Between this and 50 years ago...

Today is the 28th of November and the truce has continued for another day. 

I’ve chosen the title of my blog today because when the Israelis declared they were going to attack Gaza they promised to take us back 50 years. At the start of the war Israeli officials came on live TV and said that Gazan people are human animals and should be treated as such. They also said they would deprive us of any kind of modern civilization, including electricity, water and the internet. Hearing such arrogant statements was really difficult and dehumanizing to everyone here in Gaza. It was dehumanizing to humanity itself. 

Everyone is speaking about Israel’s right to defend itself but no one is speaking about the Palestinians’ right to resistance. We have this right and it was guaranteed by international law. We as Palestinians, have the right to defend ourselves from the Israeli occupation - yes, we have to stick to our borders. But then again, tell me where the Israeli border is - we don’t even know! 

In Gaza there is an area defined by Israel as the Access Restricted Area (ARA), which no Palestinian is allowed to enter. Even though the Israelis haven’t been physically present in them they determine how many kilometers into Gaza this area is, and it changes all the time. One day it could be one kilometer long and another day it could be 200 kilometers long - nobody knows. They come up with new positions every day and people who happen to pass through this area will be killed, even if they are unaware that the ARA is further into Gaza than it was the day before. Gazans who were living close to the ARAs prior to this conflict have been living in the same conditions we are living in now for years, with no access to basic services and at constant risk of attack. 

In addition the Israelis are making it very hard to argue that there’s an occupation. They say they’re not physically in Gaza but have enforced a siege upon us since 2007, they change the conditions of the siege every day, supposedly according to their own security. This includes the size of the ARA and how far into the sea Gazans can go to fish. We’re not allowed to use airplanes. They determine how many products and people are going in and out of Gaza. This is a  new form of occupation that has never been witnessed in the world. 

The Israelis have definitely managed to take us back 50 years, as they said they would. I remember last winter my brothers who hadn’t been back to Gaza in a long time - one had not been for 22 years and the other hadn’t been for 7 years. The third one was planning to come in December. The two who managed to come said that Gaza City had changed and developed so much. Just a few examples of some of the new infrastructure we had include the Bianco Beach Resort, the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center and the beach which had been renovated by the municipality and was being enjoyed by everyone during summer and winter.  We also had some great hotels, we had Abu Saud who used to sell delicious oriental sweets including the Gazan kunafa which I believe is the best kunafa I’ve ever had in my life. In Gaza City there was a sort of tourist trail developing. People would visit the old city and they had started to visit open areas to do their own BBQ. There was a sense that people were figuring out ways to take a breather in the stifling environment we were living in. 

All my brothers and my cousins who visited Gaza over the past three years said it was becoming a really nice place. They felt proud of their home and they wanted to come to visit more often. Things were changing in a positive way. I felt it too for example I was becoming a more outdoors person because of the new facilities available to enjoy the outdoors. But now of course all the places I’ve just mentioned have been ruined. They were destroyed by the Israeli forces who are making every effort to ensure that nothing is left of a civilization or modern life in Gaza. I believe we are strong people - my own home, like many other homes in Gaza were previously bombed, but they were renovated and we started to live again. But this time I don’t know if we’ll ever get to go back. 

Many buildings were bombed in previous wars and they were rebuilt to be even better than they were. But now they are all gone. I believe that Gaza will have a lot of losses, not just human losses but also its history and culture. Our old market in the old part of Gaza city was built in a historical area and recently cafes were popping up there - now that is all gone too. 

The special pan to bake and cook with coal

It’s interesting that during this time we have revived some tools and equipment that people stopped using in Gaza a long time ago. For example the bathroom pot which is used to clean oneself after going to the bathroom. My grandmother stopped using it a long time ago and would use a normal pot instead. Now we are using the traditional pot again because it is more efficient at saving water and given how little water we have access to at the moment, that is essential. There is also a special pan for baking bread which people stopped using decades ago. But whenever there’s a crisis Gazans innovate and find a way around it. So they’ve restarted using this pan because we don’t have electricity to bake bread. We put this pan on coal and bake bread, make tea, coffee and cook in it as well. This of course is not environmentally friendly but it’s the only option left. 

Something else happened which is why I’m in better spirits today. Everyone who knows me knows that I love animals and I had my own organization to help animals but it stopped functioning last year because I was struggling to follow up on all the procedures required to set it up officially on my own. But today I received a great phone call from a friend in the West Bank who was saying that they would like me to assist in setting up a mobile clinic for animals. I was so happy because I want to be able to support animals whose voices are not heard as they have been suffering a lot. Even people’s pets are suffering because as I mentioned yesterday it’s becoming unaffordable to buy good food for them. I often end up sharing my own food with my cats. 

The traditional bathroom pot

So I was extremely happy that I’m finally going to be able to do something for the animals here, at least in Rafah. I don’t know what the situation is there in Gaza City, I have to check with some of the vets on what the situation is at the Gaza Zoo and what the situation is with animals in general. I see some people are still managing to vaccinate their pets. I forgot my pets’ birth certificates in Gaza City and I don’t know if I’m going to get the chance to go back home to get them. 

Today as we sipped our morning coffee, we continued telling each other the stories that have been being shared during the truce because people have time to talk. I was told a terrible story about a nine-year-old girl who was seriously injured and her parents were killed. The girl was sent to Egypt or Turkey for treatment but she was unaccompanied by a family member. Her family don’t know how she ended up going without them without them even knowing about it. 

We think that the doctors knew that her parents were killed during the war and there were other relatives that couldn’t reach her. There was only one person who said that she was her aunt and was able to reach her at the hospital once and that’s it. I am sure about this information because this girl’s family is related to my in-laws. Her sister was also born premature in Gaza City and was sent to a hospital in Rafah, completely on her own.

Although I feel happier today because of the prospect of working to help animals, I’m also worried because I sent my friend my answer telling him I definitely want to help out, but messages take a long time to go through. I hope he doesn’t find another way to help animals than me because I want to be the one helping. Let’s hope all goes well and I’ll keep you updated.

I still don’t have any news about my friend who lost her 3 children but in general, today looks like many other days during the war and 50 yeas have been deleted from history.