Today I went with my cousin's wife and her children to Gaza's Office of Social Welfare to pick up her monthly pay-check from the government. My cousin was killed last September by an Israeli sniper while he stood in front of his house. Overnight his children and wife became eligible to receive 375 NIS (a little less than $100) a month from the government because their father was now a martyr.
This is our third time coming to the office in the last month, because each time it is closed. Rather, the gates are open, with guards, but the office was not operating, and there were no staff members to help us. "Why closed," I asked one of the guards, "On strike," he replied. "So what do we do now"? I pleaded, "Hope we get paid so we can come back to work," he replied. I glared at him with frustration, but I knew I could not really blame him or the office staff for not coming to work. He was just like any other employee in Gaza. I guess the government staff had enough, I mean after all, they haven't been paid since January 2006 but yet still came to work. I've even met people who would borrow from their neighbors, just to pay for a taxi to come in to work. But that's just life in Gaza.
Every attempt I make to write about Gaza to give the world on the outside an idea of what the people are going through, it is overwhelming. I am never sure exactly where to begin to even give readers an idea of life in Gaza and the accelerating humanitarian and economic crises. Do I begin describing the effects of the border closures, where according to UNRWA, Gaza is on the verge of an economic collapse and if there are no changes in the next two weeks the entire population will be aid dependant? And we can certainly feel the effects, with the fact that all we have in the market are a few vegetables and are forced to rely on UNRWA's food packages of flour, rice and cooking oil. Ironically, we cannot even grow our own food if we wanted to because farmers have run out of supplies, including fertilizer due to the border closures, but Israel does allow its Israeli grown fruits and vegetables into Gaza when it so chooses. So, we are forced to purchase and eat out of our Occupier's hand, and help them maintain their economy, while ours cripples. So you can forget about divestment here in Gaza.
Or should I write about the 1,000 Palestinians still stranded at the Rafah border, away from their families and running out of money as they sit and wait for the border to open. And how they are living in unsanitary conditions and the sick are getting sicker, and the healthy are getting sick from the lack of proper living conditions. The news does not report about their skin that is peeling from being in the sun all day without drinkable water or proper showering.
How can I describe to people the effects of the government workers going on strike, including the municipalities and solid waste, where Gaza's trash has not been picked up for the past two weeks and how flies, cockroaches and rats run around in our streets and homes? We have to keep everything refrigerated, including sugar because of the rats. Gaza has even run out of rat poison of all things. Or the fact that pharmacies have literally run out of certain medicines which does not register in your mind until you watch your uncle in his bed unable to breath because he does not have his heart medication, or your neighbors 6-month old baby hospitalized for treatable diarrhea.
And God help those that are not refugees, Gazans who were in Gaza before 1948. At least refugees are eligible to get food and medical aid from UNRWA; non-refugees are not. Instead they have to rely on the government and with the government's hospitals closed, many do not have access to medical care. And so the women sit there with their children at the doors of the government's medical clinics hoping the doctors decide to come in, out of the kindness of his heart, even though they too have not been paid since last year.
Or how do I begin to explain to the readers the fact that Abbas's government has completely denied the recognition of all documents coming out of Gaza, including passports, licenses, and degrees. Just yesterday 1,000 college students graduated from Gaza's two universities, yet their degrees are not recognized internationally, or locally within their own country, the rest of Occupied Palestine.
People here have run out of money? Even if their basic needs of food are met, people have no money to buy clothes or school supplies for their children, or enough money to pay tuition, or pay house rent. They have no jobs, and no money and so they spend their time driving back and forth to Gaza's beach because there is nothing left to do in Gaza.
Gazans are being denied every fundamental human right, right to live free, without occupation, without fear; right to an education; right to work; to provide for their families, and the very right to govern themselves and their lives. All the while, Beit Hanoun and Biet Lahiya are being bulldozed away and we are being terrorized by the tanks that sit at our borders and the F-16's that roam our skies. And how do I describe the planes that fly low at random hours of the night to frighten our children who then scream for the rest of the night.
Everything has been taken away from the people of Gaza to the point that if a young man wants to work as a taxi driver because there are no other employment opportunities, he cannot even get a license because licenses can no longer be issued in Gaza. Yet, Ms. Rice met with so-called Palestinian leaders but failed to include Haniya or Hamas in the talks. Gazans were not represented or included in the negotiations. We had no voice. Our needs were not heard, or even considered. We could not even rely on our own President to give us our right of representation. So I ask Abbas, Rice, Fayyad, Bush, Blair and the rest of the world:
What about the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza?
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