Notes from Palestine

Attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem

2011-01-09T13:56:00.001+02:00

It's 10:41am on Sunday and already a very difficult morning for Palestinians in Jerusalem. Today, like every day, their efforts to live in peace have been thwarted. Already one Palestinian community organizer was called in for interrogation, a second arrested, and construction began on a new illegal settlement in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood.

As soon as I turned on my computer, I read about the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem. Israeli settlers have official Israeli permission to tear down this hotel to build a new settlement (illegal under international law) in the heart of a Jerusalem neighborhood. This illegal project is funded by Irving Moskowitz, a businessman in the US that has donated to many efforts to takeover Palestinian land. For those of you nearby, a protest has been called for 4pm today.

At 8:49am I received a call from the Wadi Hilweh Information Center. The center's director had just been called in for interrogation for the second time since a judge ordered his release on Friday. Jawad is an energetic young man working to improve the situation of his community in Silwan by organizing children's activities at the Madaa Center and also working to educate the international community about the history of Silwan, a Palestinian village in Jerusalem. He was arrested last week (while working with children) on suspected assault but then released two days later for lack of evidence. Jawad has since been called in for interrogation twice. According to the information center, Jawad has been questioned about his activism in the local community. This amounts to harassment and intimidation by the Israeli police.

*UPDATE* The Israeli police are now seeking to ban Jawad from Silwan, the neighborhood in Jerusalem that his family has lived in for generations. There is a hearing tomorrow and I'm hoping against the odds that the judge will not approve this request.

Just a few minutes ago, the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee announced that Nidhal Abu Gharbiya, a Palestinian organizer in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, was arrested by Israeli police while watching the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel. Since he was simply observing Israel's illegal activities, I can only conclude that his arrest was another way of silencing Palestinians demanding the right to live in their homes.

Every day, Palestinians in Jerusalem face the threats of illegal Israeli settlers, state repression, and lack of equal rights and services. But this morning is an extreme example. One Israeli activist posed the question: "Is Israel taking advantage of the jammed news cycle in america to push forward in East Jerusalem?" Probably not. But still, I hope you will share this information to make sure Palestinians in Jerusalem are not forced out because no one is watching.

2011: More than words necessary to make it “happy”

2011-01-02T13:52:00.000+02:00

It's only the second day of 2011 but I can't bring myself to write “Happy New Year” anymore. Living in Palestine, these words were made hollow by the death and destruction all around me.

The start of a new year is always a time of reflection for me and I thought back to New Year's Day two years ago, hoping that this year would be different. In 2009, I was glued to the television watching live footage of Israel's savage attacks on Gaza. I stayed by the phone trading text messages with friends and colleagues in Gaza that were desperate for contact with the outside world as the bombs and white phosphorous rained down. And on my computer, I followed the unfolding story about the murder of Oscar Grant by BART police in my hometown of Oakland, CA.

This New Year's, I went to Nablus, a city in the north of the occupied West Bank. My mom and husband had never visited the market in the old city and we spent hours walking through narrow passages under impressive stone arches taking in the sights and sounds of the bustling marketplace. But everywhere we turned, there were memorials for Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation. Plaques with the names of the dead, posters with their photos, and rubble from partially destroyed buildings were a constant reminder that this beautiful city holds painful memories for many of the residents.

As we walked through Nablus, we learned that a Palestinian woman in the village of Bil'in had died. Jawaher Abu Rahma was rushed to the hospital the day before after inhaling concentrated tear gas fired by Israeli forces at a demonstration against the Apartheid Wall. Her death is the latest in a long list of deaths, injuries, arrests, and torture in this village, all carried out by Israel.

Today, Ahmad Maslamani was killed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint near Nablus and Israeli airstrikes hit Jabalya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. This camp is one of the most densely populated areas in the world with more than 100,000 refugees living on 1.4 square kilometers. I can only imagine the fear and trauma that children and families are experiencing in this camp as they are reminded that life under Israeli occupation is always precarious.

Two years ago, I thought that something could change. I thought that people like Oscar and Jawaher would have a chance to make a difference with their lives, not just their deaths. I thought that the world's outrage and shock would build into a movement that listened to their voices and demanded their rights. But today, I am still receiving notice by texts, emails and in the market place that nothing has changed.

I hope that together we will transform 2011 into a year of freedom and justice for people in Palestine, Oakland, and all over the world.

Christmas in Palestine

2010-12-26T13:49:00.000+02:00

Growing up, Christmas was a special day filled with family and friends. We would gather early at my parents' house to sit around the fireplace in our pajamas drinking hot chocolate and opening presents. Then we'd cook a big breakfast together and those of us without other relatives to visit would go for a long walk on the beach. Christmas meant taking a day off from whatever else was going on to be with family.

I'm now living in Bethlehem, Palestine which has its own rich Christmas traditions. But taking a break from the “real” world for a day is not a luxury that people living under occupation can take. I tried to revive some of my family's traditions but though we are living within driving distance of the Mediterranean and Red seas as well as Lake Tiberias, these are all places my husband is not allowed to go. His Palestinian ID card means it is illegal for him to reach these areas. Even Gaza's Mediterranean coast, another area supposedly under Palestinian control, is out of reach for him and others with West Bank ID cards. (Actually, Gaza is out of reach for pretty much everyone as Israel continues its blockade for the third year.)

My husband and I took a walk to his parents' house in the nearby Dheisheh Refugee Camp instead. It was another reminder of Palestinian dispossession as we walked amongst the 12,000 people now living in this camp. 62 years ago these families were living in 45 different villages near Hebron and Jerusalem. But most of the camp residents have never even seen their villages though in some cases the village lands are just a few miles away from the refugee camp.

Christmas night we went to a festival in the nearby town of Beit Sahour. We watched a riveting performance by Al-Funoun dance troupe while enjoying hot tea and falafel. But there too, we found reminders of the Israeli occupation when a group of French visitors came late because 5 members of their group were arrested by Israeli soldiers in the city of Hebron while protesting the illegal Israeli settlers who took over Palestinian homes.

When I came home and watched the news, the Christmas round-up in Palestine included Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, closure of all Gaza crossings, eviction orders for a Palestinian family, and two homes demolished in Jerusalem. Christmas in Palestine is like any other day decorated with lights.

Drought in Dheisheh

2010-12-04T13:35:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning, my sister-in-law jubilantly walked into the kitchen announcing “I think I'll do laundry today! No, I'll wash the floors today and do laundry tomorrow.” I've been staying with my in-laws in Dheisheh Refugee Camp and it was the first day that they had running water in more than two weeks. She wasn't the only one with a cleaning plan. Later in the day I picked up my niece at a neighbor's house and found the neighbor busily scrubbing the floors of her own home while her teenage daughter watched my niece. Since late spring, the residents of the camp have gone without water for days and weeks at a time. Everyone was working fast so as not the waste the opportunity.

Meanwhile, the hum of motors filled the camp. Electric pumps were filling the water tanks on the roof of every home. They will probably only have running water for a few days so the tanks are a way to store up some water for cooking, bathing, and cleaning while they wait for the water to come again.

Palestinian cities and villages get water more regularly than the refugee camps, but they are all working with what's leftover after Israel confiscates more than 80% of the water in the West Bank for use inside Israel and in illegal Israeli settlements.

I live in an apartment building not far from my in-laws (I can actually see their roof from our kitchen window). Though we live in a city, we also haven't had running water in weeks and our water bill has skyrocketed since last spring when the building’s well ran dry. The building manager has been forced to buy Palestinian water back from Israeli companies so he can fill up the water tanks for each apartment.

The lack of water isn't just a challenge for personal use. The prices of fruits and vegetables are exorbitant this year as a result of the drought and Israeli policies. Many Palestinian farmers in the West Bank have less produce to sell because there is no rain and it's both difficult and expensive to access other water sources. This is compounded by Israel's ban on produce from Gaza entering the West Bank. Ordinary Palestinians have no other choice to but to purchase the more expensive Israeli produce.

It's December and we should be experiencing cold and rain but it's 74 degrees and sunny today. There's only been one day of rain so far this fall. I remember it well – I think everyone does. If there isn't a long rainy season this winter that spells hardship now but bodes even worse for next summer when heat and dust are overwhelming and people need water to survive. Of course, the Israelis living in illegal settlements all around us (I can also see a settlement from my kitchen window) are surely not feeling the effects of this unnatural season. Their government makes sure that there is Palestinian water running in their homes built on Palestinian land while the rightful owners of the land live beside them in separate and unequal conditions.

Meanwhile, washers are running, women are scrubbing, and pumps are humming as long as the water is flowing. Without water, without rights, and without freedom Palestinians continue, as they have for decades, to try to make every day life as normal as possible in the most abnormal conditions.

Gaza in 5 Hours

2010-11-21T13:38:00.000+02:00

By Dr. Mona El-Farra

Merla and David from Medical Teams International were two of the few foreigners who have been allowed to visit us here in Gaza. After they stayed 5 days in the West Bank, they arrived at the Erez checkpoint, by the city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza. This northern border crossing is one one of the two ways to enter into Gaza, the other is the Rafah crossing where it has become almost impossible for foreigners to enter. There are few exceptions and they include very special considerations (and luck) and are time consuming, uncertain and a hassle.

I started my 5 hours journey into Gaza with Merla and David, my special guests. Any guests who enter Gaza are special- they open a new window forged of love and solidarity, and it sends a clear message that we are not alone and forgotten.

Our first stop was the Al Assria Medical Center in the Jabalia Refugee Camp. We then visited the Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip. My guests were very impressed by the facility and our success in implementing an MRI machine for Gaza, the first of its kind. I was pleased and proud to hear their comments , it also empowered me to continue working hard to improve and promote our health facilities which serve the most needy patients in Gaza.

Every day is a hard and continuing struggle to meet the different health needs of over 1.5 million people in Gaza, and the demand only increases. The occupation and siege continue to deteriorate an already dire health situation. Everyday hundreds of patients need to be referred for treatment outside of Gaza. This, of course, is impossible because of the borders, siege and a devastating financial situation...most Gazans, women, children and the sick are brought closer to poverty every day.

UNRWA School

In one of the UNRWA schools at the Shatea Refugee camp, my guests could see and feel how happy the students were while drinking clean purified water, recently provided by the Middle East Children’s Alliance ( MECA). MECA implemented 25 water purification units in Gaza schools and kindergartens over the last 2 years, through their Maia project. We were able to see the impact and importance of what it means for these children, trapped by the occupation and indifference, to have access to clean drinking water. The Maia project works to combat that indifference

Dancing with Children at Afaq Jadeeda

In the south of Gaza, the guests danced to Palestinian folk music with children at the Afaq Jadeeda Association. This is part of Let the Children Play and Heal, a project that provides psychological support for children dealing with trauma, also funded by the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

We finished the tour by meeting the Samouni children in the Zaytoun Area, where we met Adie Marmoukh who is an activist from the Manchester Palestine Solidarity Committee and also with the International Solidarity Movement. The scene of Aidie and these children, receiving an English lesson on a pile of rubble was such an intimate and moving moment. The children were happy to have an opportunity to learn.

I do not mean to romanticize the situation in Gaza. It is so unbearable. Especially for all of us who have to live day to day, trying hard to be steadfast and helping to build community and hold it intact.

Gaza, the old city

Just before leaving Gaza we paid a visit to the Greek Orthodox church, named for St Porphyrius, which was built in the 5th century, one of the oldest churches in the world. The Archbishop who received us was so kind and our meeting was very informative. We also visited the Great Omari mosque, which is not far away from the church, and is the oldest and largest mosque in Gaza.

Despite everything, Gaza is is not only defined by war, occupation and siege. It has a history and a civilization that has stood so proud against all the historic and environmental changes, the natural and man made disasters. Against all odds, I love my city, my home.

As David left Gaza, his parting comment was, “You deserve a better life.” Against all odds, a better life will be realized for all of us.

Water in Palestine by Nora Barrows-Friedman

2010-10-15T11:44:00.002+02:00

Thanks to Nora Barrows-Friedman for this special post on water in Palestine! Today is Blog Action Day 2010 and the focus is water. We hope this piece will contribute to awareness, discussions, and solutions to the water crisis around the world. - MECA

“The wind finally came to Palestine,” a friend of mine told me on the phone today, from his home in Battir, a small village near Bethlehem. “Now we can finally breathe.” He said he was relieved that the sweltering Palestinian summer was nearing its end and Autumn was showing its colors in the parched hillsides and in the air. But the water in my friend's home, in his village and across occupied Palestine is still slow to trickle, as it has been for months.

As Jewish Israelis enjoy trips to the beach, neighborhood swimming pools, unfettered access to clean drinking water, state-of-the-art sewage treatment infrastructure, and endless amounts of running water in their homes, Palestinians in communities separated by boundaries, walls, and checkpoints brace and prepare each time the weather heats up and the antiquated wells dry up. For weeks on end – especially in the refugee camps inside the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip – there simply is no water coming from the tap, and people are forced to purchase bottled water just to meet their daily needs.

For Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and in Palestinian-Bedouin communities inside Israel itself, water has historically been a precious commodity especially in the summer months – which can stretch, like this years', for over five months – because of the ongoing resource theft of groundwater tables by the Israeli state and the economic blockade the government continues against the people in Gaza.

According to current statistics by Amnesty International, Israel takes 80% of the water in the Mountain aquifers in the north (one of many water sources available to Israel, including the state's full access to the Jordan River, which runs inside the occupied West Bank); while Palestinians in the West Bank are left with just the remaining 20% of that one aquifer, and are prohibited from accessing water from the Jordan river altogether.

However, in Gaza, 95% of the groundwater is extremely polluted and deemed unfit for human consumption, according to new reports from Israeli human rights organization B'tselem (http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20100823_Gaza_water_crisis.asp). The water crisis has entered into a troubling phase as Israel maintains its suffocating blockade against the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped inside the strip. This blockade, which has been in place as collective punishment following the Hamas party's political takeover in 2007, prevents entry to hundreds of items – including essential industrial materials needed to repair the water infrastructure.

The Electronic Intifada reported on B'tselem's findings back in September (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11517.shtml):

“Citing reports from the United Nations' Environment Program, the Palestinian Water Authority, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility and international aid organizations, B'Tselem's report says that children are being especially affected by the water crisis in Gaza. The report references the over-pumping of groundwater, combined with poor wastewater management systems and the toxification of ground soil from waste disposal sites -- where asbestos, medical waste, oils and fuels were dumped after Israel's three-week attacks in 2008-09. As a result, according to B'Tselem, chemicals such as chlorides and nitrates are contributing to excessive diseases and internal injuries, especially in Gaza's children.

Israeli air strikes during the winter attacks also damaged wastewater treatment plants in Gaza, and damaged thirty kilometers of water networks, eleven wells and six thousand residential water tanks. Reports estimate that the damage to the water infrastructure amounted to approximately $6 million.

"According to international aid organizations, twenty percent of Gazan families have at least one child under age five who suffers from diarrhea as a result of polluted water," B'Tselem reports. "A UN study published in 2009 estimates that diarrhea is the cause of 12 percent of children's deaths in Gaza. The lack of potable drinking water is liable to cause malnutrition in children and affect their physical and cognitive development."

Moreover, the blockade and the bombings have affected the sewage infrastructure as well. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza City released a shocking report in August on the toxification of the sea itself because of the deterioration of Gaza's wastewater treatment plants.

“Gaza's current wastewater treatment facilities were constructed with an operational capacity of 32,000 cubic meters of waste a day,” states the report (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11455.shtml).

“With a growth rate that is one of the world's highest -- an estimated 3.6 percent annually -- Gaza's surging population has overwhelmed the capacity of the waste treatment facilities, and Monther [Shoblak, director general of the Coastal Municipality Water Utility] estimates that the facilities are now receiving at least 65,000 cubic meters of waste daily. Unable to handle more than half of its intake, much of the sewage is directly transported to the sea, where it is dumped completely untreated. Much of this sewage washes back onto Gaza's shores, polluting the beaches and creating toxic swimming conditions for the countless children and adults seeking escape from the intense summer heat,” the report continued.

Facts like these are staggering, and nothing new to Palestinians who have experienced decades of humanitarian crisis. So, what do we do about this deliberate water emergency unfolding across Palestine, especially inside the Gaza strip, and especially affecting the most vulnerable population, the children?

Berkeley, California-based Middle East Children's Alliance has taken direct action against the water crisis in Gaza, launching the Maia project to provide Palestinian children with clean, safe drinking water. Maia is Arabic for water.

According to their website, http://www.mecaforpeace.org/project/maia-project, the project began “when the Student Parliament at the UN Boys’ School in Bureij Refugee Camp, Gaza were given the opportunity to choose one thing they most wanted for their school: They chose to have clean drinking water. MECA’s partner in Gaza heard about this vote and, after meeting with representatives from the school and the Student Parliament, came to MECA to see if we could respond to the children’s request for drinking water. MECA provided the funds to build a water purification and desalination unit for the school in 2007.”

MECA's interest in simply providing something we here in this country, and in most industrialized places across the world, take for granted – clean, safe, drinking water – is intrinsically aligned with their 22-year old philosophy that Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese children deserve a better and healthier future than the one they've acquired under so many years of occupations and wars.

This philosophy includes the radical notion that there are already incredible people on the ground who are already working hard to better their communities, and international donor support should compliment and sustain that locally-based work. MECA says they are working in partnership with various community organizations “to build water purification and desalination units in schools throughout the Gaza strip...We have provided clean water to twelve large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to ten kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages,” they say.

MECA is appealing for generous donations to combat the aggressive and unraveling humanitarian crisis in Gaza by building water purification systems in Palestinian childrens' schools.

“A large purification unit for a UN school in a refugee camp costs $11,300. The UN schools run in shifts due to overcrowding and each unit provides drinking water for 1,500-2,000 children and staff. A small purification unit for a preschool or kindergarten costs $4,000 and serves 150-450 children. Many of the small units are located in community centers with after-school programs and summer camps so the units serve these children as well. Many organizations, individuals, and schools around the US are raising the whole cost of a unit in their communities,” MECA says.

There's always so much despair when I talk or think or write about Palestine – but through this project, and with the work that MECA's staff in California and in Palestine have been doing for so many years, I know it's possible to make an extraordinary difference in children's lives.

Keeping Hope Alive in Gaza

2010-10-07T00:40:00.001+02:00

By Dr. Mona El-Farra

Children are everywhere here in Gaza. They make up more than 60% of the entire population because the average family size is 7.2 people. Crowded towns, refugee camps and cities cram over 1.5 million people into these 360 square kilometers, making Gaza one of the densely populated areas of the world.

Between the Israeli occupation, the siege of Gaza, and the internal Palestinian divisions, children in Gaza have been, and continue to be deprived of many of their basic rights. The right to play, to live in suitable homes, to live in a safe and healthy atmosphere, and to have access to food and clean water.

In short, children in Gaza are not living in safety. They are not living with the rights we are supposed to provide them.

In Gaza we know that our situation will not improve overnight so we look to our children as the future. All efforts to support our children are extremely needed and appreciated by the community. The accumulative work of everyone who cares in the local and international communities will affect the future of the hundreds of thousands of kids who experience poverty and the threat of military attacks on a daily basis . This creates an immediate need to make life easier and tolerable through entertaining activities and relief services. I don't expect we can make quick, dramatic changes given the complexity and deterioration of the situation in Gaza. But certainly I believe the effects of these efforts will prove to be important in the future, particularly in the lives of these children and their families.

In such complicated circumstances with endless needs for children, the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) is working hard to make life tolerable for children in Palestine. In my day-to-day life, I can see the effects of MECA's work. When I was at one of the UN schools where we implemented a water purification system, one of 15 systems we supplied so far this year, I was touched to hear the different stories and positive comments from the families, the teaching staff, and the children. We all know the importance of good clean water but many people take drinking clean water for granted. This is not the case for people who are deprived of it in Palestine, India, or countless other locations around the world. In the Gaza Strip, more than 90% of our water is not suitable for drinking.

The university scholarships project targets students and whose families would not be able to educate their children without MECA's support. I see the huge impact of the psychosocial program “Let the Children Play and Heal” that has already reached more than 110,000 children throughout all of Gaza, plus providing vital trainings to hundreds of mothers that empower them to take action to help their own families and communities. I went several times to the Zaytoun neighborhood this summer to observe “Learning on the Rubble,” a project that provided intensive educational and psychosocial support to children in a particularly impoverished and traumatized area of Gaza. None of these children can be completely healed while the occupation and siege continue but I believe our work meets the children's most urgent needs and contributes to their chances for a good future.

I feel privileged to see the successes of MECA projects and partnerships on the ground. I feel proud to be part of the team of MECA. I tell the children of Palestine more and more about MECA's work and about the committed people abroad who work hard to help the Palestinian people. I try to educate the entire community about the genuine great work in support of the Palestinian people's rights and the continuous work to expose the colonial racist nature of the Israeli occupation that is happening around the world. I understand that our freedom is not an easy task to be achieved but to be sure there are growing solidarity efforts to achieve peace and justice and MECA is an important part of them. MECA's work and the work of all the friends and solidarity activists around the world make me feel not alone and not forgotten and I convey this message everywhere in Gaza where my people live one day after another working hard to endure the most difficult situation.

Biddun Maia, Fish Heyya (Without Water, There is no Life)

2010-10-05T15:00:00.001+02:00

by Ziad Abbas

Since I started working at Middle East Children's Alliance, the MAIA Project to bring clean water to the children of Palestine has become closest to my heart. All of our projects are important for people in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, but the MAIA Project is connected to my history and my family. It takes me back to the days when I struggled with my family to bring clean water to our house so we could drink, cook and, sometimes, have a shower. My mother, sisters and I would carry gallons of water in heavy containers on our heads. Providing this essential for our family made my mother physically strong, her arms and shoulders shaped by her efforts, but her health suffered greatly. Much work and time is required to achieve the basic necessity of clean water. I still remember the weight of the water and the great responsibility on our necks and backs everyday.

Israel controls and uses 89% of the water resources in the West Bank, leaving 11% for the 2.5 million Palestinians. The Israeli Occupation continues to limit Palestinian access to clean water as form of collective punishment by controlling the water resources and distribution and by destroying the water that we are able to get. During Israeli military incursions, and especially during curfews, when we could not leave our homes, Israeli soldiers would shoot the water storage tanks on our roofs. Our water would pour down the sides of our buildings unused. During the recent attack on Gaza, Israel targeted the entire water infrastructure including the largest water purification system in Gaza. They also targeted electrical generators that supported water purification and sewage treatment. This kind of collective punishment is also used against Palestinians inside Israel. Palestinian villages “unrecognized” by the Israeli state are not connected to the national water grid that serves all Jewish communities, and the residents suffer from a lack of clean water.

In 1994 and 2001 I visited Black townships in South Africa. When the inhabitants in the townships explained their daily lives, they focused on the scarcity and difficulty in obtaining clean water. Water, they said, was only for the white people of South Africa. I immediately understood and thought that we could substitute Palestinian refugee camps for the South African townships. It is the same system of oppression. During apartheid access to public spaces, especially public beaches, was restricted according to race. The beautifully maintained beaches were accessible only for the white people. This is the same situation found in Palestine now. Israel severely restricts our access to the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and Lake Tiberias. Palestinians are forced to apply for permits from the Israelis to access these sites, even for a simple visit. Even when limited access is allowed, such as in Gaza, the coastline is often flooded with untreated sewage as a result of damage done by Israeli bombardments.

As I was writing this article, I spoke with Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA’s Project Director in Gaza. We were discussing the current water situation and she was saying that the tap water in her apartment was unusable. She said “Ziad, the water here is polluted and undrinkable, more than that it is unusable for cleaning. Some people have started to lose their hair from showering with this water. The new business in Gaza is selling clean water from tanks around the city. Of course it is expensive and since few people are employed they cannot buy the water. People here are constantly sick from the lack of clean water.” She added that as a doctor she is seeing an increase in kidney disease, dysentery and other serious medical conditions related to polluted water. If people are lucky enough to survive the Israeli air strikes and sniper fire they go on to face the threat of dirty, dangerous water.

Images from Gaza show water tanks driven around the cities, people waiting in lines for water, and children carrying empty water containers searching for water to fill them. Children in Gaza are missing their childhood. They are defined as children by their age but they live as survivors, not as children. They are taking responsibility to protect themselves and their families. When I was a child in a refugee camp in the West Bank, our struggle to obtain basic necessities to survive was the same. Thirty-five years later, Palestinian children are still forced to grow up too soon.

The Middle East Children’s Alliance is working to support the rights of children, particularly the right of Palestinian children to survive and flourish. In the last two years, MECA’s Maia Project has succeeded in building 22 water purification systems in primary schools and kindergartens giving nearly 25,000 children access to clean water. As a result, thousands of mothers will feel less frightened that their children might be harmed by polluted water. Dr. El-Farra has witnessed the precious moments of accomplishment and pride when a new unit is installed.

MECA’s Maia Project seeks to expand to all the schools in Gaza so more children can realize their right to clean water. In South Africa apartheid has ended, but water injustice is still something the inhabitants of the Black townships and other marginalized communities struggle against on a daily basis. In Palestine, we are still struggling against the Israeli apartheid system that deprives us of our basic human rights, including the right to one of the most important things in life: Water.

Thank you for standing with us on our path to freedom - A letter in support of ILWU Local 10 from Gaza

2010-07-25T13:39:00.000+03:00

Dear ILWU Local 10 members,

I am writing to you from the Gaza Strip to thank you for your union action in refusing to unload an Israeli ship and to tell you a little bit about our life here. Like everyone in Gaza, I have lived through the 3-year siege and decades of Israeli military attacks. That is why your solidarity touches me.

I want to tell you one Palestinian child's story. On 9 June 2006, 12-year-old Huda Ghaliya went for a picnic with her mother, father, brothers and sisters. After arriving on Gaza's beach, Huda repeatedly shouted, heartbreakingly, “Daddy, Daddy, ” while searching for the rest of her family after Israeli forces shelled the beach in northern Gaza. The entire family was wiped out, and dozens more were injured. The casualties of the attack, including Huda, were brought to Al Awda Hospital where I was working. Some of my colleagues, including seasoned emergency healthworkers, could not bear to go to the child’s room. Huda kept insisting that “mum and dad did not pass away, they are in another hospital.” When a TV crew arrived, the cameraman collapsed at the scene. I burst into tears.

What happened to that child will follow her for the rest of her life. She saw her entire family killed on a lovely sunny morning that was meant to be the start of a joyful day. 9 June 2006 was not the first or the last time that Palestinian children, living under Israeli occupation and the siege of Gaza, lost family members.

The latest assault against Gaza in December 2008-January 2009, was a preplanned, systematic, and massively destructive attack on the people of Gaza. Israel should be held responsible for war crimes and the UN report by Judge Goldstone proved that these were crimes against humanity.

The recent events on-board the Freedom Flotilla was another act of terrorism and further proof that Israel does not abide by international law. Even though this act recalled previous war crimes against the Palestinian population in Gaza, people were shocked and in disbelief that Israel could commit this aggression against civilians in international waters. It showed again that Israel is above the law as long as the people of the world stay silent.

This makes the genuine act of the Oakland dock workers who refused to handle the "Zim Shenzhen" ship so important for us in Gaza. We, who live under the siege and continuous hardships, were so impressed by this act of solidarity, as well as the many other brave acts over the years to support our struggle to reach our inalienable rights. While the majority of the world is silent, we appreciate your action which gives us hope because we know that we are not alone and forgotten. One day the people who act against all types of injustice will ring the bell, and injustice will come to an end. Alone we cannot reach our goal, but with your solidarity, we will.

Your act of solidarity gives us tremendous hope. Together we defeated South Africa’s apartheid regime and together we can defeat the Israeli apartheid and occupation.

At the moment, we at Middle East Children's Alliance are running a supportive and educational project for the children of the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. We named our project LEARNING ON THE RUBBLE because 18 months after Israel's brutal attack against Gaza, they do not allow essential building materials to enter Gaza. Israel allows ketchup and fizzy drinks into Gaza, and then tells the world that there is no siege!!!! Meanwhile they deny us many essential materials, including medications like chemotherapy for cancer patients, and spare parts for medical equipment, as well as a suitable amounts of dairy products. The list is too long to mention. Unemployment has reached 60%, and 80% of the population is living on international aid.

When I visited the site of LEARNING ON THE RUBBLE, I could see the shadow of trauma on the kids’ faces, as well as the physical scars on their bodies, either caused by the Israeli soldiers' aggression or by being trapped under the rubble when Israeli bulldozers demolished their homes. The ones that survived became homeless in a matter of minutes.

Some of these children were trapped next to the dead body of a family member. I met one woman who lost her husband and son. Tearfully, she told me that her son, aged 13, slowly and agonizingly bled to death in her lap over 12 hours. Had ambulances and medical teams been able to reach them, her son would not have died. But the Israeli army did not allow health workers to enter the area to evacuate the injured for days. When teams from the International Red Cross were first allowed into the area, they were shocked and horrified by the sights of children and women trapped under the rubble, injured, hungry, cold, and terrified.

Israel’s violations of health human rights has become routine, it is the norm now instead of a terrible exception. In the last assault against Gaza, more than a dozen health workers were killed while on duty. I have witnessed dozens of incidents similar to the ones I've written about today. Israel has no respect for human rights, including health human rights, even though the Fourth Geneva convention guarantees those of us living in Gaza, or anywhere in the world, these fundamental rights.

Gaza’s population suffers many additional hardships. Electricity is frequently off, making it harder to write to you. Water is not suitable for drinking and is completely unavailable in some areas. This has a great impact on people’s health, as does the inadequate sewage system for such a densely populated area. We have endured decades of occupation and we need our freedom so we can begin the long process of rebuilding our society. Only freedom will repair the physical and psychological damage that has been done.

On this small piece of land where we all feel alone, isolated, and forgotten because of the Israeli siege, we were so impressed and empowered to learn about the courageous act of the Oakland dock workers who refused to load or unload the "Zim Shenzhen". This act is an effective tool against Israel to pressure them to lift the siege and end the occupation.

With this act, your union proclaimed its membership in the international family and refused to accept state aggression and injustice inflicted on other people. Though the distance and the Israeli siege keep us physically apart, we thank you for standing with us on our path to freedom.

Now is the time for all of us to stand together and say “enough!” to Israel’s brutal acts against humanity.

With love and solidarity,

Dr. Mona El-Farra

Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physician by training and a human rights and women's rights activist by practice in the occupied Gaza Strip. She was born in Khan Younis, Gaza and has dedicated herself to developing community based programs that aim to improve health quality and link health services with cultural and recreation services all over the Gaza Strip. Dr. El-Farra is the Director of Gaza Projects for the Middle East Children's Alliance, the Health Chair of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip, and a member of the Union of Health Work Committees. Dr. El-Farra has a son and two daughters.

Gaza Mourns Again

2010-05-31T20:40:00.000+03:00

Dear friends and supporters,

With great sadness I am watching the news of what is happening on board the flotilla. The cruel and harsh act by the Israeli occupation army does not surprise us, it is another episode of the occupation practice against the Palestinian people and its struggle for freedom, it is an act of terrorism against all the international humanitarian forces that work for peace and justice .

Despite the horrific losses, we will take inspiration from the blood that has been shed in the Mediterranean sea this morning, with the strong belief in the justice of our cause, and the clear cruelty and racism of the Israeli aggressor.

Gaza today is a sad city, all its children, women and men are traumatized while we are under the siege and the occupation, but amidst the daily details of life’s difficulties under occupation we promise you that together with your solidarity we will continue our steadfastness, struggle and work for peace and justice

From Gaza with love

Mona Elfarra

Shining Lights from out of the Darkness

2010-05-18T20:34:00.000+03:00

Mohammed F. Al Majdalawi, MECA volunteer and Assistant Coordinator of ‘Lets Learn English’ in rural Gaza, describes the importance of reaching out not only to Palestinian kids in rural areas, but their mothers too.

"Why not us? Why can’t we speak English? What’s the problem?" my children ask me all the time.

This mother has three daughters and two sons. “When they ask me to teach them English and I cannot give it to them, they ask me why.” she exclaims. “I explain to them that it is because I spent my whole life under occupation but this does not explain things any further to them, they still ask me ‘Why?’ and I am ashamed that I have no answer for them.” For a myriad of reasons she had dropped out of her prep school aged 13. Her family hadn’t been able to support her studies, the transport restrictions with Israeli checkpoints, the curfews, the extra demands to help her family and community in these difficult times, not to mention the pressures around starting her own family. Now she is determined that her children can have the opportunities of which she was deprived.

“So I come here to learn English and I hope that this will be the last time that we live like this, forever."

So our project is intent on teaching English to women and their children with Ajyal Association, called ‘Lets Learn English’ focusing on rural areas. During my work as both an assistant coordinator for English language teaching and as a documentary film director, I saw the hopes in the faces of many women and their children who want to speak and learn English. In this project we aim to teach children and their mothers, exploring creative ways such as songs, videos and participation in group and partner activities. We work with volunteers like social workers and English students in universities, using simple materials like my laptop, even recording songs mixed in Arabic and English.

For example, the song ‘baba means father, and mama means mother’. This is part of the lyrics of a song about names of family members and the kind of tool used for children and their mothers to use and remember them. Our group of trainers work together to design these classes, such as the personal information in English segment. Again we didn’t have the entire material available, but that didn’t stop us from creating our own materials from simple equipment

It is a delight when we saw mothers challenging each other, one asking the other in arabic, “If you’re so good at speaking English, can you translate ‘I’m drinking tea’?”, to which the woman replied, yes, “I am drunking tea”

It was one of many funny incidents as the women show no fear in their attempts to speak English. Another woman said not only was she continuing the teaching of English at home to her children, she had even begun to teach her husband too.

Sarah, a coach in the ‘Let's Learn English’ projects spoke about how the teaching methods were sinking in:

“When we had a revision class on days and months, colors, body, and time, I wrote on the board the letters of the alphabet and told the women to write a word for every letter. Many women specifically remembered the words taught in the class.

The Children in the Project

Another coach Shahd, describes his experience with the children from the ‘Let's Learn English’ project:

“Amani Abdelal is a very cute girl. She was waiting for me in front of the Ajyal Association, the Creativity and Development building. When she saw me coming, she ran to me to give me this card with a very pure smile. I was surprised by her kindness and very impressed by the simple way she had designed my name. I thanked her and asked her why she had made this beautiful card for me. She answered me saying that she loves me and loves learning English in this project. They were very simple words full of innocence. However, she affected me very much and she let me feel the taste of success.”

As a Palestinian in Gaza under a siege, a military occupation and still reconstructing our lives after the bombings in early 2009, I believe we must do what we can on the ground to bring a smile to people, giving them the benefits of the English language in a creative way. I also appeal to the international community and people who love peace and freedom to break the silence, take moral and legal action towards the people of Gaza, demanding the provision of basic needs, the minimum of international protection and work to support the rights of Palestinian people which for so long have been deprived, especially for children. Our children are our future, so we must work together so that we can make this future better than the present. The Universal declaration of Human Rights states that all children should have the right to education, and Palestinian children are as deserving as any others.

New Israeli Military Order = Pass Laws and Ethnic Cleansing

2010-04-29T20:33:00.001+03:00

by Middle East Children's Alliance Associate Director Ziad Abbas

Last week, Israel began implementing new military orders designed to reduce the number of Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Claiming to “prevent infiltration” into the West Bank, Military Order 1650 legally categorizes tens of thousands of Palestinians as criminals simply for living in their homeland. The order affects all Palestinians and their children who have been denied residency status since 1967, any Palestinians from Gaza living or staying in the West Bank, and any foreign nationals living or visiting the area. People who fall under these categories can now be deported, fined 7,500 NIS, or jailed for up to 7 years for living in the West Bank without a special permit issued by the Israeli state. In addition, according to Military Order 1649, judgment of deportation orders resides with committees appointed by local military commanders, effectively making appeals impossible. Unless we stop it, the effect will likely be as devastating as it is intended. Order 1650 divides Palestinians from each other, permanently separating those living in the West Bank from those in Gaza. It also makes the hundreds of internationals who are monitoring the human rights situation illegal and subject to prison terms and deportation. It makes it difficult if not impossible for the new generation born outside of Palestine to return to visit family and their homeland. Most of all, it makes the tens of thousands of residents of the West Bank who currently hold expired permits criminals on their own land. The land that was stolen from their forefathers is now being stolen from the next generation through a military order.

This policy is just the latest assault on the Palestinian people; we have been living behind walls, barriers, and fences since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. Israeli occupation policies such as military checkpoints, curfews, Israeli settlements, military orders, jails, borders, and the colors of ID cards have all acted as walls that deprive Palestinians the right to control their own lives and land. For the Palestinians, the new Military Order 1650 is just another measure among many taken by the Israeli occupation to maintain control of the Palestinian people and their land. Unfortunately, many of the walls we as Palestinians live behind are unseen by others around the world whom are unaware of the details of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. At times, however, the Israeli state enacts policies that show its true nature to the rest of the world. For example, the overpowering apartheid wall is a concrete visible fact built in front of the entire world exposing Israel’s apartheid regime. It is a 500,000 mile long fact, constructed out of concrete, that you can see, feel, take a picture near, and draw on, however you cannot easily go through it. This wall exposes to the people of the world the struggles Palestinians have continued to go through since Israel’s establishment in 1948, presenting clear visible evidence of Israel’s apartheid policies which can no longer be ignored. I personally believe that the apartheid wall will eventually fall and become a part of history, a piece of evidence of the Israeli Apartheid system in Palestine. I am sure that apartheid policies such as Military Order 1650 will fall in the same way. Some day, the people of the world will look at this order with the same sense of shock and shame as we now do at the inhuman racist “pass laws” of the former South African Apartheid regime.

Palestinians such as myself have begun to realize and reflect upon the personal ramifications that will result from Military Order 1650. The impacts will negatively affect not just our lives, but the lives of our families. For instance, my brother-in-law, who was born in the Gaza Strip but moved to the West Bank after 1967 when he married my sister, will no doubt be impacted, as well as others who are married to people living in East Jerusalem, Palestine '48 or the West Bank. Additionally, others who have been granted permits from the military occupation to visit or to live with their relatives in the West Bank and have decided to stay longer will be affected. Moreover, certain human rights organizations have estimated that 200,000 Palestinians will be immediately affected by this new military order, and thus will be living in fear of being uprooted, deported, or arrested at any moment. No doubt, the Israeli state is counting on some people to become afraid enough so that they will take initiative and leave voluntarily as a result of the lack of security that this military order has created.

This new military order does not only target Palestinians, but also the international activists who remain in the West Bank in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, in addition to reducing the Palestinian population this order aims to suppress significant international support for the Palestinian cause. We have heard about hundreds of people who have been barred entrance across the borders of Israel and Palestine, including those Palestinians born in the Diaspora. Miltary Order 1650 unlawfully justifies and allows policies such as these continue denying certain individuals entrance into Palestine. One example among many of this denial of entry took place in December 2009 when a young Palestinian born in America named Nadine Al-Shrofa attempted to enter Palestine from the Jordanian border to visit her family. Following five hours of integration, Israeli immigration stamped her passport denying her entrance to the West Bank, despite the fact that her relatives live there as well as in the Gaza Strip. Another friend of mine succeeded to visit Palestine for the first time last year to connect with her family and roots. After withstanding hours of interrogation and threats, she fortunately succeeded in entering and visiting her family. She had planned to return to Palestine this year, however this new military order will unfortunately make this trip an impossibility. After she heard what happened to Nadine, she fears returning and being barred entrance into her homeland. She has come to realize that despite the good relations which exist between Israel and the United States her American passport will no longer offer her privileges to be able to enter into Palestine.

The military order will have its intended effect, an intention that is not difficult to see, and one that many others have written about. Many Zionist leaders continue to believe that the growth of the Palestinian population, including Muslim and Christian Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Israel will continue to threaten the Israeli Jewish majority. Palestinian population growth is perceived by many Zionist leaders as a ticking time bomb that will interfere with their ultimate goal of maintaining a purely Jewish state. Clearly, by enabling the expulsion and detention of large numbers of people in the West Bank, this military order serves the Zionist goal of reducing the Palestinian population in order to create a pure Jewish state. The reality, of course, is that an ethnically “pure” Jewish state is impossible.

Moreover, the Palestinian population is increasing rapidly. This has left the Israeli state to desperately attempt more and more strategies of ethnic cleansing which are increasingly hard to justify under international scrutiny. As we saw in Gaza in 2009, the wellspring of violence seemed bottomless. In fact, several Israeli politicians, including the current Prime Minister Netanyahu, have vowed to take any measures necessary in order to reduce this threat against an all Jewish Israeli state. Historian Pappe describes how, in December 2003, Benjamin Netanyahu brought back to life Ben-Gurion’s ‘alarming’ statistics that proclaimed a need to keep the Palestinian population under 20%. Netanyahu stated that “if the Arabs in Israel form 40 percent of the population, this is the end of the Jewish state.” He added, “but 20 per cent is also a problem … if the relationship with these 20 percent becomes problematic, the state is entitled to employ extreme measures.” (Pappe, 2006, p. 250) Their measures not only include overt violence, but also legislative enactments such as Military Order 1650 that manipulatively attempts to justify Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians while upholding Israel’s democratic mask. After taking the land and forcibly expelling millions of Palestinians in 1948, Israel labels those who return “infiltrators” in their own land. By criminalizing the indigenous population and those who come to support them, Israel justifies the detention and expulsion of entire families as well as those who stand in solidarity with them. Through the manipulative and ambiguous military order, Israel falsely conveys to the world that all they are doing is enforcing a law on people who have violated certain rules set by the state.

This is an old, vicious game. In fact, Military Order 1650 is a part of the ongoing ethnic cleansing policies that have been applied in Palestine since before 1948. Due to similar policies that legislate building permits, residency requirements and land ownership which have been enacted over decades, tens of thousands of Palestinians have lost their right to reside in Jerusalem, causing the Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem to become the majority and the Palestinians to become the minority. While these policies have effectively seized the land, it has been at a large cost in public opinion and has not solved the problem; Palestinians are still in Palestine. Current desperate measures such as the Apartheid Wall and Military Order 1650 indicate that Israel is in a state of urgency to eliminate the demographic threat as quickly as possible. Israel finds it necessary to cause large numbers of Palestinians to leave every day as it desires a mass exodus of the Palestinian population in order to speed up their goal of achieving a strictly Jewish state.

The numbers explain why. As of December 2008, the Israeli population was at 5,542,400 and the Palestinian Arab population within Israel was at 1,476,500. If we add the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip we see that 5,500,000 Palestinians are living in historic Palestine. In addition, the annual growth rate of the Jewish population is at 1.6%, while the Arab population is growing at 2.6%. If these trends continue, in time the Arabs will once again become the majority of historic Palestine. The threat is not just in historic Palestine, but also within Israel’s own borders. By 2030, Palestinians within Israel are projected to be 24% of the population and Jews 72% . This threatens Ben Gurion’s insistence to maintain the Palestinian population below 20%. Despite the fact that the Zionist leadership around world works very hard to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel, the Israelis will nevertheless face the problem that they are unable to demographically catch up with the Palestinian population.

Um Mohamed, one of the well known midwives in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem has delivered thousands of Palestinian children in the camp and surrounding areas. Before and after the first intifada, the Israeli occupation soldiers became aware of her status as the main midwife in the camp. They would aggressively ask her if any “hablanim” (terrorists in Hebrew) were about to be born. She would smile and confidently say “yes, a new Palestinian child is coming.” This would irritate the Israelis. At one point, she mentioned to me that many more children than usual were being born. As she counted nine months back, she realized that the people of the camp were under long curfews at that time and were not allowed to leave their homes. This was why so many more babies than usual were born nine months later. She laughed, as she realized that the Israelis who would get angry at the birth of Palestinians, have actually created an environment where Palestinians have not much else to do but make more babies. The use of curfews as part of the collective punishment of Palestinians aims at making the lives of Palestinians impossible so that they leave, thus, reducing their population. However, according to Um Mohamed’s anecdote, the curfews are actually helping to strengthen the Palestinian demographic as the population is encouraged to increase. It becomes evident that the same policies that oppress the people have become the policies that fuel liberation.

Like the Apartheid pass laws in South Africa, Military Order 1650 will not last. When the people of South Africa were dispossessed of their land, forced into Bantustan homelands and forced to carry passes, the laws were only effective for a time. Many were rounded up and arrested. However, as a result many more rose up in protests that could not be silenced by the bloodshed of military bullets. In the same way, Palestinians will never be defeated by this new military order, nor by future orders that attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Prior to and following “al nakba” (the catastrophe of 1948), Israel has used many different kinds of military orders to ethnically cleanse Palestine in order to achieve the Zionist dream of having a Jewish state. However, what the Israelis may not realize is that the Palestinian cause is actually strengthened by the escalation of military orders. As the escalations on the ground make life more difficult for Palestinians, they at the same time create a stronger sense of desire and hope among Palestinians to make their dream of being free in their homeland a reality. We can expect this next period to be very brutal as Israel attempts these expulsions.

Before the international community realized what the South African pass laws actually meant, students marched against the pass laws in 1960. During the protest, Apartheid officials opened fire killing 69 people in cold blood marking the famous Sharpville massacre. Let us not wait for more deaths before we understand and act against the pass law Israeli military order 1960. Let us hope the international community does not wait for another massacre like the one that took place in Gaza last year before they speak out. Please act now – join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (www.bdsmovement.net) to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Divestment Could Save Lives

2010-04-28T23:58:00.000+03:00

There has been an intense debate at UC Berkley over a student senate bill calling for divestment from two companies. This bill and this vote is about withdrawing financial support from companies that concretely contribute to the deaths of children. It is a very human response to a very terrible reality. General Electric and United Technologies supply engines, propulsion systems, and engineering support for the Israeli military's Apache Helicopters, F-15, and F-16 planes that, without a doubt, kill children.

The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) has been working with communities in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq for 22 years. Our staff and beneficiaries have witnessed the devastating effects of these two companies time and time again. During "Operation Cast Lead" in January 2009, we called Adham, a young man in Gaza, to check on him and his family. He told us, "It is very horrible here. Today was the worst. There were lots of F-16s above us and white phosphorous falling from the sky. I didn't sleep last night. The sound of shelling in the north and east kept us all awake." We spoke to him and other young people who grew up in programs MECA supports daily as they recounted tales of death and destruction for three long weeks. In 2006, we took photos of a building destroyed by an F-16 in the residential neighborhood where our project director lives. This time, no one was killed. But it was the exception, not the rule. 22 Palestinian children were killed in a two week period that summer. How many more will we stand by and watch die?

Some individuals and groups are trying to paint this bill as one-sided or political but when it comes to children's lives, there are no sides. On Wednesday, the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley (ASUC) will have the opportunity to override President Smelko's veto of this bill and we hope the fact that this bill specifically addresses Israeli war crimes will not sidetrack the debate and stand in the way of our individual and collective responsibility to children in the Middle East and beyond.

Whatever happens on Wednesday, we know this bill is just the beginning of an important effort to end brutal attacks on the children we serve in Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon. We thank the students who put this bill forward and the student senators who had the courage to support it despite the campaign of threats and intimidation waged against them.

Maia Project Billboard: From LA to Palestine Clean Drinkable Water is a Human Right

2010-03-02T21:02:00.005+02:00

This Maia Project billboard designed by MECA Art Director and Alliance Graphics co-founder Jos Sances is currently up in Los Angeles. The space for Jos' design was donated to MECA by John Knight and is part of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture's project How Many Billboards? Art in Stead. This large-scale urban exhibition debuts 21 newly commissioned works by leading contemporary artists, presented simultaneously on billboards in Los Angeles in February and March 2010.

Photos: Art Hazelwood

Some videos from the Gaza Freedom March

2010-02-05T19:42:00.002+02:00

Now that we have a faster internet connection we've finally posted a few videos of our time in Cairo with the Gaza Freedom March. They are just small snapshots of some of the demonstrations in Cairo trying to draw attention to the siege of Gaza.

(you may recognize the t-shirts from their action deshelving israeli goods in supermarkets in France check out that video)

My Year in Palestine

2010-02-05T02:14:00.005+02:00

I have often spent weeks, or even months, at a time in Palestine but 2009 was my first year of really living there. People often ask me what my life is like but I can rarely find an adequate response. I think through my last few days and find life can be mundane there. I spend much of my days on a computer and could really be anywhere in the world. But then there are days or moments when something happens that is so absurd and upsetting that it could only be Palestine.

Life in occupied Palestine meant meeting families in Jerusalem who had been thrown out of their homes by Israeli settlers, passing through three military checkpoints just to reach the nearest movie theater, and constantly fearing for the safety of family members and friends. But there is another, equally powerful side of life here, and that is the strength of community that I saw and was welcomed into as I sat around tables of 10, 20 and even 30 people, danced all night at weddings, and laughed constantly and defiantly.

My home is just across the street from Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the Bethlehem District. It is seven miles away from Jerusalem. A few days ago my husband pointed out it’s less than full length of the Bay Bridge, a distance that thousands of people cross daily. But for Palestinians living in the West Bank it is an almost uncrossable divide. Each person needs a permit from Israeli military authorities. If a permit is granted then one needs to pass through a highly militarized checkpoint with hand scans and a series of metal detectors, remote controlled gates, and x-ray machines for purses, shoes, etc. When I lived near the Bethlehem-Jerusalem checkpoint in the beginning of the year I would wake up at 3am to the sound of heavy traffic as Palestinians from all over the southern West Bank lined up to go to work in Jerusalem. I never knew seven miles could be such a long commute.

And for Palestinians in Gaza, Jerusalem might as well be on the other side of the world. I knew many people that needed medical attention and tried for months on end to get the right papers to come to hospitals in Jerusalem. Israel rarely let any of them out of their open air prison.

My US passport lets me circumvent these obstacles and for me going to Jerusalem was just a matter of a 20-minute bus ride. Many times during the year I delivered visa applications and letters from friends and MECA partners who are not allowed to reach this part of Palestine. It was always a sensitive trip because so many people would have loved the opportunity to walk the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem again, to go to dinner at a relative or friend’s home, or to buy fresh bread from a bakery near Damascus Gate. I could deliver papers and bring back this bread but I could not give them these experiences that the Israeli occupation had taken away.

In the summer I had the opportunity to use my privilege to help out with a summer camp for Palestinian refugee children whose families are from 40 different villages. At 7am the children piled into the back of the bus while I sat in the front seat with my blonde hair down and a big smile ready for the Israeli soldiers who had the power to let us pass or to send us back. Months later I don’t know if I have found the words for this moment. I felt at once gross for flaunting my white skin and blonde hair and playing into a deeply racist, colonial mentality and also excited to be able to ease the trip for these children who had never seen their lands.

The five-day camp was full of emotion for me and even more so for the children. Each day we hiked through woods planted by the Jewish National Fund to cover up the remains of some of their villages. We also drove into Israeli towns built on top of more of their villages and found Palestinian houses, mosques, and graveyards tucked in between new townhouses. As we explored their village lands we sometimes found a landmark that a grandparent had told one of the children to look for and other times we did not. Either way it was painful. The children were made to feel unwelcome visitors on their own lands. Together they dreamed and talked through what it would be like one day when they got back what was rightfully theirs.

Throughout the trip I was at once outraged at Israel and also aware of the responsibility I have as a United States citizen for what Israel has done with our tax-funded aid and what the US government does to the indigenous population. I recalled a Bay Area shopping mall near my parents’ home that is built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site. One entrance to the mall is called Ohlone Street. On my trip with the children we went to my husband’s village, Beit Jibreen. The Israeli town built on his village’s land is named Beit Guvrin. The truth is always just below the surface.

My year ended with the Gaza Freedom March. I met Barbara and 1400 other activists from around the world in Cairo. We had moments of extreme frustration at not being able to break the siege of Gaza and also moments of extreme hope as we demonstrated for Palestinian rights and cheered the Cairo Declaration, which laid out a framework for international solidarity with Palestine against Israeli apartheid. For a full year I tried to get from the West Bank to Gaza. I could make local phone calls to our Project Director in Gaza, and to youth and staff at our partner centers, but Israel prevented us from meeting in person throughout the year. Now, Egypt, supporting the siege from the south, was keeping me out again— along with the other international activists, and an unknown number of Palestinians trying to return home.

My year in Palestine was an opportunity to watch, to learn, and sometimes even to contribute. It was a pleasure to see so much of MECA’s work first-hand and to begin developing new and stronger relationships on many levels.

Going home but not giving up

2010-01-04T18:52:00.004+02:00

On Saturday morning Barbara and I went to meet Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA's Director of Gaza Projects. She had been outside of Gaza visiting family and was in Egypt en route to Gaza this week. Dr. Mona ordered a tourist van for us and a few other friends and we set out towards Al-Arish. We planned to stay overnight in Al-Arish and then head to the Rafah border crossing early on Sunday morning. There was no guarantee we'd get in but with invitation letters from partners in Gaza in hand we thought we should at least give it a try.

As we left Cairo behind I began to daydream of clean air and meetings with friends and partners in Gaza who I haven't seen in nearly two years. But the daydream didn't last long. Long before the first official checkpoint Egyptian police stopped our car, took our passports, and returned us back to Cairo. Dr. Mona who had solicited help from the Palestinian ambassador in Egypt to get back to her home in Gaza was also turned back. Her anxiety about finding a way back home increased.

That night the three of us met to review and discuss MECA's work in Gaza. We talked about evaluation plans for "Let the Children Play and Heal" since the pilot phase will end in January. We made lists of the photos and information we need about the schools and kindergartens we will partner with in the Maia Project. And since the siege continues and it is becoming more and more difficult for international activists and friends to reach Gaza and witness the situation firsthand we brainstormed ideas for bringing stories to you wherever you are.

We set plans for filming interviews with several of the 58 university students in Gaza receiving scholarships through MECA this year, with children and youth at our partner centers, and with children and teachers at the schools where MECA and Afaq Jadeeda have worked together to provide clean water. We will use this footage to give you all a glimpse of daily life in Gaza and to share some of the small successes of MECA's work with community organizations and schools in Gaza.

Then on Sunday morning Dr. Mona set out again (alone this time) to attempt the trip to the Rafah crossing and on to Gaza. Ten checkpoints and seven hours later she finally reached the crossing. And several hours later we received the great news that she had managed to reach her home in Gaza City. We were all relieved.

After the news of the many checkpoints along the road to the border, Barbara and I decided not to attempt the trip again. Though many other activists have stayed on in Cairo in hopes of entering Gaza we felt that the Egyptian government had made its position clear: those of us who came with the Gaza Freedom March would not be allowed to even reach the border with Gaza.

It's been difficult for us to follow the mainstream and alternative news while in Cairo but we hope the GFM has succeeded in putting Gaza back on the front page around the world. And we are excited to see where the new steering committee of five committed solidarity activists will lead us with the Cairo Declaration, which sets ambitious goals and strategies for our movement moving forward, as our guide.

Barbara has gone on to the West Bank to meet with friends and partners there while I am in Jordan catching up on emails and computer work. We both head to the US later this week.

Check out photos from today's demonstration

2010-01-01T17:37:00.003+02:00

We went to the Israeli Embassy in Cairo today to demonstrate. It was great to be talking about the heart of the issue (Israel and it's occupation and other crimes) rather than just demonstrating in the streets of Cairo.

Some of our photos are posted and a video courtesy of Sam Husseini.

(We still can't post any videos because of slow internet but will when possible)

Off to a closing meeting with Gaza Freedom March participants and will write more later.

Barbara and Josie

Demo for Gaza and Palestine

2009-12-31T18:58:00.002+02:00

Thanks to Ellen Davidson for the photo!
Josie and Barbara from MECA holding signs outside our hotel in Cairo where we protested against Israeli and US actions in Gaza and all of Palestine.
Arabic sign reads "The Wall Must End"

Gaza Anniversary Demonstration in Cairo

2009-12-31T16:01:00.002+02:00

It's December 31, the date of the Gaza Freedom March and its accompanying solidarity actions around the world. We are not in Gaza today as hoped but here in Cairo we are remembering the people of Gaza who endured three weeks of brutal Israeli attacks last year as well as the people of all of Palestine who endured 61 years and counting of colonization and occupation.

Barbara and I woke up this morning to the news that our hotel entrance was barricaded off by Egyptian police. Many people staying in our hotel had gotten out early to begin preparations for a large march towards Gaza starting out from central Cairo. Around 20 of us still stuck in the hotel organized a small solidarity protest on the sidewalk of our hotel. Our small group was tired of the focus on us rather than on the people of Palestine. One woman managed to get out of the hotel posing as an ordinary tourist and bought us poster boarders and large markers to make new signs with different messaging. We wanted to bring the focus back around to the roll of Israel and the US, not the Egyptian government and police who are just pawns.

Our new signs saying "Stop Israeli Aggression", "End US Support for Israel", "Israel + US: Let Us Go to Gaza!" "Arrest Netanyahu", "The Wall Must End" and "Down with Israeli Aggression & Apartheid" in English and Arabic were well received by passersby. We chanted things like "No, no Israel! Free, free Palestine!", "Israel, Open the Borders!", and "Free Gaza" in English in Arabic. (View photos)

It was an inspiration to be with such a committed group of solidarity activists from around the world.

Why the Egyptian Deal is Bad for All from Barghouti and Eid

2009-12-30T22:33:00.002+02:00

Dear Gaza Freedom March organizers and participants,

After a lot of hesitation and deliberation, we are writing to call on you to reject the "deal" reached with the Egyptian leadership (through Mrs. Mubarak). This deal is bad for us and, we deeply feel, terrible for the solidarity movement.

We initially felt that if representatives of all forty some countries can go to Gaza and lead a symbolic march along Palestinians it would convey the message to the world public opinion, our main target. However, after listening to the Egyptian Foreign Minister's press conference last night on Aljazeera and the way he described the deal in details, we are unambiguous in perceiving this compromise as too heavy, too divisive and too destructive to our future work and networking with various solidarity movements around the world.

Mr. Abu Al-Gheit described the 100 that they graciously accepted to allow to enter Gaza as those from organizations which Egypt considers "good and sincere in standing in solidarity with Gaza the same way as we [the regime] do." He described the rest as "from organizations that are only interested in subversion and acting against Egyptian interests, to sow havoc on the streets of Egypt, not to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians." He also said that the Egyptian public was wise enough to see that those were hooligans and stayed away from them. Other than the obvious divisiveness that agreeing to this deal would cause, what's wrong with this picture:

1) The Egyptian regime in this press conference painted a picture of the great majority of the internationals participating in the GFM as hooligans and agents provocateurs, not real solidarity groups. This is a grave insult to all of us, to all our partners and to the entire GFM, as it depicts us all as partnering with "fanatic," "destructive" forces, not forces for ending the siege and for the rule of law;

2) The Egyptian leadership will use our agreement on this to say that their position and "way of solidarity with Gaza" was right all along, and those that saw the light and agreed with this wise way were allowed in.

3) Arab and international public pressure on the Egyptian government are rising dramatically due to the actions that you all have engages in and the excellent media messages that you have sent. The Egyptian government wants to use this deal to release pressure and re-paint itself as concerned about Palestinians in Gaza. This is all to deflect attention from the Steel Wall they are building and the fresh calls for taking the government to task over its complicity in the Israeli criminal siege.

Our longer term interests as Palestinians is not to allow the regime to get off the hook this easily. Either they allow all 1400 participants into Gaza (if they are "hooligans" best to get rid of them in Egypt and "ship" them to Gaza, right?) or we strongly urge you to reject the deal out of hand as too little, too late and too ill-conceived.

We cannot possibly decide on this matter, as ultimately this is up to ALL of you. If a CLEAR majority among you feel that you want to go through with the deal, we shall always welcome you in Gaza and deeply appreciate your solidarity. But we feel your solidarity without coming to Gaza, exposing the Egyptian siege against you and us, may bear more fruit for us and towards ending the siege, at least from the Egyptian side.

We salute you all and thank you from our hearts for the indescribable work you have all done for Gaza!

Respectfully,

Haidar Eid, Gaza

Omar Barghouti, Jerusalem

Day 3: Netanyahu's Visit

2009-12-29T21:17:00.004+02:00

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, was also in Egypt today. In his three hour meeting with Mubarak, Netanyahu claimed that he is interested in restarting the "peace" negotiations with Palestinians. But it is clear from his actions--and the actions of the entire Israeli government--that their idea of peace is very different than ours. We can't be duped into supporting a peace that doesn't respect Palestinians' rights.

We just came back from a locally organized protest against Netanyahu's visit. Hundreds of international and Egyptian activists gathered with signs calling for Israel to end the brutal siege of Gaza and for Egypt to stop cooperating with Israeli policy. The crowd had great energy and were carrying inspiring signs in Arabic, English, French and Greek. (View photos of signs and protesters)

This morning we joined 33 other US participants in the march on an attempted visit to our embassy. Though Egypt is the one who technically controls the Rafah border we know that our government has the a lot of sway since Egypt is the second largest recipient of US foreign aid. Our French friends who are camped outside their embassy on the other side of Cairo were also told by one of the embassy representatives that Israel is the one that told Israel to pull the permit for our entry into Gaza. Egypt is just a puppet in this theater show.

We set out at 9:30am and walked over to the neighborhood where the US Embassy is located. Immediately Egyptian police, at the behest of our Embassy, began herding us into a small area and a line of police prevented us from continuing our walk to the embassy. Two protesters broke through the line of police and refused to move. Eventually they negotiated for three representatives from the group to go in and met with a political secretary who we understand is third in line at the Embassy. They made demands for the Embassy and US State Department to facilitate our entry into Gaza since we are going at the request of local Gazan organizations to participate in a nonviolent demonstration. This march is exactly the kind of initiative Obama claimed to want to see in his Cairo speech last June. (View photos of us outside the embassy)

We are still trying everything to get entry into Gaza and have just heard that 100 people will be allowed in for 24 hours. Everyone is still discussing who will go in and we are also trying other ways to put pressure and briefly break the siege of Gaza.

Remembering Gaza

2009-12-28T19:47:00.003+02:00

Today is our second day in Cairo and we are disappointed to tell you that we still do not have permission to go to Gaza. We came to Egypt with more than 1300 people from 42 countries hoping to march side-by-side with thousands of Gazans to draw the world's attention to the brutal siege of Gaza and to remind the world that though the bombs have stopped raining down, the war on the people of Gaza continues.

We are all working hard to keep up pressure on our governments and international bodies in the hopes of entering Gaza. But if we don't succeed we can still stand in solidarity with the people in Gaza marching on December 31 through the hundreds of actions happening around the world on that day. We hope you will join one.

We just returned to the hotel after spending the day protesting at the United Nations offices in Cairo. Hundreds of the Gaza Freedom March participants congregated at the UN building to ask for their assistance. Representatives from the march went inside to ask for help in getting all of us into Gaza along with the humanitarian supplies people have carried with them for the people of Gaza. We are still waiting for a response from members of the UN.

This afternoon we received word that 300 French participants who began a demonstration at their Embassy last night were still there and asking for people to come support. We went with a group of people from other nationalities to see them and show support for their action. It was a surprising but not unfamiliar sight. The Egyptian police officers (wearing riot gear) far outnumbered the protesters and had corralled them onto the sidewalk. And across the street were more than 38 large trucks carrying more police officers. Despite the situation the French activists are staying camped out until they get permission to go to Gaza. (Read more, View our photos)

We have to run now to meet with others and figure out our plans for tomorrow.

In the meantime we wanted to share with you this website marking the one year anniversary of Israel's brutal attacks in which 1,414 Palestinians, including 313 children, were murdered: Gaza Speaks: One Year On

More updates soon,
Barbara and Josie

Please can I go home?

2009-10-18T16:57:00.004+02:00

I live in Palestine. But apparently this truth is an impossibility.

A few weeks ago I came back from a trip to the US. I flew into the airport in Amman, Jordan and my husband picked me up (something that he cannot do if I fly into the Tel Aviv airport which is just 45 minutes from our home). We had a leisurely breakfast and then took a taxi to the Allenby Bridge. I had just spent 26 hours in airplanes and airports and home sounded so good.

The bridge was crowded, hot, and buzzing with flies. We slowly made our way from one office to another, from one bus to another. After a few hours we finished the Jordanian side and finally made it to the Israeli passport control. My husband is Palestinian and had to wait in long lines with the thousands of other Palestinians going home that day. This bridge is the only way for Palestinians in the West Bank to go anywhere else in the world. And as always, the Israelis are their gatekeepers.

I’m a US citizen and still have not received my Palestinian residency (which is issued by Israel) so my line had just seven other foreign passport holders. I quickly reached the window and handed over my passport. I explained to the young Israeli soldier that the purpose of my visit was not a visit, that I lived in the Bethlehem area with my husband. She told me it was illegal for me to live in Bethlehem on a tourist visa. She was emphatic that I could not live in Bethlehem. And yet I do.

This interaction jolted me out of la-la land and I recalled once again that I do not control when I go home and for how long. So I changed my tone and my line and explained that I live in both California and Bethlehem. I desperately continued, telling her that my husband was waiting for his greencard and so I HAD to stay (not live) part-time in Bethlehem. I said I was only staying two months this time. I would say anything to go home. She told me to wait.

So I sat on the floor and soon my husband joined me. We laughed at the unfamiliar situation of him being able to go somewhere that I can’t. After all I’m the one allowed by Israel to go to Jerusalem, to the Mediterranean Sea, and to his family’s original village while he cannot. And I’m the one that can travel to most countries in the world without applying for a visa. So we waited together for someone to call my name.

Eventually (was it after one hour? two? I tried not to keep track) someone did call my name and handed me back my passport with a three-month tourist visa. I was relieved, thrilled to be told I could go home now! But also sobered by the experience of being told it can’t be my home.

This is just my one silly tale among millions that Palestinians experience each day. It was a rare role reversal in which I was vulnerable being a US citizen and not a Palestinian. But for Palestinians living in the West Bank this home-coming over the Allenby Bridge can also be treacherous. Just last month a friend and human rights worker was taken from the bridge to an Israeli detention center. Read more about Mohammad at freemohammadothman.wordpress.com

Palestinian women in adminsitrative detention

2009-06-03T21:44:00.002+03:00

Honestly I'm not sure how effective letters are but I think Addameer is an incredible organization and these women, like all Palestinian political prisoners, need international support. Please check Addameer's website for more information about administrative detention and their international campaign to stop it.

Addameer has also put together profiles of the two women illegally held by Israel that are mentioned below. These profiles thoughtfully done and are also easy to print out for education and to encourage more people to support the campaign. I don't know how to attach them and can't find them on Addameer's website so email me and I'll send them.

Dear Friends,

Please read the urgent appeal on behalf of two women who are currently held in administrative detention.

Majeda Fidda is an elected member of Nablus municipality Council. She was arrested from the family home in Nablus. A few minutes passed midnight on 6 August 2008 Israeli soldiers stormed her house and proceeded to a search. Five months later, on 31 December 2008 she was acquitted of all charges and subsequently placed under administrative detention. Her order is expected to end on 30 June 2009. Please write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Ms Majeda Fidda be released immediately and that her administrative detention not be renewed.

Siham Al Heh is a social worker from Sourif in Hebron. Siham was arrested from her family home at 1:30 am on 26 March 2009. A few days following her arrest, Siham was informed that she would be detained for a 3 month period in administrative detention, without charge or trial. Her potential – but by no means certain – release is now expected on 25 June 2009. Please write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Siham Al-Heh be released immediately and that her administrative detention not be renewed.

For more information on administrative detention and Addameer’s campaign please check our website: www.addameer.info or get in touch with us directly at: info@addameer.ps

Thank you for your support.

Best wishes,
Addameer

In Occupied Palestine, Loving the Children is the Easy Part

2009-06-03T21:41:00.001+03:00

Barbara Lubin was 22 years old in 1967 when she walked into the Philadelphia military induction center along with 250 young men-and was told to strip. A dedicated and unusually daring draft counselor, Lubin had dressed in drag and hidden her hair in preparation for infiltrating an entry point into the U.S. military. As she peeled off her clothing, leaflets opposing the Vietnam War spilled from her undergarments. Her memories of that success are still vivid: "The sergeants were so enraged that they marched me out with bayonets and arrested me, but not before I was able to pass out hundreds of leaflets."

Children’s champion: On a visit to Gaza in January, Barbara Lubin of Berkeley’s Middle East Children’s Alliance poses with a family. (Photos by Sharon Wallace)

Over the subsequent 40 years-35 of them spent in Berkeley-Lubin's activism has spanned the globe: from the disability rights movement in Berkeley, to the anti-apartheid struggle centered at U.C. Berkeley, to the Bay Area Committee to Support the People of El Salvador. But since co-founding the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) in 1988, she has focused her formidable energies on directing the work of this small Berkeley nonprofit dedicated to a better quality of life for Palestinian, Iraqi, and Lebanese families and children.

Read the rest of Micky Duxbury's profile of Barbara and MECA here.

What is the impact of the Israeli siege on the Palestinian youth?

2009-05-18T14:15:00.001+03:00

By Mohammed El Majdalawi, a MECA volunteer in Gaza

Palestinian youth are living under very difficult economic conditions, due to the Israeli siege on Gaza. Many of them have graduated from university and are looking for work opportunities.

One young man in the prime of his life, Ahmed Abdul-Karim Yousef Majdalawi, is a 29-year-old tailor and father of four. He lost his work because the blockade on Gaza and the closure of the crossings caused the sewing factories to close, and limited the work available to him.

Looking for alternative employment to secure his livelihood, Ahmed started to sell candy to school children in Beit Lahiya, where he lives. But with the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation approaching for children in Gaza, Ahmed needed to get better work to support his family. He decide to work underground in Rafah, because he could not find anything else. On Wednesday May 13, 2009, the tunnel he was working in collapsed.

Ahmed is alive, but fighting for his life.

I appeal to lovers of peace and freedom to work to save Ahmed, and also work to break the Israeli siege of Palestinian youth – to save their future and to obtain their freedom and rights, like young people in the rest of the outside world.

Ibdaa Dance Troupe

2009-05-18T14:06:00.000+03:00

Ibdaa's youth dance troupe performs regularly throughout the Middle East and Europe, and MECA has sponsored three US tours. In 2009 we made a grant for the production of a new dance show and for Ibdaa’s ongoing theater, music, drawing, and sports programs for children.

Here is a short video of Ibdaa's youngest dancers performing in public for the first time.

Collective Punishment in Safa

2009-04-08T18:09:00.002+03:00

This morning we woke up to more alarming news from the village of Safa where my sister-in-law lives with her family. Following the murder of an Israeli settler in a nearby illegal settlement last week, the families in Safa have endured one form of collective punishment after another.

The men in the village were rounded up by Israeli soldiers and kept in the schoolyard. It's been reported that 28 men were detained for even longer periods of time. Three homes in the village were taken over by Israeli soldiers and turned into military posts. The whole village was under curfew for more than 24 hours as Israeli soldiers searched (and damaged) homes and the following days all roads leading in and out of the village were blocked.

And now Israelis living in the nearby illegal settlement and Israeli soldiers have attacked the village injuring 38 people. This is the report from Ma'an News Agency:

UPDATE: Armed settlers attack, injure 38 Palestinians;
Teenager in critical condition

Date: 08 / 04 / 2009 Time: 10:03

Palestinian demonstrators confronted
the settlers [Ma'anImages]

Hebron – Ma’an – Thirty-eight Palestinians were injured when armed Israeli settlers, backed by soldiers, rampaged through the West Bank village of Safa, north of Hebron on Wednesday morning.

According to medics at Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron 11 Palestinians were shot with live bullets, five with rubber-coated metal bullets and another 15 were treated for the effects of teargas.

One Palestinian, 18-year-old Tha’er Aadi, is in critical condition after being shot in the neck. After undergoing surgery at Al-Ahli, he was transferred to the public hospital in the city of Ramallah.

One eyewitness said that some 25 settlers from the nearby settlement Bat Ayin approached Palestinian houses and began shooting randomly. He said that Israeli military patrols were present, and watched the settlers shooting without stopping them.

Soldiers fired gunshots and tear gas canisters in order to prevent local youths from confronting the settlers, one witness said.

Neighboring villages called on for help

Calls were heard through mosque loudspeakers in the neighboring Palestinian towns of Beit Ummar and Surif asking residents to head to Safa and help protect its people from the rampaging settlers. Hundreds of youths responded to the call.

When the youth arrived Israeli troops intervened and restrained the settlers, making sure they returned their settlement unharmed. Local sources said that the settlers stole cattle as they left Safa.

Medics at Al-Ahli Hospital named some of the injured:
31-year-old Ammar Abu Dayya who was shot in the thigh,
26-year-old Suheil Abu Dayya, shot in the foot,
26-year-old Muhammad Khlayyil, also shot in the thigh,
35-year-old Walid Khlayyil, shot in the foot, and
24-year-old Muhammad Khlayyil

The mayors of nearby Hebron and Beit Ummar arrived in Safa to check on residents. According to mayor of Beit Ummar Nasri Sabarna, all of those injured in the day’s events were harmed by the soldiers supporting the settlers, and not by the settlers themselves.

Revenge attack

On Thursday in Bat Ayin a man, reportedly Palestinian, killed a teenage settler and wounded another 7-year-old boy in the settlement with an axe.

The settlement is also the origin of a militia called the Bat Ayin Underground. The father of the 7-year-old victim of last week’s attack is Ofer Gamliel, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for attempting to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school in Jerusalem in 2002. Two other men from the settlement were also jailed for the attempted attack.

On Wednesday night, the Israeli news agency Ynet reported that Gamliel was to be released for 48 hours this week in order to visit his son.

The Israeli military has refused to comment on the incident.

***Updated at 15:04 Bethlehem time

More photos from Gaza

2009-02-22T13:07:00.002+02:00

MECA volunteer Mohammed El Majdalawi sent more photos from Gaza.

His photos include images from refugee camps and also close up photos of weapons made in the US.

Click here to see the photos.

If you would like to use these photos please credit Mohammed Fares El Majdalawi. Email us if you need higher resolution versions.

The story

2009-02-11T10:08:00.002+02:00

To all who care about the children in Gaza:

I have just returned from 3 and a half weeks in Egypt and Gaza with Dr. Mona El-Farra delivering an ambulance, 4 tons of much needed pediatric medicine, tons of milk and baby cereal, 29 wheelchairs, and a truckload of crayons, magic markers, paper and coloring books for children in Gaza. It was a very trying visit.

I have been to Palestine many times over the past 21 years but never have I seen anything like what I saw this time. I will never forget the sadness, the smell, the destroyed homes, schools, mosques and cemeteries. I want to make clear this is not an apology but an explanation of what happened.

While I was away I told a story that was told to me by several people about a family in Gaza. This story received much attention and many people wanted more information so I contacted
my friend Talal and asked him to research the story. Here is his response:

Dear Barbara,

It's the first time i have had internet. I hope you are O.K...you and all of our friends.

I heard from Dr. Mona that you are under great pressure because of the story you have published about the crime of that woman. Be sure that it was a fact and we are ready to receive any investigation committee to check out the facts. But as you know during the wars and when death is very close, the popular memory interferes and colors the action with it's special details.

We all heard the story on the local radio as I narrated it to you. But when you wrote the story and you faced so much pressure I decided to investigate and caught the real story.

It's not so far from from what you reported because the victims are the same...the story happened in Bourij Camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis called the woman Manal Albatran and told her that they wouldn't kill her or her husband Hussein Albatran, instead they would make them die of sadness because they would kill her children. The next day they shot her house with a rocket killing her and 5 of her children.

The dead:
Manal Albatran 30 years old
Walaa Albatran 12 years old
Islam Albatran 11 years old
Belal Albatran 10 years old
Ezzeldin Albatran 8 years old
Ehsan Albatran 7 years old

The father who is an employee at an UNRWA school and the youngest child were saved.

This is the real story and I hope the amount of victims will convince others to believe the crimes we face. Thanks a lot for your appreciated visit and I hope to see you again soon.

Regards,
Talal Abushawish

Reminiscent of Nakba 1948

2009-02-03T09:52:00.002+02:00

Mohammed Al-Majdalawi, a friend and MECA volunteer in Gaza, has shared some very powerful images from Gaza. He took these photos throughout the 22-day Israeli attacks on Gaza as well as the days following the "ceasefires" to document the destruction and suffering of regular people.

Mohammed writes, "These photos are of children and of life in Gaza during and after the war. I took these photos in refugee camps, schools, hospitals, outside bakeries while people waited to buy bread, and in the street whenever people left their houses between bombs.

I took photos every day. I went to different areas with my simple camera in hopes that these photos can tell the world the truth and illuminate the suffering of my people."

Mohammed lives in Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza. He says "The scene here reminds my family of Al Nakba (Arabic for Catastrophe) 1948."

There is still no electricity in his area of Gaza. He searched many hours to find a place with internet and electricity so he could share these photos with us. Please look at them and pass on to your friends.

In the next few days Mohammed will try to add captions to these photos. For now, I think the images speak for themselves.

Click here to go to the web album.

Day 2 in Gaza: More death and destruction

2009-01-24T01:34:00.002+02:00

Today we visited Jabaliya Refugee Camp, one of the areas hardest hit by Israel's brutal attacks on Gaza earlier this month. Mohammed Al-Majdalawi, a volunteer with MECA, showed me the ruins of the refugee camp. Residents reported that they had no electricity or running water, nearly one week after Israel's unilateral ceasefire.

Pharmacies, schools, and homes were indiscriminately hit in Jabaliya. Mohammed's family was forced to evacuate their home because of intense bombing. He told me that though they are living in a refugee camp, not their original land, they consider themselves lucky to have a home at all. Thousands of people are still living in crowded UN schools turned to shelters because they have no where else to go.

Earlier in the day I went to the Zaytoun area of Gaza City. I saw families gathering wood from charred trees. The continued blockade of Gaza is adding insult to injury as these terrified families build fires to keep warm and cook due to the lack of cooking gas. Residents from the neighborhood told me stories of wild dogs coming to eat their dead neighbors, relatives bleeding to death because Israel would not allow emergency workers reach the area, and Israeli soldiers entering homes to beat and then kill people.

I have been in Gaza just two short days and have already witnessed so much death and destruction. The scale of the effects of these attacks is enormous. MECA is doing a small part by sending a mobile intensive care unit, 3.5 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons fortified baby cereal, thousands of crayons and coloring books. $1.5 million worth of medicine for children and infants as well as 40 wheelchairs are still en route to Gaza. But we must keep the world's attention on Gaza. We must give these children an opportunity to heal and to live out their lives in freedom.

Gaza needs many years to heal

2009-01-23T23:36:00.003+02:00

A message from MECA's Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, who is in Egypt coordinating shipments to Gaza while Barbara Lubin is meeting with MECA's partners on the ground in Gaza.

Hello friends

I am still in Cairo. With a sad heart I am watching home from a distance. The hardest days were when I went to the Rafah Crossing point. I was only one kilometer away from Gaza, but could not enter. I was told that as a Palestinian with dual nationality, I can get in but not out.

While at the border I was greatly touched by the expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people. I met doctors from Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Greece, Turkey and many other countries who came to help the people of Gaza in defiance of Israel’s savage attacks on children, women, and men. We must all work on continuing and expanding these solidarity efforts on different levels. We cannot let Israel get away with its crimes against humanity in Gaza.

I want to thank you all for your solidarity as well as for your practical support. Whether you donated one pound or thousands of pounds, your support and your continuous protests let the people of Gaza feel that they are not alone and will never be forgotten.

I am still in daily contact with friends, relatives, and fellow doctors back home. And I conveyed to them your messages of support and solidarity. I also visited dozens of the injured who were transferred to Egyptian hospitals. They are in great need of rehabilitation after their wounds heal.

I want to share the results of your concrete support for Gaza*:
3 ambulances
20 tons of medicine
30 tons of powdered milk and fortified baby cereal
50 wheelchairs
Thousands of coloring books and crayons for kids
Thousands of meals handed-delivered daily to displaced families taking shelter at UN schools

I thank you all, with a special thank you for the teams of volunteers in different areas of Gaza who worked under fire to meet the needs of our community, and for the emergency workers who worked tirelessly to reach the injured and dead. Time is gold in saving lives but Israel deliberately delayed and shot at emergency vehicles leading to the death of 15 emergency workers and countless Gazans.

The 22 days of Israeli attacks on Gaza was just one episode in a long line of catastrophes for Palestinians. Our struggle for justice and freedom continues.

*Much of these supplies come from MECA but other individuals and organizations have also turned to Dr. El-Farra to help them send emergency support to Gaza.

In Gaza

2009-01-22T19:44:00.001+02:00

After 10 grueling hours at the Rafah Crossing point between Egypt and Palestine on Wednesday, Sharon Wallace (a long-time MECA supporter) and I finally entered Gaza.

There are so many stories to tell from our first day in Gaza. So much pain and destruction. But there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I heard about a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to 'give as a gift to Israel.' As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. Today I learned that the concept of 'Jewish morality' is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else. And the international community must demand that this never be allowed to happen again. **PLEASE READ UPDATE FROM BARBARA BELOW**

Sharon and I stayed with a family in Rafah Refugee Camp on Wednesday night. They warmly welcomed us into their home and shared tales of horror from Israel's three week war on Gaza. Today we drove through Rafah, Khan Younis, Nuseirat Refugee Camp and Gaza City.

The destruction and trauma in the Gaza Strip is even greater than I expected. Any attempts at describing what we saw will fall short. Instead I want to share these photos.

Al Quds Hospital, Gaza City, was directly hit by Israeli artillery shells on January 16. Patients had to be evacuated as much of the hospital went up in flames.These photos are all the ruins of homes in residential neighborhoods. 4000 homes have been completely destroyed and 20000 partially destroyed.

***THE STORY: UPDATE***
To all who care about the children in Gaza:

I have just returned from 3 and a half weeks in Egypt and Gaza with Dr. Mona El-Farra delivering an ambulance, 4 tons of much needed pediatric medicine, tons of milk and baby cereal, 29 wheelchairs, and a truckload of crayons, magic markers, paper and coloring books for children in Gaza. It was a very trying visit.

I have been to Palestine many times over the past 21 years but never have I seen anything like what I saw this time. I will never forget the sadness, the smell, the destroyed homes, schools, mosques and cemeteries. I want to make clear this is not an apology but an explanation of what happened.

While I was away I told a story that was told to me by several people about a family in Gaza. This story received much attention and many people wanted more information so I contacted
my friend Talal and asked him to research the story. Here is his response:

Dear Barbara,

It's the first time i have had internet. I hope you are O.K...you and all of our friends.

I heard from Dr. Mona that you are under great pressure because of the story you have published about the crime of that woman. Be sure that it was a fact and we are ready to receive any investigation committee to check out the facts. But as you know during the wars and when death is very close, the popular memory interferes and colors the action with it's special details.

We all heard the story on the local radio as I narrated it to you. But when you wrote the story and you faced so much pressure I decided to investigate and caught the real story.

It's not so far from from what you reported because the victims are the same...the story happened in Bourij Camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis called the woman Manal Albatran and told her that they wouldn't kill her or her husband Hussein Albatran, instead they would make them die of sadness because they would kill her children. The next day they shot her house with a rocket killing her and 5 of her children.

The dead:
Manal Albatran 30 years old
Walaa Albatran 12 years old
Islam Albatran 11 years old
Belal Albatran 10 years old
Ezzeldin Albatran 8 years old
Ehsan Albatran 7 years old

The father who is an employee at an UNRWA school and the youngest child were saved.

This is the real story and I hope the amount of victims will convince others to believe the crimes we face. Thanks a lot for your appreciated visit and I hope to see you again soon.

Regards,
Talal Abushawish

Ambulance enters Gaza!

2009-01-22T10:08:00.000+02:00

One of the perks of spending hours at the Rafah Border crossing was the gratifying experience of seeing MECA's ambulance cross into Gaza. We are donating this ambulance equipped as a mobile intensive care unit to the Palestine Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip, a wonderful organization that has received and distributed MECA's shipments of medical aid over the years. Several of their ambulance were destroyed and their emergency workers killed and injured by Israel earlier this month.

ceasefire(s)?

2009-01-18T18:46:00.004+02:00

It doesn't get more bizarre than this. Two ceasefires.

Last night I watched Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, announce a unilateral ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza. But when I spoke with friends in Gaza today, the buzz of Israeli drones was still loud and clear in the background. Israeli troops are still on the ground in Gaza, separating the north of the strip from the south. A Palestinian farmer was killed and his son injured this morning as they walked outside their home to survey the damage*. This is not the dramatic sigh of relief that people in Gaza have been waiting and praying for.

Meanwhile, Palestinian political factions announced their own ceasefire this afternoon. They are giving Israel one week to withdraw from Gaza. I suspect they will keep their word on this because people in Gaza are tired of the constant attacks and loss of life, and Hamas’ popularity may decrease if they give Israel an excuse (not a reason) to continue its horrific attacks on civilians.

I feel like I’m missing something – some vital piece of information that explains the logic behind these ceasefires. It is so obvious to me that a meaningful and lasting ceasefire must be singular and must be agreed on by all parties. But logic has never been a key piece of Israeli diplomacy. With the full and unconditional support of the United States, Israel doesn't need to bother with diplomacy or logic. Israeli politicians make and then break promises as they see fit, label anyone they don't want to deal with as a terrorist, bar human rights observers and international politicians from seeing things they don't want them to see, the list goes on.

I've looked for the logic too in the claims of victory coming from Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It seems clear that there are no winners, just thousands of losers. In Gaza the death toll is 1,300 with more bodies being pulled out of the rubble by the second. More than 5000 people are injured and 100,000 homeless. Refugees who were driven from their homes by armed gangs in 1948 are refugees a second time over. 16 hospitals and 60 schools were hit. The damage is immense. There were Israelis killed too, 3 civilians. But I can’t put the deaths of the Israeli occupying soldiers side by side with those they killed.

Of course people in Gaza welcomed these “ceasefires”. “A chance to bury our dead,” one friend cynically called it. It is a chance to look for missing friends and relatives, to go back to their neighborhoods and sift through remnants of houses, to venture out for food and other necessary items. "I'm back in my house with my family, we're lucky that there's not too much damage. But when I went looking for Dr. Mahmoud I didn't even recognize the spot where his house had been."

For aid agencies, these “ceasefires” are a chance to distribute food, to safely transport goods (though not between north and south), to assess the situation. MECA sent funds to our partner, Afaq Jadeeda Association, to cook meals and buy whatever supplies are available and deliver them to displaced families in the southern Gaza Strip. There is a lot of work to be done.

But what next? What about the Israeli imposed blockade of Gaza that left families without food, children without schoolbooks, and hospitals without medicine? How do Gazans rebuild their lives under the constant threat of another Israeli attack?

No matter how many ceasefires are in place, the international community must keep up the pressure on Israel for an end to its apartheid occupation in Gaza and the West Bank as well as of Palestinian citizens inside Israel proper.

*http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35072

$1.5 million of medicine en route to Gaza

2009-01-17T23:04:00.005+02:00

Barbara Lubin, Founder and Director of Middle East Children's Alliance, at Cairo airport amidst boxes of medicine for children and infants including antibiotics and vitamin supplements. MECA's shipment for 4 tons of medicine left Cairo today.

Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA's Director of Gaza Projects, along with Sharon Wallace and other friends label the boxes of medicine "Gift from Middle East Children's Alliance for the Children of Gaza"

Barbara, Dr. Mona, Sharon and other friends in Egypt went to label the boxes carrying four tons of medicine - including antibiotics and vitamin supplements - for children and infants in Gaza. These medications were requested by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip and Ard Al-Insan.

On Monday, Barbara will try to enter Gaza to donate an ambulance equipped as a mobile intensive care unit as well as medicine and supplies for operating rooms.

On Tuesday, MECA's donations of wheelchairs, powdered milk, fortified cereal, and coloring books and crayons are scheduled to arrive in Gaza.

There's little cause for hope

2009-01-17T11:44:00.002+02:00

I think close involvement with Palestine leads to clinical depression. For 61 years Palestinians have been massacred, driven from their homes, and lived under military occupation*. The whole world has discussed roadmaps, negotiations, and the ever-illusive peace while 15-year-old Muhannad is taken from his home in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp and sentenced to 18 months in an Israeli prison for throwing stones, while nine-year old Yousef's teeth are crushed by an Israeli settler because his family continues to live in their home in Hebron*. There's little cause for hope.

Though nothing new, these last three weeks in Gaza are indeed horrifying. "The worst catastrophe of my lifetime" according to a friend living in Gaza. The stories and images of pain and trauma are everywhere. "I don't know where my brother is", "For days we bled", "One bullet hit my hand and the other went through my back," "I cannot stay in one place; it's too dangerous," "8 of my relatives have been killed", "They bombed my whole neighborhood", "Mama! Mama! Where's mama?!"***

I am thankful to have lived a life that keeps me one step removed from these experiences. But I also know that we must all be made to understand what it is like for a child in Gaza****.

Because if you and I stay one step removed, we may never have the courage to call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. We will sit comfortably in our homes and wish "both sides" would accept a ceasefire, will look for a way to send food or money so these children can survive but not live.

Yes, there is very little cause for hope as the bombs continue to rain down on Gaza. But there are a few events and actions that make me wonder if Palestinian history may finally be reaching a new chapter.

Last week in Turkey, an Israeli basketball team was driven off the court by angry protesters. This week, Bolivia and Venezuela severed ties with Apartheid Israel. Yesterday in San Francisco activists blocked the entrance to the Israeli consulate as part of a series of direct actions at Israeli consulates in Canada and the US*****. Our governments may be unwilling to utter even one more of criticism, the United Nations might be paralyzed by balance and bureaucracy, but you and I can make sure that Israeli products, musicians, and sports teams are not welcome in our homes or communities.

I hope we won't wait for the next Deir Yassin, the next Qana, or the next Jabaliya. The children in Palestine are running out of time.

Resources for actions:

*Before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians living inside Israel proper were subjected to military rule.
**I know both these families
***Taken from phone calls, news clips, and articles during the current Israeli attacks on Gaza
****Read these articles to get a sense of the situation for children.
Children 'paying price of Gaza war'
Shelled family recounts Gaza horror
*****Video from Turkey, Article about Bolivia and Venezuela, Photos and article about Israeli consulate action in SF

Visiting Gaza's Injured at the Palestine Hospital: This is the Moment for Change

2009-01-14T22:44:00.000+02:00

Today was exhausting but productive.

Dr. Mona and I went to the Palestine Hospital in Cairo today to visit civilians injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza. More than 200 injured children, men and women from Gaza have been transferred to hospitals in Egypt for immediately needed medical care; however thousands of injured civilians are still trapped in Gaza.

Dr. Mona spent much of the day speaking with doctors and patients at the Palestine Hospital. “Many patients have arrived at the hospital with severe burns from white phosphorous. But the doctors and hospital director also believe Israel is using new weapons. For the first time they are seeing patients who have very small injuries or entry wounds but when they do x-rays there is severe damage inside. Many of my colleagues in Gaza have also observed new types of injuries that are difficult to treat.” She added, “Unfortunately, medical workers in Gaza are too busy trying to save lives and they don’t have the time or possibility to investigate.” Israel continues to prevent international journalists from entering Gaza.

I met with four patients and say the real, human cost of Israel’s criminal attacks on Gaza. Today I spoke with a boy from Khan Younis who had both his legs amputated, along with countless other injuries to his body. More than 1000 people in Gaza have been killed, including hundreds of children.

After leaving the hospital we went on with our aid work for Gaza and purchased 5 tons of baby cereal that will feed 3000 children (6 months +) for one month. I know this aid work is important.
But it is wrong to call for humanitarian aid, a ceasefire, or rebuilding Gaza without addressing the the root of the problem. The people of Gaza need their freedom. Without the Israeli occupation that uprooted them from their homes in 1948; destroyed countless acres of agricultural land; closed Gaza's borders for imports and exports; and bombed houses, universities, hospitals, and mosques, the people of Gaza could live in dignity. They wouldn't need to wait for the international community to send help because they could provide for themselves. Now is the time for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.

Every Second There is a Bomb

2009-01-13T23:57:00.003+02:00

by Adham Khalil, in Jabalya Refugee Camp, Gaza

January 13, 2009

It is very horrible here. Today was the worst. There were lots of F-16s above us and white phosphorous falling from the sky.

I didn't sleep last night. The sound of shelling in the north and east kept us all awake.

Most of the time we don't have any electricity in my house. So when the power comes for an hour or two the whole family is busy. We charge our mobiles, pump water, bake bread. But I have seen so many horrible things on TV that sometimes I wish we could stay without power.

So far, my own family is okay but I feel shy to speak about my family. I don't think like that. Everyone in Gaza is my family. We are suffering collectively as we are being punished and forgotten collectively, and we are dying.

It is very dangerous here and everywhere in Gaza. By 5 PM the streets are empty. Not even one person goes out of their homes in my area. But even in our homes, we are not safe. I swear sometimes I can smell death around us.

It is not true to say this is a war between Hamas and Israel. I am an eyewitness in Gaza and though you may think that Gaza is a country and Hamas is a great and powerful army, these are lies. The Palestinian factions do not own tanks, warplanes, or warships. They have homemade rockets, simple weapons. They cannot do anything against Israel's great and powerful army.

We are living under complete siege with daily killings and our houses destroyed. Hamas and other Palestinian factions are trying to defend Palestinians from the continuing massacres, invasions, and airstrikes. The Israeli occupation and actions in Gaza are terrorist actions, as are many of their actions and policies dating back to their ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948.

But I think this, right now, is the worst catastrophe I will see in my life.

I don't have any guns or weapons. I struggle by simply telling the truth. Many people have asked me if there is a way to send money or food. But what we really need is our freedom and an end to the fire.

Don't keep silent about the Israeli massacres and Holocaust against Palestinians. The demand for an end to this siege must be louder than the bombs that rain down upon us.

To help MECA send more medical aid to Gaza for thousands of sick and injured people living under siege, visit www.mecaforpeace.org

Adham Khalil is a resident of Jabalya refugee camp and a youth leader at the Al-Assria Children's Library. His blog, Free Free Palestine, is at http://nagyelali.blogspot.com.

This report was compiled from Adham's text messages and phone calls, and was adapted for publication by staff at Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) due to the difficulties imposed on Gazans to communicate freely with the outside world.

Solidarity and Resistance to Total Destruction: Update on MECA's Emergency Shipment for Gaza

2009-01-13T23:22:00.008+02:00

by Sharon Wallace

I feel like I have been here for weeks, not just four days. I've never been involved directly in acquiring material aid. It is a frustrating, tiring, and, at times, maddening process. But after four days of Cairo traffic, long office visits, and too many phone calls we have been quite successful. We have acquired an ambulance that is equipped as a mobile intensive care unit. Speed in medical response saves lives. This is the ambulance that was requested. Gaza has lost many of its ambulances due to break downs and also due to Israeli targeting of ambulances.

Wheelchairs are also needed and we obtained 45 of them. Our contacts in Gaza have asked us to send powdered milk, water (6L bottles), small blankets, and baby cereals. By tomorrow evening we will have all of this lined up and by Thursday we plan to be back at the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Cairo.

The Arab Doctors Union is helping us transport the aid and drive the ambulance. The coordination of solidarity is amazing. Everyone seems either to be involved directly or want to assist in some way. We visit the warehouses to purchase goods and they donate additional amounts (for example: 5 extra wheelchairs, extra milk, etc.).

In between tasks, Dr. Mona, Barbara, and I swap stories and experiences over the years in Palestine, Iraq, Central America and other areas one or the other has been involved in. As we talk, Dr. Mona's phone rings, another call from the depths of horror in Gaza. "They are bombing again--from the air, from the sea"; "I've lost my neighbor, my cousin, my child" The stories stop time and hurt the heart. One man called and told us about his neighbor, a 70 year-old man. He is terrified. He was sitting on his step, awaiting another night of missiles. Then he suddenly jumps up and tells his friend, "I must leave, excuse me, I may die tonight so I have to go and make love to my wife." And off he went.

Sharon Wallace is a member of Louisville Committee for Peace in the Middle East and a long-time supporter of the Middle East Children's Alliance. She is in Egypt with MECA staff Barbara Lubin and Dr. Mona El-Farra procuring items for an emergency shipment to Gaza.

Gaza is Sinking in a River of Blood

2009-01-12T00:28:00.005+02:00

A Message from a Gazan to the World

By: Mohammed Fares Al Majdalawi

January 11, 2009

I want to write about the suffering of my people and my family in these days of siege against the people of Gaza. 888 people have been killed and more than 3700 injured. The Red Cross has accused the Israeli military of repeatedly refusing to allow ambulances to go to Zeitoun area, so those who are injured become those who die; a premeditated and purposeful violation of human rights.

In my house we can't get basic needs. No food. No bread. No fuel. No future. Yesterday, my father went to the bakery at 5 AM. He waited 5 hours to get one loaf of bread, which is not enough for my family because there are 11 of us. So today it was my turn. I went to all the bakeries -- all were closed.

There is no safe place we can go. We cannot communicate with our relatives and friends -- networks are down as missiles rain on our homes, mosques and even hospitals.

Our life is centered around the burials of those who have died, our martyrs, At night our camp, Jabalya Refugee Camp, is a ghost town, with no sounds other than those of Israeli military aircraft.

There is a horror in every minute and it is clear especially in the lives of children. For example, there were five sisters in one family killed from the Israeli occupation while they stayed in their home. But there are 800,000 other children in Gaza, all afraid, all waiting for someone or something to help them. They are caught in a prison that is becoming a concentration camp. Every day we sleep and open our eyes to the Israeli crimes of killing children and women and destroying civilians' homes. My words are unable to convey my feelings about this life in Gaza.

I have two messages to the world, to those who claim they love peace and seek freedom.

Imagine your life consisting of no electricity, destroyed homes, the sounds and strikes of missiles, day and night, and the only hunger as great as that for food is the hunger for an end to this occupation and siege. Imagine it is not just you but your children and your family who tell you through their eyes and cries: "We are afraid of the missiles." "We cannot sleep." "We may never sleep again." Imagine you are the dam and the river of blood has turned into a flash flood. How long could you stand it?

We wouldn't have to stand it any longer if the world stood with us. If they demanded an end to the siege and the killings and demolition of houses for our children. If they demanded assistance reach the people through rallies and sit-ins.

Finally, I invite you to come to Gaza and see the Holocaust. Because despite the siege, the barriers, the killing of my people and homes, and the total destruction of our lives by the Israeli occupation, they can not and will not kill the will of our people for equality and justice.

Mohammed Al Majdawali is a university student, member of Al-Assria Children's Library, and volunteer with Middle East Children's Alliance. He lives in Jabalya Refugee Camp with his family and aspires to be a professional filmmaker.

_____________________________________

To help MECA send more medical aid to Gaza for thousands of sick and injured people living under siege, www.mecaforpeace.org

UPDATE: At 1PM EST ( 1/11/09), Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) received a message from Mohammed that all the homes in his neighborhood have been destroyed. He and his family are now staying at the UNRWA school in Jabalya, the same location where 43 people were killed in an Israeli attack last Tuesday. He cannot reach his brother and doesn't know if he is alive.

Photos from Rafah and Purchasing Supplies

2009-01-11T12:50:00.008+02:00

On Friday, I visited the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Cairo. Dr. Mona wanted to assess the situation at the border before coming with our trucks next week.
Trucks of aid waiting to enter Gaza. Friday, January 9, 2009

A bomb hits Rafah, just a few hundred feet from where we are standing at the border. Friday, January 9, 2009.
Dr. Mona and I met people working with the Arab Doctors Union at the border. This turned into a great partnership as the Union offered to pay for the transportation of our shipment to the border. Now all of the donations to MECA can be used on buying much-needed medicine and supplies. Friday, January 9, 2009.
Dr. Mona and I browse different wheelchair models from a company in Cairo. I know quite a bit about wheelchairs and was able to select the best model to send to Gaza. Saturday, January 10, 2009.
After two weeks of constant Israeli attacks and almost two years of living under siege, the children in Gaza are very traumatized. One of our trucks will include crayons, coloring books, toys, and soccer balls. In a way, these items are emergency supplies too. Saturday, January 10, 2009.

We are waiting now for our ambulance to be ready (it will take a few days) and then we will head back to Rafah with our trucks holding the ambulance, wheelchairs, powdered milk, baby cereal, emergency room supplies including anesthesia drugs, and children's toys. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip will meet us at the border and distribute these supplies to help children and families in Gaza.

Meanwhile the WHO is sending four tons of medications for children and infants by air to Tel Aviv and then into Gaza. MECA purchased this shipment at a discounted rate thanks to the help of Medical Teams International.

I am so thankful to all of MECA's supporters and partners who are making this shipment possible. In the face of so much death and destruction, your support for children in Gaza means so much.

But what the children need more than anything is an end to the Israeli airstrikes, tank shellings, and ground invasion. Please continue to send letters, write op-eds, attend demonstrations, and build campaigns for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. It is up to all of us to make Gaza a safe place for children.

The Real News About Gaza

2009-01-10T11:41:00.005+02:00

I arrived in Cairo late Thursday night to accompany an emergency medical shipment to Gaza. I had been following the news about Gaza very closely from the United States. For the last two weeks the TV and radio were constantly blairing in my home, office, and car. I read the newspaper every morning. But in the last day and a half I discovered that the situation for children and families in Gaza is even worse than I thought.

Yesterday I drove to the Rafah Crossing point between Egypt and Gaza. Watching Gaza from a distance of only 300 feet, I saw Israeli airplanes and drones flying over Palestinian homes. I heard shelling from tanks. But even worse, I heard loud booms that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. For a few moments I felt the same excruciating fear that people in Gaza have been living with for fifteen days and nights.

Last night at the hotel I watched Al-Jazeera news with my colleague, Dr. Mona El-Farra. She translated for me as a young boy in a Gaza hospital described seeing his mother, brothers, and sisters killed. I saw photos and video clips of the 230 dead children, the four children who were found without food and water next to the bodies of their dead parent, and hundreds of babies and children with shrapnel wounds, burns, and every other injury imaginable. We don't see this on the news in the US.

The difference in media coverage between the Arab world and the Western, sanitized media is shocking. There is no way, living in the United States, that the people can know about the horror that people in Gaza are living day after day.

2009 greetings from Palestine

2009-01-03T13:49:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends and Family,

It's 2009 but I have a hard time calling it a new year. I didn't go to a new year's eve party - they were all canceled out of respect for the people in Gaza. Instead Hazem and I went to dinner with a few friends and came home to once again watch the news.

The broadcasted firework displays, which have always amazed and dazzled me, only reminded me of the sky in Gaza. The lights flashing in their sky killed 6 more people last night. Since Saturday, 400 people have died and more than 2000 are injured. But these numbers barely scratch the surface of the death and destruction.

Islamic University in Gaza City has been turned into rubble. 20,000 students watched their futures crumble.

Hospitals do not have the supplies they need to treat the injured after 18 months of an Israeli blockade. Many of the critically injured could have lived but now they are dying too.

A mother in Gaza explained to a journalist that her children kept saying that they wanted to die with her. They no longer dared to hope their family would survive so they asked simply that they not be left alive without a mother.

The people in Gaza who live through this horror will not be able to go on with their lives. How could a child return to classes at the same school where she watched her classmates die? How could the remaining members of a family rebuild their home in the same place that their mother/brother/child was killed? I know people around the world have come back to life after massacres but it's hard to imagine how people in Gaza will. Especially with the knowledge that Israel could do this again at any time.

It's devastating and nothing we can do now will change any of this. It is just too late.

But still I find myself trying to do something useful. It's too painful to passively take in this information. I've been working closely with Dr. Mona, a dear friend and colleague from Gaza, to send medicine. We started working on a shipment last month but even then the task of getting medical aid into Gaza was daunting. Truckload upon truckload of food, medicine, and other basic supplies were turned away at the border each day. Through Dr. Mona's connections MECA will be able to send in both the vital medications for children and infants that we've been working on as well as emergency supplies that were requested by organizations in Gaza.

Surely this shipment will help some of the victims of the air strikes recover and will help curb the high levels of malnutrition among children. It may even save the lives of children with asthma or serious infections. But what about next week, next year, or the next generation?

There are demonstrations around the world, calls for boycotting and sanctioning Israel, letter-writing campaigns, etc. These are all important and will, I hope, contribute to change. I've been uplifted by the emails and photos friends have sent about the responses to these attacks in their communities.

But the mainstream media is telling such a different story then the one I have seen and heard. I have been updating the MECA website with news about Gaza for the last six days. This has been almost more difficult for me than watching images of five dead sisters pulled out from under their collapsed home or of dozens of bodies splayed on the pavement and the few survivors screaming and kissing their dead friends. I go from one article to another, one news source to another. I search for an article that doesn't try to justify Israel's actions, doesn't try to equate homemade rockets with American-made F16s and apaches. It's hard to find in English.

So I want to say a few things about the ceasefire, targets, and self-defense in my own words.

During the six-month ceasefire between Israel and political factions in Gaza, it was Israel that consistently broke its commitments. Israel killed 22 people in Gaza and injured another 62 during the ceasefire. And at the beginning of this school year, notebooks and school supplies weren't allowed into Gaza (very reminiscent of the sanctions on Iraq). Would you renew a ceasefire that brought continued attacks and continued shortages of food, medicine, and electricity? What would be the point of choosing to die slowly?

The statements from Israeli spokespeople have made me physically ill. Their line about hitting targets reminds me of an argument I had at Brown University right after the US started bombing Afghanistan. The anti-war group I was a part of at the time was highlighting the devastating costs of our bombing campaigns on the people in Afghanistan. An angry student told me that our bombs are so smart we could hit a nickle-sized target on the ground. That may be true but when a bomb hits the nickle, how much of the surrounding area does it blow up too? I've been to Gaza several times over the last five years. I've even been to Gaza when F16s are flying overhead, targeting people in illegal extra-judicial assassinations or buildings. It's a very crowded place and when Israel attacked the Ministry of Interior in 2006, the impact woke me up in an apartment several blocks away and the family next door lost their home. but thankfully not their lives. Just now, Israel carefully targeted a Hamas leader in another illegal assassination. Nine of his family members were killed along with him.

The other question that comes to mind for me is just how smart are the people controlling the smart bombs? Three days ago a military drone blew up a truck and eight men while they were loading oxygen canisters used for welding. Israel maintains they were grad rockets but the photos and reports tell a different story.

The second line Israel keeps feeding an unquestioning media is that it is defending its citizens. The idea that the rockets are a match for the fourth most powerful military in the world is laughable. As is the idea that you can kill people into submission. I don't know if the people in power never learn or if they have ulterior motives. Honestly, I don't care to understand their thinking - it is too inhumane.

I'll leave you with this short message I just received from a friend in Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza:

I want to write about suffering of my people and my family in these days
In my house we can't get basic needs such as, No foods, No bread ,and Natural gas
Yesterday , my father went to bakery from 5 AM he waited 5 hours even get one A bundle of bread.
This bread not can't enough for my family because consist of 11 members .But today I go to all bakeries. I can't find any loaf of bread due to be closed.
We and my family cannot communicate with our relatives and friends because of the lack of the connecting network also every hour we have a martyr or even more because of the raining missiles on our homes , mosques and even hospitals ,There is no safe place we can go to.
In the day our life concentrated in burial of the martyrs who were thousands in hospitals after a short farewell or even without a final look because of the time shortage those martyrs are graved in groups imagine that a group of martyrs graved in one grave.
At night our camp like ghosts city no sound but the sound of the various military aircrafts in every attack our heats and the children hearts is shaking.
There is a horror in every minute and it is clear especially on the children, for example, there was four sisters in one family killed from the Israeli occupation ,when stay in their home, and there is children in the south of Rafah.
Also, A woman was going to the bakery to buy bread for her family when she was walking in the street killed the Israeli occupation.
I have two message to the world.
My message to the lovers of peace and freedom in the world.

The First message:
Imagine your life is no electricity ,destroyed homes , voice missiles of the day and night , and no food.
Imagine your children and your family tell you we are afraid of the missiles can not sleep from the Voice of the aircraft.
Imagine you and keep the commentary.

The second message:
Make to end the siege and stop the killings and demolition of houses for our children and to provide assistance to the people through rallies, sit-ins.
Finally, I invite you to come to Gaza and see the Holocaust.

Wishing (and working) for a better future.

Love,
Josie

Please check the MECA website for news, analysis, and actions as well as a way to donate for the medical shipment.
www.mecaforpeace.org

This is a what a massacre looks like

2008-12-27T13:27:00.002+02:00

I've spent the last hour watching footage of things I never wanted to see. The backdrop changed but the images were the same. Dozens of bodies splayed on the ground. Children sobbing. Cars and ambulances unloading the injured and dead at hospitals.

I don't have words yet.

Report: At least 140 dead in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City

Date: 27 / 12 / 2008 Time: 11:57

[Ma'anImages]

Gaza – Ma'an – At least 140 Palestinians were killed when Israel’s air force fired missiles at more than 30 Gaza City targets at noon on Saturday.

Live video broadcasts showed dozens of injured and dead Palestinians in Gaza City, many of them screaming, while Palestinian ambulances raced to the scene.

Black smoke billowed over Gaza City into the afternoon as medics evacuated the wounded from targeted de facto government buildings, believed to be the main target in the air raids.

Men, women and children were killed in the airstrikes.

Others were running in the streets as one correspondent noted that the airstrikes amounted to the largest Israeli military operation in Gaza "for decades."

A Reuters correspondent who witnessed the attacks said Israeli fighter jets targeted the Gaza City port and de facto government-run buildings.

It is believed that 33 members of Fatah, who were held in Hamas prisons, died in the airstrikes.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military had no immediate comment on the airstrikes.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called for a massive response to the airstrikes and a renewal of operations within Israel.

He also asked Palestinians to “remain patient in light of these Israeli crimes.”

Sources within Hamas told Ma’an that every de facto security building in the Gaza Strip was attacked.

Islamic Jihad leader Khaled Al-Batsh said that the Israeli attack amounts to “open war” against Palestinians, intended “to put down the resistance.”

Al-Batsh condemned international and Arab States for their “silence on such massacres.” He also swore that what had happened “would never make the resistance factions surrender.”

***Updated 13:07 Bethlehem time

Opening Hebron

2008-11-07T08:36:00.022+02:00

This week the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee is organizing different events and actions to bring life to the old city of Hebron.

For decades Israelis have been living illegally in the old city, taking over Palestinian homes and throwing garbage, dirty water, and chunks on concrete onto the Palestinian merchants and passersby. Many shops have been closed by Israeli military orders but even more shops are closed because the Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers harass people and--prior to HRC's renovation of streets and removal of roadblocks--made it nearly impossible for cars to reach the old city.

Some of the major streets in the old city are closed off to Palestinians completely.

I went to Hebron on Tuesday with my husband and two friends from California. I had to do some last minute shopping for the annual holiday bazaar (mark your calendars for Dec 13!) at one of the three open textile shops in the old city. We walked passed dozens of closed shops and only saw a handful of other people. It should be a bustling market like the old cities in Bethlehem and Jerusalem but instead Hebron is a ghost town. (Note: I purchased keffiyahs made at a factory in Hebron but thanks to globalization, this factory is now competing with Chinese-made keffiyehs.)

My friend and tour guide extraordinaire met us in the old city and took us on a mini walking tour to see some of the racist graffiti by settlers, the wire nets that catch some of the garbage and stones settlers throw out their windows, and examples of the renovations that HRC has done to make it easier for people to live and work in the old city.

Of course, for Hebron to really come back to life, the streets, the houses, and the shops must be returned to their rightful owners. But in the meantime HRC distributed thousands of Palestinian flags to businesses and homes to show that despite the constant attempts to drive people out, Hebron is a Palestinian city.

You can join the HRC's campaign by sending a letter (sample below) to lift the closures:

Introduction to the letter:

The sufferance of 180,000 Palestinian citizens continues in Hebron Old City due to Israel’s eight-year-long closure of the city centre.
United Nations humanitarian affairs reports indicated that more than 101 roadblocks, barricades and military checkpoints are preventing the pursuance of normal life in the city and are tearing its old part to shreds, for the sole purpose of protecting 400 Israeli settlers living in the city.
We invite you to take part in the National Campaign Against Israeli Closures in Hebron Old City launched by city citizens and organizations calling for an end to this blockade by sending the attached letter, or any other text requesting the lift of the siege, to the addresses of Israel’s Prime Minister, its Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs, and to the Speaker of the Knesset.

Text of the letter:

We refuse the closure imposed on Hebron’s Old City and demand that the Israeli government and Israeli occupation authorities lift the blockade, thus allowing Palestinian citizens to enjoy freedom of travel and normal mobility in their own city.

Addresses to which the letter should be sent:

Prime Minister Office - pmo.heb@it.pmo.gov.il,
Tel. 02-6705555, Fax. 02-6705475

Minister of Defense (Barak) sar@mod.gov.il,
Tel. 03-6976663, Fax. 03-6976218

Also, please send a copy of the letter to us at the following e-mails:
hebroncampaign@hotmail.com
hebroncampaign@gmail.com
hebroncampaign@yahoo.com

Olive Picking with Ibdaa

2008-10-31T22:23:00.014+02:00

Olives are a staple in Palestine. Every meal has home-made olives or tasty olive oil. People use olive oil soap in their homes. They carve olive wood into prayer beads, candle holders, and nativity scenes.

I've been told some of the olive trees in Palestine date back to Roman times. The trees aren't just part of the landscape - they are the landscape. They cover the hills outside Jenin, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and the plains outside Gaza, adding texture and color.

October is olive harvest season in Palestine. There are international delegations, festivals, and other activities to mark the olive harvest each year. But Israel's illegal construction of settlements, walls, and creation of "security" zones is threatening the cultural and economic importance of olive trees by confiscating and uprooting groves of trees.

When I go back to the US after a trip to Gaza and describe the restrictions on movement, the destruction caused by bombings and tank shellings, and the lack of basic goods, people always ask me how families in Gaza are surviving. I tell them I don't know. Of course, not everyone survives. 252 patients have died in Gaza since June 2007 because they were not allowed to seek medical treatment abroad and the shortages of medicine and electricity in Gaza have devastated the medical system. 62 children have been killed this year as a direct result of the Israeli occupation. And the economic situation in Gaza is desperate with 80% living below the poverty line.

But I learned something last week when Dr. Mona called me from the olive groves outside Beit Hanoun. The real answer is that the people in Gaza support each other. Dr. Mona went with a group of local volunteers to help farmers pick their olive trees near the very militarized border between Israel and Gaza. They went there and donated their labor. But more than that they gave moral support to these farmers who were scared to walk to their lands because they could see Israeli tanks in the distance. Dr. Mona held out the phone so I could hear some of the volunteers and farmers singing traditional songs as they worked their way from one ancient tree to another.

This morning I had the chance to go to the village of Nahalin to help families harvest their olive groves with 25 children, staff, and volunteers from Ibdaa. Nahalin is about 20 minutes southwest of Dheisheh Refugee Camp. The village is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements and their bypass roads. Much of their agricultural land has been stolen.

The first place we went with the villagers was to a grove of olives next to the settlement of Betar. This settlement, like all settlements, is perched on the top of a hill like a military fortress with an army jeep patrolling the edges of the settlement.

We only stayed in Nahalin for three hours since some of the girls had to get back for their basketball game. We were completely exhausted from these few hours work since none of us are used to it. But it was also energizing for me to witness bonds being built between people from a refugee camp and a village. Israel has worked so hard at creating divisions between Palestinians. They've closed roads, constructed checkpoints, privileged Christians over Muslims, and tried many other colonial divide and conquer tactics.

It was just a few hours but today children and adults from Dheisheh Refugee Camp who were uprooted from their farmlands 60 years ago went to pick olives like their grandparents and great-grandparents used to and they broke some of the barriers and stereotypes separating them from other Palestinians.

Ramadan in Palestine complete with Israeli invasions, katayef, and checkpoint closures

2008-09-08T10:50:00.007+02:00

Ramadan started last Monday. This is the first time I've been in Palestine during Ramadan and I didn't plan on fasting. I like to eat all day and I LOVE my snack breaks during work. Plus religion is just not for me. But I realized quickly that this is a family holiday, everyone comes home from work in time to eat together and it seemed like a nice tradition to join in on. The first day was rough, very rough. My mind was foggy by 3pm and I was bickering with people over nothing. But it's getting easier (although maybe you'd get another opinion from people who have to be around be all day).

My husband's mother and sisters have been catering to my very particular palate. They make me a plate of Arabic salad without tomatoes and a main dish without meat every day. After dinner every night we play games and the whole family has mastered Uno. We've also discovered that my nine-month-old niece loves green onions and lemons but not sweets.

With the game playing and family time I can sometimes go days without really feeling the Israeli military occupation. Even with the concrete wall in front of our house I've learned to forget and go on with "normal life." On Thursday Hazem and I picked up katayef, a pancake like dessert that you bake with cheese or nut stuffing and then dip in sugar syrup, and continued down the main road towards his family's house. We had called ahead to make sure no one else brought dessert so we knew there were Israeli soldiers near the house but we hoped that by the time we got there they'd have moved on.

Israeli jeeps block the main road forcing cars
to turn around and try another route.

When we reached the area in front of Ibdaa Cultural Center we could see Israeli jeeps blocking the main road ahead of us. So we took a detour up the hill to the right and tried to come down the hill on another street that leads direct to his family's house. From the hill we could see a jeep and a giant trucked parked right outside his family's house. Israeli soldiers were walking through the area with guns pointed in every direction. We drove down to the bottom of the hill but the road was blocked there too. So we waited.

It was getting close to sundown when everyone breaks their fast so we decided to try a third route to the house. We went back up the hill (his family lives on a hill opposite the one we were on) and farther south before coming down. The main road was open here but there were soldiers blocking the road as we got closer to his house. They had two jeeps and a large truck just to block the road. So we waited with many, many other people anxious to get home and eat. Finally some military vehicles started leaving. We saw five or six leave and then a few minutes later the ones blocking the road pulled out. As we turned up the hill towards the house we saw a line of at least five more military cars leaving.

The first group of military jeeps leaving Dheisheh

Refugee Camp.

We entered the house and sat down to eat just as the sheikh's voice rang out over the loud speaker of the mosque. It took more than an hour to drive from our apartment in Bethlehem to his family's house, a drive that is normally about six minutes. On Friday I saw some video footage taken by an international volunteer at Ibdaa. It shows soldiers in front of Ibdaa and the main entrance to Dheisheh Refugee Camp firing "rubber-coated" bullets* into the streets of the camp. I guess we're supposed to expect this as a response to the rocks that were thrown at the jeeps and soldiers. But while the Israeli soldiers wear helmets, thick steel toed boots, and bulletproof vests, the kids are just out there in their jeans and t-shirts.

Friday brought more awful reminders of the Israeli occupation. I had to go to Jerusalem to drop off papers at the British Consulate for two students from Dheisheh since they are not allowed to enter Jerusalem. I had also planned to visit a friend's mother in the hospital. She lives in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip and was allowed permission to leave for a surgery in Jerusalem after Dr. Mona and several internationals in Gaza spent three long days at the Erez Crossing petitioning Israeli authorities to allow her out. She missed her scheduled surgery and is now waiting in the hospital far from her friends and family for the new surgery date on Tuesday.

So it's Friday morning and I've collected all the necessary papers at Ibdaa and I set out to the main intersection in Bethlehem (the only traffic light in the whole district) to catch a bus to Jerusalem. When I arrive there is no bus which is very unusual and someone tells me they cancelled the regular service today. I guess this should have triggered something but it didn't. I was in a hurry so I got back in a shared taxi and made my way to the Bethlehem-Jerusalem terminal (it's a checkpoint but when Israel built a warehouse size building and equipped it with hand scanners, x-ray machines, endless turnstiles that are switched on and off by someone watching you on camera, and catwalks for soldiers above your head, they renamed it a "terminal").

There were tons of taxis which is very unusual since it has gotten really difficult for Palestinians to get permits to enter Jerusalem so the area is usually empty. As I walked towards the 8 meter wall (you have to pass through a door in the wall to get to the warehouse sized checkpoint building) I noticed a crowd and another concrete wall. The Israeli military had constructed a small wall blocking the way to the checkpoint with three doorway sized breaks in this new wall. I noticed women gathered at one break in the wall so went over there. No one was moving. Soldiers were standing silently blocking the way to the checkpoint. And the crowds were standing patiently waiting for someone to let them pass.

It was the first Friday of Ramadan and many people from all over the West Bank were on their way to pray in Jerusalem. Finally one young soldier pulled out a bullhorn and starting screaming in bad Arabic that the checkpoint was closed and everyone should go home. He put the bullhorn right up in people's faces screaming and then moved down the line to the other groups of people waiting at the breaks in the wall. I wanted to smack him. But everyone else quietly backed up explaining to him and other soldiers how far they'd come and how long they'd waited. I arranged with the consulate to send the papers by fax and got to leave the sweltering heat but as I left even more people were arriving hoping to make their way to the Dome of the Rock, a right guaranteed under international law.

In other news, Hazem and I bought a car! We're really excited. It's a bit complicated but he actually had a car before but it had Israel license plates (Israeli used cars are much cheaper because there is less demand for them) so it was technically illegal for him, as a Palestinian with a West Bank ID, to drive the car. We still used it driving around Bethlehem but couldn't use it to leave the Bethlehem area. We thought about keeping the Israeli plated car, putting it in my name and then trying to get him a permit to use the car. But this permit would only be valid in Bethlehem and if we wanted to go to Ramallah I would have to take the car through Jerusalem since Israeli cars aren't allowed on stretches of the Palestinian road between Bethlehem and Ramallah and he would have to take a shared taxi that goes around Jerusalem through two checkpoints and meet me in Ramallah since he is not allowed to enter Jerusalem. So Palestinian plates it is...

*Actually metal bullets wrapped in a hard rubber shell. These bullets have killed and injured many Palestinians

Palestinian boy sent back at checkpoint, visiting destroyed villages

2008-06-22T13:51:00.000+03:00

June 22, 2008 Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine.
Deborah Agre, MECA staff

Several of us from the MECA went from the Bethlehem area to Jerusalem by bus for more shopping for the Holiday Bazaar (we’re going to have some really great stuff this year—December 13). The bus was stopped and we all got off at the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Everyone showed his or her permits or passports. Palestinians who don’t have Jerusalem residency or Israeli citizenship have to apply for special permits to enter the Jerusalem area. (Additional permits are required to go further. For an excellent article about this system click here.) A boy of around 13 handed the Israeli soldier something, but it wasn’t the right thing. They yelled at him in Hebrew. He stood there and as more soldiers came over his brow got more and more furrowed. MECA director Barbara Lubin put her arm over his shoulder and told the soldiers he was with us. One soldier started shouting at us that this was the border and a Palestinian can’t enter Israel without permission, just like an Israeli couldn’t enter the US without permission. OK, so if this is the border and Israel is on one side, what’s on the other side? Not a Palestinian state. Not any entity that can prevent Israelis from coming in; from stealing land and water, from establishing settlements, building walls and Israeli-only roads, arresting and attacking people. Besides, Israel actually has no established, internationally-recognized borders.

The boy was left at the checkpoint, far from town. I was left, as I so often am here, wondering if there was something more we could have or should have done.

Later that week our friend Ziad (Director of the Ibdaa Cultural Center) got a permit to enter the Jerusalem area for three days and zero nights. Ibdaa and some other community centers in West Bank refugee camps organized a trip for kids to visit some of the villages in “48” (AKA Israel) that their families lived in before the ethnic cleansing of 1947-48. When the trip ended Ziad still had a few hours left on his permit and another friend from the US had a rented car. So four of us took off to visit Zakaria, Ziad’s father’s village and other villages about a half hour from Dheisheh. I saw two things there I hadn't seen on previous visits: 1) An area of incredibly beautiful green mountains and valleys; 2) The return of the Palestinian refugees is more than a romantic desire, political demand, or compliance with international law. Here is the land their parents and grandparents left so recently and so close to where they live now in crowded cement refugee camps. These aren’t little anachronistic villages (though there are the remains of some). They are big, big spaces, most of them unpopulated or sparsely populated. Those who argue that if the refugees return Israel will no longer be a Jewish state are making their own counter-argument: Israel was created and is sustained by a grave injustice, one that is still possible to correct. Yes, I fully understand, as do most Palestinians, that it does get more complicated when we’re talking about returning to land, or even homes, where people—most of whom were born after 1948—are living their lives. Complicated, difficult, and painful. But not impossible to reconcile the rights of current residents with the rights of the refugees.

Zakaria is now a small bedroom community near Jerusalem. “Look what they have here for their children,” Ziad noted as we passed a large, well-equipped playground and a basketball court. “Look how Shlomo can come home from work, sit in the garden and look at this beautiful view. How can they sleep at night?” We all sighed, knowing that they sleep just fine. As we walked through another village, now a national park where “Shlomo can come with this family and have a nice barbecue,” I ask Ziad how he feels when he comes here. “Here, at least I can breathe,” he says sadly.

More immediate, and nearly as fervent among young people in Dheisheh Refugee Camp is the desire to go to the beach. It is really, really hot. They are on summer break. The beach is only an hour away. But even if they get permits to enter the Jerusalem area—which takes a while for young women, is virtually impossible for young men—they are still not allowed to go further to reach to the Mediterranean. But someone figured out that, at least for the moment, foreigners driving rented cars with Israeli plates are not stopped at checkpoints. So, the beach shuttles have begun, and I’m sure will continue through the summer until someone gets caught, and the Israeli soldiers begin stopping rental cars at checkpoints.

Deborah Agre from Dheisheh

2008-06-16T13:47:00.000+03:00

June 16, 2008, Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine.
Deborah Agre, MECA staff

I am here to co-lead the MECA delegation in July. I came a few weeks early to visit friends and MECA projects in the West Bank and Gaza (we’ll see if I get into Gaza), and to attend a wedding. After we landed in Tel Aviv I got in one of the four adjacent lines processing people with foreign passports. As my turn approached, I noticed that two women wearing hijab who had been on the plane with me from Canada, stood at two of the four windows. I decided to count how many others went through while they stood there. I got to eleven when one woman was escorted away by a guard, presumably to be questioned further, detained, or possibly even denied entry and sent back. My brief turn at the window came and went while the other woman was still standing there.

We drove for a while before I got the first glimpse of the landscape I love so much, terraced hills, patched with olive groves and other desert plants; the old hand-built stone walls blending with the natural rock forms; the subtle variegated colors of the stone. I think of my old friend Jonathan, who died recently and suddenly. He grew up in the southwest and lived in the hills of Contra Costa County, California. I learned from him a real appreciation for the beauty and quiet drama of this kind of non-lush landscape. Jonathan saw the beauty of rocks, in all their shape, texture and color variations like no one else. Except probably the Palestinian stone masons who built the terrace walls by hand, fixing each rock in its place, apparently fitted together by shape, balance and gravity.

I’m staying at the Ibdaa Cultural Center’s Guesthouse with others from the US and Europe. MECA has worked with Ibdaa for many, many years and we always receive an enthusiastic welcome and many invitations to the homes of families connected to the center. We have an enormous and delicious lunch at the home of Khaled Al-Saifi, the co-director of Ibdaa who’s daughter Keyan is one of the students who attends college in the US with the help of MECA’s Ramzy Halaby Education Fund. Keyan is here visiting, and serves as our interpreter as Khaled takes us on a tour of Ibdaa’s new Women and Children’s Building. Keyan adds approving commentary about the importance of women working together, without men, to be strong on their own, to run their own programs and make their own decisions. We go to the roof of the building to get the view of the camp, the Wall, and the growing settlement beyond. Keyan points to the densely built-up hills on one side of the camp and tells me sadly, that is was all green when she was a child. They used to play and have picnics there. Further away, Efrat settlement, called “the Snake” is like a wall itself—grabbing land, dividing communities, diverting normal traffic between towns.

The wedding, which involves no actual ceremony, proceeds with three parties, several meals before during and after, and lots of dancing. The day after the main wedding party, as I am checking my email, someone comes into the computer room and tells us the Israeli Army is here and everyone runs to the restaurant on the top floor to see what’s happening. I see three jeeps on the main road, and one headed to the neighborhood across from the camp. They are looking for a young man there, and they have blocked off the road. Dozens of young men run out to throw stones at the jeeps. Um Mohammed, who works at the Guesthouse, runs after them, yelling for them to stop and come inside. For the next several hours we are at the windows watching, jumping at the sound bombs, inhaling tear gas, and noting the sound of live ammunition. The young people inside are crying and laughing and talking. Others continue to throw stones at the jeeps from just inside the camp. The Americans note the distance and accuracy of the stones, and make jokes about potential baseball careers. I catch myself wondering if I’ll be able to get the phone I need now that the road is closed. I look at the jeeps I think of all the talk of “violence on both sides of the conflict.” Here it is so painfully obvious: Can Palestinians drive armored jeeps to an Israeli town, stop all activity, shoot sound bombs, tear gas and bullets at the civilian population? Arrest people almost at random, hold them indefinitely without trial? And besides, if you have armored jeeps and flak jackets, why do you have to shoot anything at anybody? I’m convinced this show of force is, of course to intimidate people into submission, but also to reinforce for the soldiers themselves and the folks back home the idea that the Palestinians are all dangerous all the time.

As things appear to calm down, we hear the windows shatter on the Ibdaa bus (used to travel to basketball and soccer games, dance performances and filed trips), someone’s car, and the little camera shop near the entrance to the camp. Sound bombs, which I find out later are “practice grenades,” have done the damage. Finally Ziad Abbas, (the other Ibdaa co-director) convinces us all to come away from the windows, sit down and eat the food that was prepared for a church group that had planned to visit that day. The jeeps drive off. The roads open. I get my phone. Later I find out that the “wanted” young man was not arrested, but his family home was ransacked and several young people were wounded by plastic bullets.

Night Sky in Gaza

2008-01-18T17:55:00.000+02:00

I'm not a positive or optimistic person but my friends and co-workers in Palestine have taught me how to find the best things in the worst situation and how to enjoy the moment while I can.

When people ask me why I go to Gaza I usually joke that it's my vacation. Gaza is on the Mediterranean and someday I hope it will be beautiful, especially for the people who live there and have survived decades of hell on earth. But sometimes I feel like I really am on vacation.

Even in the worst circumstances there are moments when everything is quiet and you can close your eyes and hear the sea. I took a walk last Saturday with a friend. It was the first walk for me in Gaza. Ever. We went to the beach and collected sea shells. We even put our feet in the warm water.

On my last night in Gaza, we were driving home from dinner with friends. There was no electricity in most of the towns and neighborhoods we drove through so we had a beautiful view of the night sky. Looking up you could almost forget that you were in one of the most densely populated places in the world.

I know these brief moments are not available to everyone in Gaza and that they come easier to me since I'm only in Palestine for a visit. I know most people in Gaza (and in the West Bank) are too consumed with the safety of their children and families, figuring out where the next meal is coming from, and wondering what is next. But even in the midst of this, there are festivals, sports matches, and dark nights that let people take a deep breath. I think this is some of the most important work our partners are doing in Palestine - creating spaces for children and the local community to leave behind the burdens of daily life for a few minutes or a few hours.

Of course, the Israeli occupation is still there and drags people back to reality. When the Al-Assria organized a festival in Gaza City a few months ago, 600 people came to watch the debka dancing and celebrate Palestinian culture. But at the end, they all went back to homes without reliable electricity or clean water. When the Ibdaa basketball team won the West Bank championship last summer there were bus loads of fans from three generations. But then we traveled back from Ramallah through Israeli checkpoints, getting stopped for hours. And in the midst of a dark, tranquil night last week there was a loud boom from Israeli warplanes bombing a car.

Since I left Gaza on Tuesday morning, 30 people have been killed in Gaza. This is a huge number and it becomes even larger when you think about how small Gaza is. It's equivalent to 60 people being killed in Los Angeles or 165 in New York City. But more frightening than the numbers is how "normal" these almost daily killings have become for the international community and also for people in Palestine.

People, Presidents and Peace

2008-01-14T02:27:00.000+02:00

I remember now why I stopped watching television and reading newspapers. I can't bear to read stories and listen to commentaries on political issues that are unrelated to people’s reality.

For months the main discourse on Palestine/Israel in the US has been about peace talks and negotiations. I managed to avoid most of the fanfare by getting my news from a few select websites but I was forced to pay attention this week when George W. Bush came to visit.

I was quietly sipping my morning tea at Ibdaa Cultural Center, just outside of Bethlehem, when we heard planes overhead and rushed to the windows. You see there are no airports in the West Bank so it's unusual and worrisome to find low flying planes. It turned out they were US planes checking the area in preparation for Bush's visit to Ramallah and Bethlehem. Some friends told me that they landed at the helicopter landing strip just beside Dheisheh Refugee Camp and loads of men in uniforms came out and then piled into black SUVs. When Bush himself came to the Bethlehem area a few days later, his security detail closed many streets to cars and imposed curfew on several neighborhoods.

Bush’s visit was supposed to show that he is serious about peace but during a press conference he joked about Israeli checkpoints - something that is anything but funny to the 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank who cannot travel freely from one Palestinian city to another because of the checkpoints. It takes more than words to show you are serious. There is no doubt that he and the rest of my government are good with words – peace, human rights, democracy – I’m sure you’re familiar with their favorites. But we are draining the last shreds of meaning from these words by never using our resources and political power for any of these causes.

While my president met with the Palestinian president in Ramallah to make abstract statements and plan for a peace settlement that will never come to be, I was lucky enough to be with people in Gaza.

I spent that morning at a school in Bureij Refugee Camp. Afaq Jadeeda Association, one of MECA’s partners in Gaza, had completed construction of a water purification system for the school and planned an opening ceremony with children, teachers, and community members. Safe drinking water is hard to find in Gaza so the children’s parliament came to Afaq Jadeeda with this idea. Now 2000 children have access to clean water which is wonderful but not nearly enough.

There are 1.5 million people living in Gaza and more than half are children. The situation has become so bad that it would be worth celebrating if everyone’s basic needs were met. Israel has put heavy restrictions on the border crossings. They have reduced the amount of fuel coming into Gaza so the only power station cannot run at full capacity and homes, schools, and hospitals must go without electricity for several hours each day. We have only had power for three hours since morning and it is now 11pm. Dr. Mona’s computer is ruined because of the fluctuation in power and the same is happening to important equipment throughout Gaza.

The border restrictions and power outages have made the prices for food, candles, cigarettes, and especially chocolate go up and up while family’s incomes go down and down. I visited a farm just outside of Khan Younis today – there were at least 10 people there harvesting onions but they will not be able to earn a living from their hard work because they cannot export the onions and people in Gaza do not have enough money to pay fair prices.

How can Abbas, Bush and Olmert discuss peace just a few miles from these children without clean water? I am turning off the television and the radio and closing the New York Times website. I have seen the effects of US and Israeli policies in Gaza and I don’t want to hear the word peace until they are able to show it to me here in Gaza.

Back in Gaza

2008-01-11T22:04:00.001+02:00

I'm back in Gaza. It's been almost a year since my last visit here and I don't quite know what to say or where to begin.

The situation has been terrible and dangerous in Gaza since my first visit in May 2004 (and much before). But each time there are new obstacles and difficulties for the ordinary people to overcome - military incursion, international sanctions, power outages, water shortages, closure - the list could go on for pages.

In May and August 2004 I came just after major Israeli military incursions that destroyed hundreds of houses and acres of orange groves and farm land. I can still picture Beit Hanoun in August 2004. The taxi driver stopped the car and I was sure that he had made a mistake and taken us to the wrong spot. I had been on the same street just a month and a half before and at that time both sides of the street were lined with houses and there were acres of orange trees behind the houses on the left. I was horrified when I recognized one of the houses that was left standing. The neighborhood was decimated.

Since August 2004 my visits to Gaza have been so infrequent that I can no longer be sure whether I have been to an area before. The landscape changes so drastically and the rubble from years of demolished houses, factories, and schools blend together; it's nearly impossible for my untrained eye to discern last week's destruction from last year's.

The long journey

I woke up early on Tuesday morning and phoned the liaison office at Erez Crossing which is run by the Israeli army. After five days my request had been approved so I arranged a ride to the crossing and packed my bags - stopping to get chocolate and cigarettes for friends in Gaza because both are now rare commodities with exorbitant prices.

I arrived at Erez at 2pm and submitted my passport to an Israeli police officer. They told me to sit and wait. So I waited, and waited, and waited. There were only a handful of people crossing that day - a few foreigners who work at NGOs, a couple of Palestinians returning from meetings in Israel and the West Bank, and one or two journalists. They all came and went while I sat and read my book.

At 6pm I was finally able to speak with someone besides the woman behind the desk. He told me I didn't have permission but I insisted I did and showed him the call log on my cell phone that showed my phone call to Erez that morning. He sent me to another building to speak with someone from the army. The details aren't that important, just the absurdity of it as I went back forth between the army and the police. I was alternately told I had permission, I didn't have permission, I never applied and needed to send an application, and that I was talking to the wrong person. I was finally sent away at 7pm.

I came back the next morning and was allowed to enter. One woman from the liason office claimed there was a computer error on Tuesday and that everything was fixed now. I consider myself lucky to have been able to pass and to have gotten any kind of explanation, no matter how implausible. There are countless stories of Palestinians seeking medical treatment or wanting to travel for their studies or jobs and they are turned away again and again by Israel, locked inside Gaza with only a word of explanation: security.

First impressions

Most of my family and friends asked me not to come to Gaza. They saw the death tolls in the days leading up to my trip - 11 in 24 hours, 6 the next day including a mother and her children - and told me it was too dangerous. They're right. It is too dangerous in Gaza. Too many people have lost their lives: 290 Gazans were killed by Israeli forces in 2007 dozens more from internal fighting.

But, as always, life goes on. Just like life went on in Rafah after thousands of people were made homeless in 2004 for Israel to build a wall between Gaza and Egypt. And when sonic bombs terrified the population in 2005 because there were no longer Israeli settlers in Gaza who would have also been disturbed. And when the main power plant was bombed leaving much of the population without electricity and international sanctions increased the number of people living in poverty in 2006.

I have spent the past year reading articles and reports of human rights violations; rising poverty; shortages of food, medication, and other necessities; and many other horrors. These are an important part of the story but they are not the whole story. It's strange to say, but it's actually great to be here, surrounded by friends and co-workers, seeing a bit of the other side of life in Gaza. There is no doubt that the situation is hard for people and that they are suffering because of the policies of the Israeli government and the indifference of the international community, but people are making the best of these hard circumstances and I'm glad to be here to see it.

I'll post photos and stories later but need to stop here before the power goes out again.

Digital Resistance: Palestinian Youth Media

2007-09-27T03:48:00.001+02:00

The incredible digital stories made by youth from Ibdaa in Dheisheh Refugee Camp and Lajee in Aida Refugee Camp are now posted on-line!

These original pieces are a great educational resource about Palestine. Each youth participant was so sincere and thoughtful in creating his/her piece and sharing parts of their lives. Please spread the word about these youth pieces and help make their voices heard!

Watch them online or order Digital Resistance, the DVD compilation!

Palestine Shifting Beneath My Feet

2007-02-04T00:02:00.000+02:00

The constant construction and destruction is overwhelming. This is my sixth trip to Palestine and I still cannot prepare myself for the differences in landscape and roadways each visit.

I have been traveling around quite a bit the last few days, each time learning anew how to get from one place to another.

Yesterday morning I made my way from Ibdaa Center to East Jerusalem. With the construction of the Wall in Al-Khadr village (next to Dheisheh refugee camp), the route for getting to Jerusalem and Hebron has moved. Jerusalem is north of Bethlehem and Dheisheh but the new route for public transportation is to go south on the Jerusalem-Hebron road. At the end of Al-Khadr village there is a roadblock where you get out of the service (shared taxi) and cross on foot to catch a bus to Jerusalem. As we drove north on a road originally built to connect illegal Israeli settlements to Jerusalem, we passed four caterpillars preparing - no ravaging - patches of land for the Wall. I looked out the window as we passed the place where I used to catch buses to Jerusalem and saw an Israeli military jeep amidst piles of dirt.

The checkpoint on this mostly settler road used to be just two lanes and a small shack for the soldiers to stand but it has rapidly grown to more lanes and a more substantial structure is clearly coming. All over the West Bank, the occupation's checkpoints are becoming larger and more permanent, furthering scarring the land.

As usual, when our Palestinian bus on its way to East Jerusalem approached the checkpoint we were motioned to pull over and told to get off the bus. One by one, an Israeli soldier checked our IDs and had us get back on the bus. But the last two people, a mother and her adult son were sent back. Though they had official "permission" to enter Jerusalem for a visit to the doctor, the soldiers sent them back saying no one with a West Bank ID (an ID card issued by the Israeli occupation issued at age 14 that distinguishes Palestinians living in Jerusalem from those in the West Bank from those living in Israel proper) is allowed through this checkpoint, with or without permission.

After a stop in Jerusalem I went to Ramallah to meet one of the students who was awarded an Elly Jaensch Memorial Scholarship through MECA this year. Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah has been once again renovated and enlarged. I don't even understand where people and cars go in and come out. I guess I'm lucky that I don't have to be that well acquainted with the monstrosity.

We drove through beautiful countryside northwest of Ramallah. The gentle terraced hills with olive trees painted a romantic picture of Palestinian village life until the rural hills turned into urban sprawl housing illegal Israeli settlers. Every time I began to enjoy the view, it was interupted again by another rapidly expanding settlement. They have grown to take more and more land, creeping along the hilltops. On the road to Hebron and Al-Fawwar camp this morning I noticed the same thing. Efrat settlement (commonly called The Snake) has eaten up more Palestinian farmland. And Har Homa, on a hilltop between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, has started moving down the hill. What once was a green, open space in the Bethelehem district is now entirely covered in new suburban style houses and apartment complexes, leaving no trees and none of the natural beauty.

The process of erasure began in 1948 with planting trees to cover the homes and villages that Palestinians were driven from. And it continues today with the construction of settlements, checkpoints, settler roads and the Wall on the ruins of more homes, orchards, and historic roads.

Dr. Mona El-Farra (and 1.5 million others) stuck in Gaza

2007-02-01T14:36:00.000+02:00

Ever since I left Gaza last week I've been checking the news daily to see if the Rafah border opened. And every day there were empty promises of the border crossing opening the next day or in a few days.

Once, the crossing opened to allow people in but until now no one has been able to leave into Egypt (the crossing that I use in the north is only for foreigners, diplomats, aid agencies, or people working inside Israel).

Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA's Director of Gaza Projects, spent several days waiting to travel but the conference she was to speak at opened two days ago so she finally unpacked her bags. You can read Mona's account of this experience on her blog and also read more about it on the Guardian's comment is free page.

The reality is so absurd that I have trouble grasping it. It's the equivalent of sealing of the city of San Francisco from all directions and only allowing people in and out through 101. Then guaranteeing 101 will also be open for "ease of movement." And then closing 101 while making announcements about when it will be open in the future that rarely are true. So people book flights out of SFO, set meetings with colleagues in San Mateo and plan to visit family in Santa Cruz. They wake up each morning for the whole week before the flight, meeting or visit prepared to leave only to find the border closed again and again and again.

Obviously, that's not a perfect analogy but it helps me see how ridiculous, painful and crazy-making the border situation is for Gazans.

First Public Screening!

2007-01-27T21:36:00.000+02:00

Tonight was the community screening at Ibdaa of the twelve digital stories made by youth in Dheisheh refugee camp and Aida refugee camp.

Over a hundred people filled Ibdaa's community hall on the third floor of the center. It was very powerful to see the stories projected onto a big screen and I think the young people were pleased to share their pieces. Afterwards, we had a reception upstairs in the Ibdaa restaurant and three of the participants interviewed audience members to get feedback and discuss the impact of their words.

I haven't done any of the post-production work so I hadn't seen the pieces for a few weeks. During the screening I was yet again amazed by their work - their words, music and images fit so well together and tell such personal and powerful stories. I'm really looking forward to bringing the pieces to US audiences and hearing people's responses.

More on Gaza

2007-01-23T23:50:00.000+02:00

I'm back in Dheisheh camp after a few more full days with Mona in Gaza. Erez Crossing was, of course, more of the same on the way out. Nightmarish gates and unintelligble directions through a speaker. I left in record time, just over an hour. On the way out you have to navigate the turnstiles, pass your belongings through the x-ray inspection (I had to send mine through four times), go through some frightening human x-ray machine with your hands up and legs spread. Then when someone finally appeared after an hour of getting orders on where to go and what to do through a speaker, the soldier opened and examined everything in my luggage. Another good experience with Israeli "security."

It was an overwhelming four days. Mona was hoping to travel to the UK to speak at a conference so we hurried to get everything done by Saturday when the Rafah Crossing was scheduled to open (predictably, the border didn't open and she had to delay her flight).

Destroyed Home in Beit Hanoun

Beit Hanoun town center

I haven't spent much time in Gaza so it's usually difficult for me to tell the new rubble from the old after so many years of military bombardment. But the scale of destruction was noticeable even to me.

I saw two of the bridges that were bombed by the Israeli military in June and still haven't been reconstructed (with so few trucks able to enter Gaza and the devastated economy, rebuilding is very slow). We drove by endless rows of inhabited houses that have holes from artillery shelling and large tracts of land without even a small bush or patch of grass because they have been newly bulldozed.

But more important than the images of physical destruction, are the effects this violence has had on the people. But my white, middle class upbringing in the US and my short visit there carrying an American passport leaves me unable to even imagine life in Gaza.

The poverty level in Gaza is 80-85%. We have created this. The US/EU/Israeli sanctions against the Palestinian Authority have meant little to no money for government employees. The Israeli attacks with weapons made in the US and paid for by our $3 billion aid package to Israel have left many families with no home, no farm, or no breadwinner. And the border closures have forced the farmers that still have their orchards, greenhouses, or crops to let their produce rot in Gaza because they can't export them in time. It's frightening how fast the economy has plummetted from an already low place.

How can anyone be surprised by the internal violence after we have stood by for decades watching Israel attack and isolate Gaza? It's easy to look in now and say the people should unite, that more violence is the last thing needed. But the whole situaion is so hopeless and they cannot reach those who are responsible to hold them accountable. There's no leaving Gaza and no explaining the truth on CNN, so people have to place the blame on those they can reach, rival political factions in Gaza.

Hell and Hope in Gaza

2007-01-17T16:27:00.000+02:00

Mona and I had a busy day together in Gaza. Last night, she took me to Anonymous Soldier Square in central Gaza City. There is a protest tent there with people speaking out against the internal violence and calling for a united movement in Palestine. There are about 15 people fasting at the tent and people coming and going all day to show their support.

Then this morning we drove by the apartment that was home to the three boys killed by gunmen in December. They were 3, 6 and 9. Their photos were pasted on the walls in the entryway. It was hard for me to look at their smiling faces so I can't imagine what it must be like for their family and friends.

We made our way through Gaza City to Jabalia Refugee Camp which is home to over 100,000 Palestinian refugees. The population density in Jabalia makes Manhattan look positively spacious. We visited with staff and volunteers at Al-Assria Center which runs art, dance, drama, music, media, and educational programs for children and youth from Jabalia. They have really carved out a space for creativity in the camp and have developed some amazing young leaders that now run many of their programs. The center was mostly empty because students are having mid-term exams right now but I saw some of their artwork on the walls and heard from them about some new program ideas for the center.

The strangulation of Gaza as a whole has meant they cannot get the technology they need for their youth media project so we dropped off a video camera that I brought in from the U.S. Their young people have created a few beatiful pieces already of a Ghassan Kanafani play and a documentary called Yom fe Jabalia (A Day in Jabalia). I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the new camera.

We drove by Karni Crossing (the commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel) today and it was the first time I've been to that area. The road that runs along the eastern edge of Gaza has been ripped up in many places by Israeli tanks so it was a bumpy ride. Most of the areas we drove through were flattened, no more orchards, vineyards, or homes. The few buildings that were still standing were pockmarked from bullets and tank shelling. Right now, Karni Crossing is only allowing 14 trucks a day into Gaza instead of the pre-sanction 300 trucks. Of course technology is absent when there are so few chances even for food, medical supplies, building materials, etc.

Then we visited New Horizons Center in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. They welcomed us with a song from their marching band which came as a real surprise to me. It seemed somehow out of place with no football team but they were very enthusiastic and happy so that's what counts. The center is getting ready for a 10 day winter camp with 100 youth that MECA is funding. I got to meet some of the leaders and participants who were planning the camp together and see their facilities. Though they've been around for eight years, we've only known about them and been working with them for a few months so it was good to see what Mona the work and the people that Mona has been telling me so much about.

Though Nuseirat is mostly a conservative community, the center has programs for boys and girls. They are community-based so can challenge some social norms without jeopordizing their relationships with families in the camp.

And now we are back at Mona's flat where the electricity was off for several hours. It's been nearly seven months since Israel bombed Gaza's only power plant and still the electricity is patchy at best. I know it gets said often, but people here are remarkably resilience. I'm sure I could not endure continuous violence, electricity outages, food shortages, and general isolation. But people continue to live and find ways to support and meet the needs of the young people, preparing them for the better future that they deserve.

In any case, we are going back to the tent now but I will download some photos from the day later and add them to the blog.

Erez Nightmare

2007-01-16T22:07:00.000+02:00

I came to Gaza today to spend a few days with Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA's director of Gaza Projects, and to visit the centers we support in Gaza.

The process of getting in and out of Gaza belongs only in terrifying science fiction novels. As a foreigner, I have to apply for permission from an Israeli office at Erez crossing one week before I want to come. I always feel conflicted when dealing with this office because it is part of the occupation infrastructure and staffed by Israeli soldiers. I have trouble deciding how to approach my interactions with them...It's like visiting a friend or relative at a prison and having to ask the prison guards to let you in. I think it's better to have the visit than refuse to interact with the guards but I also don't want to forget or ignore who I'm speaking to.

Each time I apply I face the same excuse from the soldiers at Erez: they never received my fax. As usual, my first fax disappeared into thin air but they did confirm getting it the second time. This is actually quite efficient in my experience. So I called back five days later to see if I had permission or not and had a bizarre conversation with the Israeli soldier on the other end of the line.

His first question was, "What is your number?" Having gone through this process before I knew he was asking for my passport number but I still felt uncomfortable that he wanted my number, not my name. I know I shouldn't expect it from an occupying army but I still want to be treated as a person. After looking me up, he spent a minute trying to pronounce my name and guess it's origin which is actually quite common for me. Something about "Shields-Stromsness" really arouses people's curiousity. He then told me I had permission until July 15, 2007 "which is a good day. " I didn't know what he meant. Could I enter now? What was good about July 15? I was worried some propoganda would follow but instead he continued that July 15 is the day he finally gets out of the army and that I could enter any time after January 15. I didn't know what to say and still don't. There were so many uncomfortable things going on in such a short phone call. I was calling to ask him (and the Israeli army by extension) for permission, he was looking me up by a number, and then he tells me he's looking forward to leaving the army. But why tell me? Why not refuse to serve? Was he saying this because I'm an American going to Gaza so he thought it was what I wanted to hear?

In any case, I'll continue explaining the surreal process. I took a taxi to Erez from Dheisheh camp this morning and when we arrived at Erez the soldiers at the gate would not let me get out at the gate. Instead, we drove around a military compound that is surrounded by concrete walls with sniper towers and I got out and walked 200 feet completing the circle that took me back to the gate. They checked my passport and sent me inside the office where I am used to waiting at least 1/2 hour while they check everything and then ask me quesitons. This time, I didn't even sit down - just in and out. Then I handed my passport to an Israeli soldier for the third time and entered this long corridor of electric gates and turnstiles. I had carelessly brought with me a large bag with gifts and a video camera for one of our partners. It was hilarious negotiating the trunstiles with such a bag while a Palestinian woman on the exiting side of a fence directed me. We were both laughing and shaking our heads while I pushed and pulled to get both myself and my bag through. Next time, I'll remember to pack light.

I walked through the corridor, waiting now and then for a gate to open. I stopped at one point to switch my shoulder bag to my other shoulder and someone barked at me in Hebrew through a loudspeaker. There are surveillance cameras up and down the length of the corridor. What are they afraid of? Someone taking a photo that shows the maze of gates and metal detectors with mostly elderly and sick people from Gaza who are trying to cross so they can get adequate healthcare?

And that's literally the VIP treatment for getting into Gaza. The ordeal of going through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is an entirely different and more horrific experience. As is crossing at Erez if you are not an international but a Palestinian.

Digital Storytelling in Dheisheh

2007-01-12T01:18:00.000+02:00

I've been in Palestine now for a week though it feels much longer with my never-ending days. I'm at Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh refugee camp right now running a digital storytelling workshop with twelve youth from Ibdaa Center and Lajee Center in Aida refugee camp (also in Bethlehem).

There are six of us from the US working together with staff and volunteers from the centers on facilitating the workshop and it's still exhausting! We are packing so much into this week-long project but it's working out well. Tomorrow is our last day and I'm confident they'll all have something powerful to share (or to keep private if they choose) by the end of the day.

It's been interesting for me to be working directly with youth while in Palestine. I'm usually doing administrative work here and I'm enjoying spending lots of time with young people. Two of the participants are also members of the Ibdaa Dance Troupe who I spent a month with for their November 2005 tour so it's great to be with them again and continue getting to know them.

In any case, it's 1am and I need to get to bed so I will be ready for the workshop to begin again at 9am. So, here are some photos and I'll try to write again soon.

Playing "pass the penny" icebreaker in the Ibdaa computer lab

One participant sharing her life map before starting to write her story