the main economic and military support of the Israeli state, but American positions are influenced by a very politically strong pro-Israeli sector that prevents the United States from changing its position.
Meanwhile, the death toll of thousands of Palestinian victims, most of them civilians, including tens of thousands of children, seems set to continue.
At the same time the world watches with a lot of anger and a lot of helplessness.

Will Israel be held accountable for war crimes?

Like tens of thousands of people in Gaza, Aymen al-Djaroucha had to flee his home with his family last month during the 11 days of fighting between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups, mainly Hamas, which controls the blockaded enclave.

Birds sing outside the window of his office as the father of three explains what it feels like to leave the place where you’ve spent the last 12 years – without any of your belongings.

 “You have all your memories there, it’s where our children grew up, where we spent time with each other and shared happy moments and difficult moments. All my life was there.”

But, he had to leave. The Israeli military phoned the apartment block’s caretaker on May 14 to warn families to evacuate. They bombed it less than an hour later, destroying several flats and causing a fire that ripped through the building.

He has since been back to assess the scale of the damage and to “try to return to my normal life”, he says.

“The flats above the eighth floor were badly destroyed by the fire and it was very hard for the civil defence to extinguish it. We have a lot of repairs to do inside and on the stairwell and a lot of cleaning.”

‘Get back to normal’

It was one of several high-rise buildings in Gaza City targeted by Israeli air strikes, including the al-Jalaa building that housed several media organisations, such as Al Jazeera and The Associated Press bureaus.

The skyline of the metropolis – home to almost 600,000 people – has been significantly altered since May 10 when hostilities escalated.

Along with at least 2,000 housing units destroyed and more than 15,000 other units damaged, Gaza’s already run-down infrastructure was also badly hit.

The United Nations reported that six hospitals, nine healthcare centres and a water desalination plant were damaged during the fighting.

Al-Djaroucha, who works as the project coordinator in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF), says their burns and trauma clinic was damaged by an air strike.

“Not only the whole waiting area was affected but also one of the main sterilisation rooms, which we use to prepare materials and to sterilise the tools which we use in all our outpatient departments. So it’s vital that we are able to get back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Roads leading to Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, were also damaged, along with the only COVID-19 testing laboratory in the enclave.

Israel’s military claims it was only targeting buildings with links to Hamas and other armed groups. However, Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Human Rights Centre based in Gaza, refutes this.

“It wasn’t Hamas targeted; it wasn’t PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] targeted; it wasn’t Islamic Jihad targeted. I believe it was civilians targeted,” he says.

“From the first hour of the first day [of the recent escalation], civilians were the targets of these most high-tech airplanes – F16 and F35 – with rockets designed for military targets and you see these things targeting precisely. Tens of children and women killed. Nothing can justify that,” he adds.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields”. But, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council last week, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said they have not seen evidence to support Israel’s claims that the buildings they bombed in Gaza were “hosting armed groups or being used for military purposes”.

Even before the recent eruption of violence, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had opened an investigation into previous bouts of the continuing conflict, and last month the ICC’s chief prosecutor said she was closely monitoring what was happening on the ground.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes; Hamas for firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas in Israel – although out of more than 2,000 rockets, about 640 fell short into the Gaza Strip and 90 percent that crossed the border were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system – and Israel for repeatedly bombing densely populated civilian areas within Gaza.

A legal attack?

At this stage, information is still being gathered, but Yael Stein, research director at B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, believes that Israel’s bombardment of civilian structures within Gaza violates international law.

“In order for an attack to be legal, it has to be both directed at a military target and be proportionate,” she explains.

For a building to be a military target, the destruction of it should give a military advantage to Israel. To be proportionate, you have to judge whether the military advantage you anticipate to receive from the bombing is higher than the loss to the civilian population.

Stein adds even when civilians were given some warning about when to evacuate, which saved lives, civilian property was still demolished and that “is still part of the calculation”.

“I think that the past proves that the Israeli army is interpreting this principle in a much wider way that the drafters of international law never expected, and that it is far from what can be considered to be proportionate,” she says.

Netanyahu has accused the ICC of “pure anti-Semitism” for investigating attacks and has said Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, however, it does not have to. Stein says the court can work without Israel’s acceptance.

But, it will be a long time until anybody – whether Hamas leaders and/or Israeli officials – will be held accountable for their actions by the ICC.

“We’re just starting the procedure which will take years until the investigation will actually take place and then more years until somebody will be charged and then more years until somebody will be in jail,” she says.

The lack of enforcement mechanisms within international humanitarian law is a problem, she adds. “So states can violate the basic norms of international law and nothing will happen.”

Unforgiving siege

Eric Goldstein, acting executive director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, says there has been a shift in international awareness and willingness to look at Israeli war crimes.

The UN Human Rights Council’s recent decision to launch a continuing inquiry into human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine is a “welcome step”, which he urged Israel to cooperate with.

“We’re going to push hard at the ICC so that they look at war crimes committed by all parties,” Goldstein says.

But, long-term peace will not be possible unless the “underlying root causes are addressed”, the main one being that Gaza is viewed as the largest open-air prison in the world – the enclave has been under an unforgiving siege imposed by Israel for more than 14 years, ever since Hamas took control of Gaza.

“That leaves people there with no future, with no hope and with their rights being violated almost on a daily basis,” says Stein, adding the international community needs to put pressure on Israel to stop this.

“You have to treat those people as human beings, as equal people that deserve the same rights as every other people in the territory under Israeli control.”

Goldstein adds the oppression of Palestinians, which “amounts to a situation of apartheid”, feeds into the conflict and gives Hamas “certain political support”. The United States, in particular, needs to “take a harder look at its unconditional support for Israel”, and parties helping Hamas “commit their war crimes, logistically or providing material” should stop, he says.

Both Israel and Hamas announced victories at the end of the 11 days of fighting, with Israel saying they killed nearly 30 senior Hamas commanders and destroyed 340 of their rocket launchers, as well as 130km (60 miles) of underground tunnels.

A crazy Israeli idea for Gaza

Israeli minister proposes building an artificial island off the coast of Gaza

Israel's intelligence minister Israel Katz has released a video showing plan.

Israel’s intelligence minister has released a video illustrating his plan for an artificial island off the coast of Gaza, which he says would help alleviate humanitarian suffering in the isolated enclave.

The plan calls for the island to be built in the Mediterranean three miles off the coast of Gaza and connected to the strip by a long bridge.

The island, which would itself be 2.5 miles long, would have a port where passengers and cargo could be dropped off and then transported to Gaza itself. It could potentially one day even have an airport. 

Gaza has neither a shipping port nor an airport of its own and its two million residents are almost entirely dependent supplies coming through the land border with Israel.

The island would be three miles off the coast of Gaza

"The artificial island initiative is aimed at providing an answer to a reality that is bad for the Palestinians and not good for Israel," the video’s narrator says. 

The project is the brainchild of Israel’s intelligence minister, whose name is Yisrael Katz. 

He has pushed for the idea for seven years, often facing scepticism from other ministers, but claims now that the project is gaining momentum. 

Mr Katz presented the slick video to the Israeli cabinet earlier this month and won the support of some of his colleagues but failed to convince Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s defence minister, who remains opposed. 

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, would have the ultimate say but his position on the proposal is not known. 

According to Mr Katz, the island would cost $5 billion dollars, which would be raised from international donors, and would take five years to construct. 

Under his plan, the island would have a marina for passengers and a port for cargo ships. Israel’s navy would patrol the surrounding waters and Israeli forces would inspect everything that comes through the island. 

An international police force would have responsibility for security on the island itself and would man a checkpoint in the bridge connecting it to Gaza. A section of the bridge could be lifted to disconnect the island from Gaza in the event of a security crisis. 

The bridge could be raised in the event of a security crisis 

The island would also have a power station and a water desalination plant. 

Gaza has been controlled the Islamist militant group Hamas since 2007, when Hamas forces took power and drove out the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israel responded with a blockade on Gaza, which it says is necessary for its own security. Critics argue that the blockade is a form of collective punishment on the people of Gaza.  

Mr Katz argues that the island would make it easier for people and supplies to get in and out of Gaza, simultaneously easing Palestinian suffering and reducing international criticism of Israel. 

“He believes in it because he knows that if something isn’t done in the end we’re going to face some sort of human catastrophe or another round of war,” said Arye Shalicar, head of international affairs at the intelligence ministry. 

“Seven years ago almost everyone was against it but since then we’ve had two rounds of war with Hamas. Many people who said, in politics and in the security establishment, started understanding this might be a good solution.”

Mr Katz is a senior figure in Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party and says he plans to run for the leadership of the party when the prime minister leaves office. 

Mr Lieberman, the defence minister, remains a sceptic of the island idea and argues that the project would be a reward for Hamas  “Hamas will say that thanks to its struggle it has received investments worth billions and a new port in Gaza.”

Hamas have in the past opposed the idea, saying it was a way of making the Israeli blockade permanent. Some sort of agreement with Hamas would almost certainly be necessary for the idea to go ahead.
Author: Raf Sanchez

Reference:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/28/israeli-minister-proposes-building-artificial-island-coast-gaza/

The Warsaw Ghetto and the new Gaza Ghetto
D.Antón

In Poland occupied by the Nazis, the German authorities concentrated hundreds of thousands of Jews in a small sector of the city of Warsaw, in a historical fact that since then is known as "the Warsaw Ghetto". 
The Ghetto had an area of ​​3.4 km2 (340 hectares) and at the time it contained the largest population it was populated by more than 400,000 people. 
The Germans closed the Ghetto to the outside world on November 16, 1940 through 3-meter high walls with barbed wire at the top. Those who wanted to escape were killed by dozens of guards who strictly controlled it. It is estimated that only in the course of two months of the summer of 1942 254,000 residents were sent to the extermination camp of Treblinka. 
On April 19, 1943 the Jews of the Ghetto rebelled, provoking the invasion of the Nazi army. They were several days of heroic and bloody struggle. The Ghetto was swept away, tens of thousands of people died or were deported to the extermination camps.
In Palestine occupied by the State of Israel a population of 1,800,000 Palestinians have been concentrated and blocked by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. Almost two million people imprisoned in an area of ​​151 square kilometers. 
he inhabitants of Gaza are blocked by the east and southeast by the State of Israel, by the west by the Egyptian government that closed the border and by the north (by sea) by the Israeli navy. Walls and barbed wire prevent Gazans from leaving their ghetto. The blockade and isolation of Gaza has been going on for 16 years. During this period, tens of thousands of Palestinians have died and many others were taken prisoner. In Gaza, its inhabitants do not have sources of income, they do not have freedom of movement, they can not export their work, they do not have agricultural land, they do not have enough water, fishing is practically impossible in a polluted sea and watched by the Israeli armed forces, they suffer hunger and diseases. 
Periodically the Israelites bomb the buildings and houses of Gaza (including hospitals, residential neighborhoods and mosques) and systematically kill many people. The Palestinians defend themselves with the limited means they possess but can not even make a dent in the army of Israel, one of the most powerful in the world.
The Nazis were defeated and the walls of the Ghetto were destroyed long time ago. The walls of the Gaza Ghetto are still there, holding hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the worst blockade of this century.
The State of Israel has not yet learned the lesson of the Warsaw Ghetto.
At some point, someone, maybe many, will manage to free those people unjustly condemned to a life of misery and abuse.

Gaza: the largest open air prison of the world

Deficit and desperation define life these days in the Gaza Strip subjected to a cruel blockade by the government of Israel since 2007. Gaza was also bombed by Israel several times killing hundresds of people and destroing many buildings and structures.

The 2 millon residents living in the small 375 km2 territory must live with four hours of electricity a day. Most people don't have access to clean water because the supply system is contaminated with sewage. Breakfast for some schoolchildren is a cup of hot water flavored with a dash of salt.

"Despair isn't even the right word to describe what's going on here because things are getting worse and worse," said Omar Ghraieb, 31, a journalist and digital media manager living in Gaza. "We wake up to a world of struggles each day."

For more than a decade Palestinians living in Gaza have endured major escalations of violence and an air and sea blockade, imposed by Israel that has decimated the infrastructure, stifled economic growth and made living conditions so dismal that United Nations officials say a humanitarian disaster is unavoidable.

"We really are seeing a collapse in place," said Matthias Schmale, director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides humanitarian assistance to more than 1.3 million refugees in the self-governing Palestinian territory.

For most of those struggling to survive in Gaza, the hardships are real.

Speaking via the social media app WhatsApp, Ghraieb recalled how it was not so long ago that the power stayed on for eight hours each day, enough time to cook, surf the internet and heat the apartment that he shares with his father and sister.

Palestinian charge their cellphones using batteries, a free service offered in a Gaza City neighborhood suffering from power disruptions.

Many people have resorted to burning wood and stocking up on blankets to stay warm, Ghraieb said. Generators are available, but few people can afford the fuel to run them.

"Of course some have it better than others, but … it's like we went back a decade," Ghraieb said. "It's crazy seeing the world advance by the minute while seeing a place you call home decline by the second."

Health facilities are also feeling the strain of the power scarcity. Last week, a hospital serving 66,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip halted operations and a children's medical center reduced its services to a bare minimum.

According to the World Bank, only 10% of Gaza's population has access to safe drinking water. The sewage system has broken down and wastewater pollutes the aquifer that flows beneath Gaza.

The 1.3 million refugees whom UNRWA serves account for about 70% of Gaza's population of 2 million people. Of these refugees, 77% live in poverty and depend on the U.N. agency for food, Schmale said.

"Gaza is a place that has been testing the limits of what the minimum level of sustainability is before a total humanitarian catastrophe," Munayyer said. "We inch closer every day to finding where that threshold is."

An economy in ruins

About 46% the population in Gaza, which covers 141 square miles, is without work. The statistic stands at 64% among young people under the age of 25, and at 77% for women within that group. And unemployment is rising, according to U.N. officials.

"A lot of these industries that you could rely on to produce and generate some independent dynamism for the economy have also suffered because of the siege policy," Munayyer said.

Egypt's border with Gaza is closed and Israel allows only trucks carrying food or other humanitarian necessities to pass through. The dramatic drop in purchasing power of Gazans is evident in the number of supply trucks entering the strip weekly from Israel. It has dropped from an average of 900 trucks a week to about 300, according to Israeli army data.

Entire industries have collapsed within the Gaza Strip. Farming areas along the perimeter of the strip have been ruined by the siege and three recent wars with Israel, in 2009, 2012 and 2014.

From Gaza with hope

Last August, Palestinians commemorated the three-year anniversary of the end of Israel's devastating war against the Gaza Strip. The war had killed over 2,200 Palestinians - the vast majority among them civilians - and 71 Israelis, the majority of them soldiers.

The war left Gaza in ruins with over 17,000 homes completely destroyed, and thousands of other buildings, including hospitals, schools and factories, destroyed or severely damaged. The war fully shattered whatever semblance of an economy the Gaza Strip had. Today, 80 percent of all Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid.

The story of Palestinians in the eyes of its people

There is a whole generation of Palestinians in Gaza that grew up knowing nothing but war and siege and have never seen the world beyond Gaza's deadly borders. 

These are the voices of some of these young Gazans, who shared their tragic personal stories, hoping that the world would heed their calls for freedom and for justice.

Our recurring Nakba Shahd Abusalama - a Palestinian artist, blogger and a PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam University

This is not just a commemoration of the catastrophic human, material and emotional costs that Issrael inflicted on Gaza in its deadliest attack during the summer of 2014. This is a remembrance of an ongoing Naqba which Palestinians have experienced since 1948.

I am a third-generation refugee, born and raised in one of Palestine's largest refugee camps, Jabalia, originally from Beit-Jerja, my grandparents' evergreen home village which they had to flee under Israeli fire nearly 70 years ago.

I was born a survivor - my mother went into labour during a curfew that Israeli military forces imposed on Jabalia, the place from which the first Intifada erupted a few years before I was born.

While fearing for her life and her yet-to-be-born child, she walked through Jabalia's alleys, leaning on my grandmother who held a white piece of cloth and a lantern, hoping for mercy from the Israeli soldiers who shot at everyone that dared break the curfew.

This is just my birth story in short, and this piece would not be enough to cover the immense trauma that I shared with the population of Gaza ever since. In Gaza, no family could escape the grief of having a relative killed, wounded, detained or exiled - mine is no exception.

This context is necessary to remind everyone of the uninterrupted cycle of violence we endured since Israel's inception. Such stories, as harrowing as they may sound, are Palestinians' daily reality for the past 70 years.
How can a whole population, locked in an inescapable ghetto, be subjected to such brutality for this long, as the whole world looks the other way?
One would expect that such an inhumane reality would encourage world governments to impose sanctions on Israel. Instead, world leaders compete over sponsoring Israel's lethal security apparatus, asserting Israel's right to "self-defence" on every possible occasion.
They accept Israel's misleading media narrative at face value and justify its crimes against my people, who are portrayed as "terrorists", effectively blaming the oppressed for legitimately resisting their colonial oppressor, so that they may attain their right to live in dignity and freedom.

My identity: Defined, fragmented Sondos Alqutat - a Palestinian social worker; holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature

The ongoing Israeli occupation and siege made me understand the occupier the way it proudly portrays itself: Israeli, Zionist, Jewish. This has heightened my sense of identity as a Palestinian, Arab, Muslim. But new factors emerged following the decade-long siege imposed on Gaza. Now, I also feel "Gazan". Like two million other Palestinians, I belong to this coastal enclave which is subjected to daily suffering.
The political division, due to the absence of one unified leadership representing both Gaza and the West Bank has accentuated the geographical and cultural differences between both locations. The gap gets wider every day, resulting in a separate identity for me, and many other young Gazans, compared with that held by those living in the West Bank.
Gaza is under a tight siege, yet despite all the hardships, there is a collective sense of autonomy. On the other hand, the West Bank has a semblance of freedom, while in reality every aspect of life, there is controlled by Israel. Over the course of years, my sense of national identity has fragmented.
But whether in the West Bank or Gaza, we must not forget, we both struggle against the same military occupier, and will always remain linked through our resistance. Only through resistance to injustice, our identity can, once more, become one.

Gaza women are not a stereotype Sarah Ali - a teacher working in Gaza; holds a Master's degree in English Literary Studies from Durham University

For years, Palestinian women have been part of the struggle against the Israeli occupation. Yet it remains hard to escape the stereotypical depictions surrounding them, with many commentators incessantly indulging in Orientalist tropes, constantly referring to rooted patriarchy in Palestinian society to score political points, thus justify Israeli aggression.

The Gaza Strip, wrecked by the Israeli siege and repeated wars, is no haven for Palestinian men. But life for women is harder still. In a culture that conforms to traditional gender roles, where females do most of the housework, women in Gaza bear the brunt of the effects of the siege on the household.
Due to daily power-cuts, women frequently have to wake up in the middle of the night to use the sparse hours of electricity to wash clothes, iron, vacuum and bake bread.
Breast cancer patients who are referred to Israeli hospitals have to endure a long and bureaucratic process to get Israeli permits to leave Gaza through the Erez Crossing [known to Palestinians Beit Hanoun]. Israeli authorities frequently delay permits and send patients back to Gaza between therapy sessions. Female patients who can't leave Gaza suffer from the shortage of healthcare equipment and medicine.

During the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza, when hundreds of families fled their homes for relatives' houses, women would cook for large groups of men and children every day, provide shelter for relatives and strangers alike.
Nowadays, although still underrepresented in the workforce and positions of power, and despite the Israeli blockade that continues to strangle Palestinian education and economy, thousands of Palestinian young women in Gaza go to university. Thousands go on to become teachers, doctors, architects, nurses, housewives, mothers, political activists, educators, and social workers.

"I am from there. I am from here" Yousef M Aljamal - a Palestinian PhD candidate at the Middle East Institute of the University of Sakarya in Turkey

When I am in my temporary home, my Gaza refugee camp - my home is the village of "Aqir" in historic Palestine - I feel the combined pressures of siege and war, and the constant desire to leave. Many Gazan youth feel the same way.

The people of Gaza live under extremely abnormal conditions where basic services and human rights, such as clean water, electricity and the freedom to travel are a privilege, not a right. Nothing is taken for granted there, even the right to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Many Palestinians in Gaza want to see the world past the confines of that tiny strip, but if they ever do, they become trapped. They want to stay outside Gaza, due to the difficult conditions at home, and the difficulty of adapting to life outside. I too feel stuck between this feeling of entrapment in Gaza and feeling exiled outside it; this heavy feeling of alienation and exile is not unique to me. Most Palestinians feel it, Gazans especially.
This feeling is part of the complexity of the Palestinian identity after nearly 70 years of displacement following the Nakba - our collective "catastrophe", when Israel was established atop the ruins of our homes. This feeling of alienation and exile is passed from one generation to the next, and will continue to get more complicated as the situation in Palestine gets more difficult.

As the Gaza's siege enters its 11th year, and Israel's active apartheid system in the West Bank is becoming more entrenched, the Palestinian identity will get more painful and intricate, where the concept of home and exile will be even harder to define.
I am afraid that this feeling of alienation and exile will continue to shadow Palestinians, wherever they go.

Rafah: My salvation, my curse  Ahmed Salah (not his real name) - a Palestinian student

I am a Palestinian from Gaza. I got a scholarship to do a Master's degree in a European country. I was supposed to travel after the war, but the Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border refused to grant entry to me.

All the devastation death caused by Israel left many young people like me in a state despair and shock. But it also gave us greater determination to oppose the lethal, colonial Zionist enterprise, and those who support it.

For a while, there were talks about opening an airport or a seaport. The idea was quite uplifting for it seemed to offer a way out of the Gazan open-air prison. But the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, along with Egypt made that impossible. Instead, they collaborated to tighten the noose around Gaza's neck. Each Palestinian of the two million people living in Gaza is punished for being Palestinian and for resisting occupation and siege.
When I tried to travel through the Rafah border crossing, the Egyptian authorities sent me back without any reason. After months of waiting and long hours of being vetted on the Egyptian side of the border, I was sent back without even an explanation. I was one of about 100 people, mostly students, but there were also some who were gravely ill and others who were wounded in the war.

I was determined to try again, a process that would take at least four months because at that time the border was opened by Egypt merely three days every two or three months. But then, I was advised by a friend that Egyptian officers at the border ban as many Gaza travellers as possible to force them to bribe their way out. And that is precisely what I did. I contacted a border coordinator who told me I am "blacklisted" by the Egyptians because they have a report about me, and that the only way to travel is to pay $2,000 US. And just like that, I paid the money and, miraculously was no longer a "security threat". I left Gaza, and I am yet to go back.
For me and many like me, the Rafah border crossing has become an unbreakable curse. For now, I plan to continue my studies abroad. The decision is painful because it means I will not be able to see my family or my home anytime soon.

Hope through my oudMohammed Ahmad Ballour - a Palestinian musician

I am 22-year-old Palestinian refugee from Gaza and I love to play the oud. For me, it is not only an instrument of music, but of hope as well.

Youth in Gaza somehow manage to remain hopeful despite the lack of opportunity and a decade-long siege. We have no other option but to remain empowered. We are the future of this place, and we cannot submit to oppression or defeat.

At times, we take on social media to convey our stories, our hopes and our pain to anyone who cares to listen. For me, I combine both music and social media to send a positive message from Gaza.
Music inspires me. It is a universal language. It is effortless to understand. All it takes is an open heart. And its relatable by everyone regardless of age, gender or background. I play my oud and share my videos online. I want the world to know that in Gaza we live to the fullest every day and we find ways to survive, to live and to grow.
We don't have to accept that pain is our destiny. I feel happy and empowered when I hold on my oud and convey the story of my people through music to the world.
We will survive this and we will fight to challenge and, eventually change our painful reality, no matter the pain or the passing of time.
Ramzy Baroud 

Reproduced from Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/09/2014-war-eyes-gaza-youth-170912143258604.html

From Gaza with hope

Last August, Palestinians commemorated the three-year anniversary of the end of Israel's devastating war against the Gaza Strip. The war had killed over 2,200 Palestinians - the vast majority among them civilians - and 71 Israelis, the majority of them soldiers.

The war left Gaza in ruins with over 17,000 homes completely destroyed, and thousands of other buildings, including hospitals, schools and factories, destroyed or severely damaged. The war fully shattered whatever semblance of an economy the Gaza Strip had. Today, 80 percent of all Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid.

The story of Palestinians in the eyes of its people

There is a whole generation of Palestinians in Gaza that grew up knowing nothing but war and siege and have never seen the world beyond Gaza's deadly borders. 

These are the voices of some of these young Gazans, who shared their tragic personal stories, hoping that the world would heed their calls for freedom and for justice.

Our recurring Nakba Shahd Abusalama - a Palestinian artist, blogger and a PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam University

This is not just a commemoration of the catastrophic human, material and emotional costs that Issrael inflicted on Gaza in its deadliest attack during the summer of 2014. This is a remembrance of an ongoing Naqba which Palestinians have experienced since 1948.

I am a third-generation refugee, born and raised in one of Palestine's largest refugee camps, Jabalia, originally from Beit-Jerja, my grandparents' evergreen home village which they had to flee under Israeli fire nearly 70 years ago.

I was born a survivor - my mother went into labour during a curfew that Israeli military forces imposed on Jabalia, the place from which the first Intifada erupted a few years before I was born.

While fearing for her life and her yet-to-be-born child, she walked through Jabalia's alleys, leaning on my grandmother who held a white piece of cloth and a lantern, hoping for mercy from the Israeli soldiers who shot at everyone that dared break the curfew.

This is just my birth story in short, and this piece would not be enough to cover the immense trauma that I shared with the population of Gaza ever since. In Gaza, no family could escape the grief of having a relative killed, wounded, detained or exiled - mine is no exception.

This context is necessary to remind everyone of the uninterrupted cycle of violence we endured since Israel's inception. Such stories, as harrowing as they may sound, are Palestinians' daily reality for the past 70 years.
How can a whole population, locked in an inescapable ghetto, be subjected to such brutality for this long, as the whole world looks the other way?
One would expect that such an inhumane reality would encourage world governments to impose sanctions on Israel. Instead, world leaders compete over sponsoring Israel's lethal security apparatus, asserting Israel's right to "self-defence" on every possible occasion.
They accept Israel's misleading media narrative at face value and justify its crimes against my people, who are portrayed as "terrorists", effectively blaming the oppressed for legitimately resisting their colonial oppressor, so that they may attain their right to live in dignity and freedom.

My identity: Defined, fragmented Sondos Alqutat - a Palestinian social worker; holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature

The ongoing Israeli occupation and siege made me understand the occupier the way it proudly portrays itself: Israeli, Zionist, Jewish. This has heightened my sense of identity as a Palestinian, Arab, Muslim. But new factors emerged following the decade-long siege imposed on Gaza. Now, I also feel "Gazan". Like two million other Palestinians, I belong to this coastal enclave which is subjected to daily suffering.
The political division, due to the absence of one unified leadership representing both Gaza and the West Bank has accentuated the geographical and cultural differences between both locations. The gap gets wider every day, resulting in a separate identity for me, and many other young Gazans, compared with that held by those living in the West Bank.
Gaza is under a tight siege, yet despite all the hardships, there is a collective sense of autonomy. On the other hand, the West Bank has a semblance of freedom, while in reality every aspect of life, there is controlled by Israel. Over the course of years, my sense of national identity has fragmented.
But whether in the West Bank or Gaza, we must not forget, we both struggle against the same military occupier, and will always remain linked through our resistance. Only through resistance to injustice, our identity can, once more, become one.

Gaza women are not a stereotype Sarah Ali - a teacher working in Gaza; holds a Master's degree in English Literary Studies from Durham University

For years, Palestinian women have been part of the struggle against the Israeli occupation. Yet it remains hard to escape the stereotypical depictions surrounding them, with many commentators incessantly indulging in Orientalist tropes, constantly referring to rooted patriarchy in Palestinian society to score political points, thus justify Israeli aggression.

The Gaza Strip, wrecked by the Israeli siege and repeated wars, is no haven for Palestinian men. But life for women is harder still. In a culture that conforms to traditional gender roles, where females do most of the housework, women in Gaza bear the brunt of the effects of the siege on the household.
Due to daily power-cuts, women frequently have to wake up in the middle of the night to use the sparse hours of electricity to wash clothes, iron, vacuum and bake bread.
Breast cancer patients who are referred to Israeli hospitals have to endure a long and bureaucratic process to get Israeli permits to leave Gaza through the Erez Crossing [known to Palestinians Beit Hanoun]. Israeli authorities frequently delay permits and send patients back to Gaza between therapy sessions. Female patients who can't leave Gaza suffer from the shortage of healthcare equipment and medicine.

During the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza, when hundreds of families fled their homes for relatives' houses, women would cook for large groups of men and children every day, provide shelter for relatives and strangers alike.
Nowadays, although still underrepresented in the workforce and positions of power, and despite the Israeli blockade that continues to strangle Palestinian education and economy, thousands of Palestinian young women in Gaza go to university. Thousands go on to become teachers, doctors, architects, nurses, housewives, mothers, political activists, educators, and social workers.

"I am from there. I am from here" Yousef M Aljamal - a Palestinian PhD candidate at the Middle East Institute of the University of Sakarya in Turkey

When I am in my temporary home, my Gaza refugee camp - my home is the village of "Aqir" in historic Palestine - I feel the combined pressures of siege and war, and the constant desire to leave. Many Gazan youth feel the same way.

The people of Gaza live under extremely abnormal conditions where basic services and human rights, such as clean water, electricity and the freedom to travel are a privilege, not a right. Nothing is taken for granted there, even the right to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Many Palestinians in Gaza want to see the world past the confines of that tiny strip, but if they ever do, they become trapped. They want to stay outside Gaza, due to the difficult conditions at home, and the difficulty of adapting to life outside. I too feel stuck between this feeling of entrapment in Gaza and feeling exiled outside it; this heavy feeling of alienation and exile is not unique to me. Most Palestinians feel it, Gazans especially.
This feeling is part of the complexity of the Palestinian identity after nearly 70 years of displacement following the Nakba - our collective "catastrophe", when Israel was established atop the ruins of our homes. This feeling of alienation and exile is passed from one generation to the next, and will continue to get more complicated as the situation in Palestine gets more difficult.

As the Gaza's siege enters its 11th year, and Israel's active apartheid system in the West Bank is becoming more entrenched, the Palestinian identity will get more painful and intricate, where the concept of home and exile will be even harder to define.
I am afraid that this feeling of alienation and exile will continue to shadow Palestinians, wherever they go.

Rafah: My salvation, my curse  Ahmed Salah (not his real name) - a Palestinian student

I am a Palestinian from Gaza. I got a scholarship to do a Master's degree in a European country. I was supposed to travel after the war, but the Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border refused to grant entry to me.

All the devastation death caused by Israel left many young people like me in a state despair and shock. But it also gave us greater determination to oppose the lethal, colonial Zionist enterprise, and those who support it.

For a while, there were talks about opening an airport or a seaport. The idea was quite uplifting for it seemed to offer a way out of the Gazan open-air prison. But the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, along with Egypt made that impossible. Instead, they collaborated to tighten the noose around Gaza's neck. Each Palestinian of the two million people living in Gaza is punished for being Palestinian and for resisting occupation and siege.
When I tried to travel through the Rafah border crossing, the Egyptian authorities sent me back without any reason. After months of waiting and long hours of being vetted on the Egyptian side of the border, I was sent back without even an explanation. I was one of about 100 people, mostly students, but there were also some who were gravely ill and others who were wounded in the war.

I was determined to try again, a process that would take at least four months because at that time the border was opened by Egypt merely three days every two or three months. But then, I was advised by a friend that Egyptian officers at the border ban as many Gaza travellers as possible to force them to bribe their way out. And that is precisely what I did. I contacted a border coordinator who told me I am "blacklisted" by the Egyptians because they have a report about me, and that the only way to travel is to pay $2,000 US. And just like that, I paid the money and, miraculously was no longer a "security threat". I left Gaza, and I am yet to go back.
For me and many like me, the Rafah border crossing has become an unbreakable curse. For now, I plan to continue my studies abroad. The decision is painful because it means I will not be able to see my family or my home anytime soon.

Hope through my oud Mohammed Ahmad Ballour - a Palestinian musician

I am 22-year-old Palestinian refugee from Gaza and I love to play the oud. For me, it is not only an instrument of music, but of hope as well.

Youth in Gaza somehow manage to remain hopeful despite the lack of opportunity and a decade-long siege. We have no other option but to remain empowered. We are the future of this place, and we cannot submit to oppression or defeat.

At times, we take on social media to convey our stories, our hopes and our pain to anyone who cares to listen. For me, I combine both music and social media to send a positive message from Gaza.
Music inspires me. It is a universal language. It is effortless to understand. All it takes is an open heart. And its relatable by everyone regardless of age, gender or background. I play my oud and share my videos online. I want the world to know that in Gaza we live to the fullest every day and we find ways to survive, to live and to grow.
We don't have to accept that pain is our destiny. I feel happy and empowered when I hold on my oud and convey the story of my people through music to the world.
We will survive this and we will fight to challenge and, eventually change our painful reality, no matter the pain or the passing of time.
Ramzy Baroud 

Reproduced from Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/09/2014-war-eyes-gaza-youth-170912143258604.html

Israel is the main promoter of the war in Syria 

Despite not appearing in the foreground Israel is the main promoter of the war in Syria.
In my opinion (it must be said) Israel is largely responsible for the outbreak of war in Syria (especially through their influence in the US but also promoting Islamic hyperterrorism by stealth but decisive).
The Israeli fascism has been the main enemy of Syria during the past 65 years.
The government of Israel is satisfied  of the hardships that the Syrian people is suffering and especially of the weakness of the Syrian government that benefits Israel both politically and militarily.
The Golan Heights, Syrian territory, has been occupied by Israel for almost 50 years.
Israel directly influence the US leadership through the powerful Zionist lobby in the Congress and indirectly also influences presidential decisions.

The US military aid to Israel today is 38,000 million dollars in a span of 10 years, not counting the diplomatic and commercial support.
The prolongation of the war in Syria and the war in Iraq and the pressure on Iran, work for the benefit of Israeli expansionism.
Meanwhile blood continues to be shed in Syria and Iraq ...
D.A.