Hello From Rafah 3

Dear All,

I hope you are all well. I'm doing very well, and still glad to be here. Unfortunately I cant say the same for the people of Gaza. We're all listening to the radio and watching the news every hour (our only way of knowing what's happening in the outside world), waiting to see what Abu Mazan, Israel and the US are planning for us, and where our fate will take us.

This has become more than a prison for the people of Gaza. Its hard not to feel like animals in a zoo, where we are caged and have enough food for two weeks at a time to keep us alive, but not well or free while someone decides what to do with us. At least in a zoo, if an animal gets sick, its taken out of the zoo and taken to a hospital. Here in Gaza, God forbid you get sick or injured, hospitals are packed and one can't go to Egypt or the West Bank for medical attention. So one is at the mercy of those few people that run this gated zoo, Mr. Abbas, Israel, and the Quartet.

Let me say a few lines about the border, just to give you an idea. It is one of the most dehumanizing and demoralizing forms of injustice that the Palestinians have to go through. There are two gates between Egypt and Gaza, one on the Egyptian side and one on the Gazan side. People wait in line to get in, some go and wait at the gate before dawn so they can be first in line. So they wait 3 or 4 AM until the EU officials decide to come. If they come, they arrive at 9, 9:15, whenever they make it. Sometimes they don't come at all.

The gate opens every few hours and whoever can make a run for it gets in and who ever cannot run waits. Some people jump over the gate in a desperate attempt to get in, but the Egyptians catch them and send them to the back of the line. The elderly and those with children wait, as they cant run for it. Some of them wait for days. The image that stuck most in my head is the opening of the gate and people fighting to get in, and I couldn't help but feel like animals running toward our freedom. Nothing was more demoralizing than that moment.

Once inside the gate, we go through the Egyptian side of the border, and then we go through the same process with the Palestinians. But this time, the Egyptians (sending us off to Gaza) pack us in buses like sardines, with windows that don't open in 100 degree weather and the buses wait until the Egyptians open the second gate to get to the Palestinian side of the border. They pack as many people in the bus as they can because the border may close at any point. Our bus had people hanging from the windows, and people on top of the bus. I stood in the bus for two hours. By the time the bus starting moving my shirt was soaked from sweat.

There are currently 5,000 people waiting to get into Gaza, at the gate on the Egyptian side of the border. They are in no man's land. They cant go beyond the border further into Egypt. They are Palestinians who don't have homes in Egypt and some don't have money to stay in hotels built at the border in Arrej. And they also can't get into Gaza. So they sit in the sun all day and wait. And everyday people die while they wait, from the heat, from exhaustion or of despair at their fate.

I think a lot of us had some hope the day before the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit on Monday, ….we thought Abbas would represent us… the people of Gaza. We had faith and didn't think he would abandon us and cut us off from the rest of Palestine, or allow us to live without our freedom. We also thought he would at least negotiate the border closures, or the release of $40 million in aid from the EU that's waiting and ready (86% of Gazans now live below the poverty line, where in March, it was 80%). But to our disappointment, Abbas did not mention's Gaza economic sanctions or the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, nor did he represent us or our needs. Haniya, who represents's Gaza's needs, who was "disposed to immediately take up this dialogue," was not welcomed. To punish us even more, Israel is releseasing all the taxes it withheld in the last 18 months to Abu Mazan's government, and Gaza will receive nothing. All the while, Israel is launching missiles at Khan Younis and Sufa, killing 13 and injuring 40.

The meeting was aimed at bolstering Abbas and isolating Hamas, and that's exactly what it did. But what the world fails to realize is that its not Hamas they are isolating, its 1.4 million men, women and children, who like the rest of the world want to live in freedom and who like the rest of us have hopes and dreams for themselves and their families.

I'll end with this:

A woman whose 12 year old son was killed in Khan Younis yesterday (he was not a Hamas militant) was speaking on the radio and the broadcaster asked her about what happened. Her response below…..

Where are you Abu Mazan?
Come see my son, he's dead, where are you
Where are you, you forget about us?
And let Israel slaughter us
Come Abu Mazan, come fight off the tanks and missiles…come
But we won't move, we standing still and wont move
and wont leave our homes
Like Israel has planned for us
We're standing still and praise be to Allah, praise be to Allah, we're
standing still

And so we wait to see what is decided for us.

Hello From Rafah 2

Hamas checkpoint where they moniter and control movement

Dear all,

I hope this email again finds you all well. Things have calmed down tremendously in the last several days since Hamas's "victory." For the firs time since I got here 18 days ago, I was able to be out after dark and feel relatively safe. There wasn't any gun fire or people with AK 47s roaming the streets. This mainly because Fatah and Hamas are no longer shooting at each other and because folks in Gaza will tell you, Hamas is and will restore law and order.

Hamas has started going from house to house searching and collecting weapons in Gaza city and Khan Younis since Saturday and will continue to all of Gaza's camps. On Friday there were two rallies cheering Hamas's victory, and from talking to those in the rally, they are supporting Hamas because Hamas is cleaning up "Fatah's thieves" who collaborated with Israel and the US, but also because people feel safer now than they have for months. One man sitting next to me in the taxi yesterday said for the first time in months he isn't worried that his neighbor or cousin may shoot him over a minor feud or getting his car stolen or his daughters kidnapped. He feels safe.

Those supporting Fatah say this victory will not last and like the international media, refer to the recent events, as a "coup." And they'll say, "once Gazans taste starvation they'll be begging for Dahlan to come back." I'm not so sure about that. It feels Gazans can withstand any sort of collective punishment that Israel and the US has in store for them.

I'd like to comment briefly about the usage of the word "coup," only because here in Gaza, only Fatah supporters called it a "coup by the Islamic movement Hamas" as well as news sources who called me for comments. I think people tend to forget that Hamas is not just an Islamic movement, and whether not we agree with its Islamic agenda, it is a political party as well, representative of those people who voted for them. Additionally, they were democratically elected in an election that was enforced by democratic countries all over the world, and it is the failure of the international community to recognize the choice of the people that has placed Gaza in the situation that it is currently in, not the "coup." And as s result, the people of Gaza will suffer the consequences and endure a collective punishment of an economic embargo.

People are frantic, but I don't think they're scared; worried about the future, but not submitting to Israel or the US. People are certainly preparing for the worst. Those who can afford to are stocking up on flour and sugar, especially now that UNRWA has resumed its full duties since the fighting started. I found it hard to move around because the markets have been crowded with people as they prepare for a food and water shortages. Gaza's borders with Egypt and Israel have closed (the Rafah border has been closed for the past two weeks, Karni and Kerem Shalom closed last week). I also learned Israel cut off the gas and when I confirmed it with my aunt she said we have only a couple days of gas left. Egypt in alliance with the US and Israel is putting pressure on Hamas and therefore cutting off the electricity during the night (Rafah and Khan Younis gets its electricity from Egypt), which means we get a few hours of water a day because the electricity has to be strong enough to pump the water from the ground and since most houses are several floors up, water cant always reach....including ours.

Those who cannot afford to stock up worry about how they can feed their families, which is exactly where Israel and the US want us to be. No salaries, no money, no open borders, literally a prison where we live on little food and water and don't have time to plan or organize on how to get ourselves out of this situation. Starvation is the best strategy, but no one in Gaza will starve to death. Israel will cut off gas for a few days, then give us a little; cut off international food aid then allow a few trucks of flour and sugar in. Israel knows how many people are in Gaza and how much to allow in order to to give people a taste of hungry and despair, but not starvation.

And the international community is pushing for the two states, a Hamas Gaza and a Fatah West Bank and continue to speak of how different the two are and continue rallying around the US funded Fatah. So while Gaza is preparing for a humanitarian crisis, the US and Israel plan on how to further separate Palestinians in the the west bank and Gaza from each other so that we may not unify and we may forget about the occupation, and our right of return.

Myself, I'm doing very well and still very glad to be here.

Dear all,

I hope you are all well. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and kind emails. I apologize for not writing sooner. Access to the internet has not been as easy as I expected. For the first couple of days I was here I was able to pick up the internet on my laptop through a wireless connection, but factions between hamas and fatah has gotten worse in the past ten days and the internet and phone networks go down. Not sure what the connection is or why. It's also been hard to find a space to gather my thoughts. It definitely feels like there is a Palestinian occupation, not a civil war; from an Israeli occupation to a Palestinian occupation of the people, and as much as I dislike saying this, its hard not to feel like it is. I say this because of the nature of the so called fighting between Hamas and Fatah. There's definitely been moments where I felt like I was in the horn or Africa, or Liberia with militias controlling and policing the streets without any mercy.

After dark is when it begins and they come out with their machine guns and tell everyone to get in their houses. The scary ones are the ones who wear all black and wrap their faces so you cant see their faces and have rockets in their hands. They're the ones that monitor the streets. And if you are coming home from somewhere in a taxi, the taxi is stopped, headlights are asked to be turned off (like the Israelis used to do), questions are asked and then they let us go. And during all this, there is a machine gun in our faces. In some cases, they tell the passengers to get out of the car and they take it, whether its a taxi or a personal car. So it's understood that there is now a curfew; people are in their homes, and Hamas and Fatah go at it with their guns and rockets in the streets all night. They start at 7:30 pm and continue until the call to prayer in the morning. I say Palestinian occupation because people are scared and aren't free. There are kidnappings; shootings at women and children, and in a couple of cases militants used children as shields so they can move from one house to another. Hamas and Fatah take a hold of the streets of Rafah and control our movement and stand at every street corner to make sure no one gets out. Just last night, they went on peoples' roves uninvited so they can shoot at each other. Israeli soldiers used to do this all the time; occupy someone's house and use it to set up shop so they can get a better aim to shoot from. I cant even tell them apart anymore, whether its Hamas or Fatah roaming the streets.

And all this fighting for what….for political power….not for the people of Palestine….not for the right of return, and not for the ending of the Israeli occupation. And while this is happening in the middle of Rafah, there is an Israeli invasion of Sofa (area in Rafah that borders Israel), where 30 olive trees and 5 homes have been demolished, 10 of the olive trees being ours. I haven't been there to see them yet, as its been hard to find a taxi that will go there because of the Israelis going in and out of Sofa.

Aside from all this, I'm doing very well, and still very glad to be here. More and more everyday I realize the importance of being in Gaza. People here feel forgotten, and most certainly unrepresented, and have gone beyond hopeless. I think whats worst is that most people have gotten comfortable with their situation. In just talking with local organizations in rafah, the blame is on the international community and in their efforts. There is no investment in Gaza; money does not actually enter gaza, but food aid and medical supplies do. One man I met with even went as far to say that international aid was the worst thing that happened to gaza because during the intifada people had no handouts, so they organized, they worked, they built their own sustainable projects. Now the international community gives us floor and sugar so can fill our stomachs and forget about the occupation and organizing ourselves, so people have gotten comfortable with just the handouts. If you don't work, you can get food aid; if you cant afford tomatoes, UNRWA gives it to you, so you don't need to garden and grow it yourself. I don't know, maybe Gazans are just tired, but its hard not to believe him. We did it to Africa, conspired against the Africans, and kept Africa right where we want it, so why not Palestine. We have to rethink our strategies and shift our activism....especially now that there is an reoccupation of Gaza.