Today he has survived two large-scale wars (’67 and ’73) two intifadas (1987/93 and 2000/05) and three successive conflicts in the Gaza Strip (2009, 2012, 2014).
Surrounded by five generations of his progeny in the small Orthodox Church in which they found refuge, Mohammed said this felt like the worst aggression since ’48. He narrowly escaped with his life the destruction of the eastern Gaza town of Shijayia, walking all night along with his family as people he knew died around him and his home was flattened to the ground.
By the time I spoke to him Gaza more than 1800 of its 1.7 million inhabitants had been killed over the course of 3 weeks of intense bombardment. Entire suburbs and town bordering with Israel were reduced to rubble throughout the 320 square kilometer of Gaza Strip.
(Patrick Tombola)
Few conflicts polarize the world’s public opinion like that between Israelis and Palestinians.
Words have to be carefully weighed by journalists and captions rigorously scrutinized by photo editors to avoid accusations of either anti-Semitism or anti-Arab sentiment.
I first traveled to Gaza in November 2012 just in time to witness the last day of heavy bombing of ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’ in which 133 Palestinians and 6 Israelis died.
This time I, like most of my colleagues, was not prepared for what came next. As both sides confronted each other with extreme ruthlessness, those caught in the middle, mostly women and children, suffered indescribable pain, sorrow and loss. Places deemed safe havens suddenly became legitimate military targets like schools, hospital and mosques. Children were killed in broad daylight as they were playing on the beach. Families with 28 members completely wiped off the face of the earth as they prepared for the Muslim breaking of the fast known as Iftar.
Despite the heavy human toll most Gazans still support the war citing the current siege – whereby both Israel and Egypt deny any exit from the Gaza Strip – as one of their main grievances. Over and over people have been saying that they would rather die with dignity ighting Israel than die a slow death locked in the largest open-air prison in the world.
The siege has already caused countless victims, the sick are denied proper medical assistance due to a severe shortage in medicines, children suffer of malnourishment as prices for foodstuff increased dramatically and the economy has suffered severely as a result. Fishermen, for example, are unable to work more than 5 miles off the coast and during the war hundreds of families dependent on this trade are left without a breadwinner.
The long-term consequences of this conflict are hard to determine at this stage. The constant buzzing of drones hovering overhead, the deep double tap of navy cannons and the high pitch sound of F16s screaming down to drop their destructive loads, are all too powerful reminders of an individual’s precarious existence on this small stretch of land.
For children in particular issues linked to post traumatic stress disorder, depression and sleeping disorders will be a legacy of the conflict for many years to come. On both sides many observers question what the latest conflict has achieved in practical terms.
Hamas’ tunnels can be rebuilt, their missile stockpile replenished and none of the grievances on either side have been addressed in a constructive, long-term perspective. Despite the extreme generosity and openness of Gazans in this period of extreme hardship, I can’t help but feel that the one goal the war has certainly achieve was to turn many young Gazans into orphans and in doing provide a fertile recruiting ground Hamas’s tomorrow as lack of opportunity, poverty and the spiral of hatred leave little space for tolerance and the building of any bridge between two cultures.
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