Amira Hass 'Everyone Is Abusing Us – Israel, Hamas, Abbas': Latest Round of Violence Finds Gazans Exhausted
“If Hamas
doesn’t respond to Israel’s aggression, people criticize it and
complain about its passivity. If it responds to aggression by firing
Qassam rockets, people are afraid it will escalate the situation into a
war. Poor Hamas and poor people of Gaza,” said a friend living in Gaza,
summarizing a night and day of Qassams and airstrikes.
e continued: “You can’t enter the sea because of
all the sewage flowing into it, but in the afternoon people go in droves
to the beach, the only place where there's any wind. They flee their
hot homes, which have no electricity or air conditioning, often without
running water either. Yesterday [Wednesday], the Israelis bombed the
port and everyone, poor things, ran away and scattered in panic.”
>> No Matter the Outcome, Gaza Is Becoming Netanyahu’s Political Nightmare | Analysis ■ Wooed by Egypt, Hamas and Israel Can Still Prevent All-out War | Analysis
Nobody in Gaza
slept that night, he said over the phone, and others agreed in separate
phone conversations. They all had their own metaphors. “The whole house
shook from the blasts, the furniture wayed and the kitchen utensils rattled,” said an
acquaintance who lives in the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s shells
landed particularly close. By chance, his grandchildren who live in
Gaza were visiting him.
“The poor kids, they
trembled with fear all night. They were scared by Israel’s bombs, by
Qassam rockets – after all, I can’t tell the difference between the
different types of weapons," he said
"And then news arrived that someone from our
area, Ali Ghandour, was killed by Israeli shelling in a farmed area.
They say he belonged to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades. He left
behind a wife and five children. The problem is not with those who die
or are killed, but with those who survive. How will she manage on her
own, how will their children live without a father?
“Part
of the public supports and justifies anything Hamas does. Some oppose
it and are afraid of war. But nobody wants a war. Here, in Deir
al-Balah, a young pregnant mother was killed
– they were Inas and her daughter Bayan, who was 1 and a half years
old. We don’t have reinforced rooms, warning sirens or Iron Dome.
“The bigger problem
we have is that we live in an era of ignorance, particularly the
ignorance among young people. They’re suffocating. With electricity on for only three or four hours a day,
they sit outside without any jobs, sponging a cigarette here and a
shekel for a cigarette there. They don’t think. They don’t know how and
what to think. Anyone who was better off financially left for the West Bank
or went overseas a long time ago. The streets are now full of young men
hobbling along on crutches. These are the wounded of the March of
Return.”
eliving the 2014 war
And then he came to
his political analysis, with the voices of his granddaughters playing in
the background. “It’s convenient for Israel that Hamas is in power,
they want it to stay that way," he said.
"We’re
a miserable nation, with everyone abusing us. On the one hand Israel,
on the other hand Hamas, with [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas
as a third factor. If only they’d open the Erez checkpoint and let
people get work and make a living, everyone would forget about Hamas.”
Indeed, my interlocutor worked in Israel for 35 years.
Another friend's
voice immediately betrayed the fact that she hadn’t slept all night and
didn’t manage to sleep during the day either. “During the bombing on
Wednesday night, I relived all the 55 days of the 2014 war. Having
learned from experience, we opened all the windows so the glass wouldn’t shatter from the
blasts; we moved away from the windows so that drone operators wouldn’t
decide that we were spotters for Hamas and fire missiles at us," she
said.
"So many people we
know were killed that way in previous wars. We checked that no curious
child had gone on the roof, or that there were pigeons there that needed
feeding, or a woman taking down laundry. In all the previous wars and
preludes to war, your army fired missiles and killed women and children
who were on rooftops.
“The tall residential
tower near us was bombed during the last war. It folded and collapsed
in front of our eyes. Our whole house was filled with dust and soot.
Since then it was rebuilt. But last night, during the bombardment, all
night I saw it fold and collapse again. Now we’re waiting to see what
the Israeli cabinet decides.
"We don’t understand a thing. Both sides say they
don’t want war and both sides shell each other like in a war, inviting
escalation. The Israelis killed the pregnant mother and her daughter.
Now we heard that a missile was fired from the Gaza Strip at Be'er
Sheva. We hear Hamas say they don’t want war, but it’s all at our
expense.”
A source in the Palestinian security forces told
Amad, a news website linked to supporters of Fatah's Mohammed Dahlan,
that the rocket was fired by an extremist Salafi group after other armed
groups announced that they would stop responding to Israeli aggression.
According to the
website, the missile launched at Be'er Sheva was a “suspicious” action
(hinting that the people firing it may have been Israeli collaborators)
“that contradicts the common defense strategy,” with its perpetrators
associated with “non-national elements.”
According to the source, Hamas security forces, helped by others, are trying to locate this suspicious group. True
or not, this is a reflection of Gaza residents’ hopes – that Israel
understands that Hamas isn't interested in a war.
“The Qassam rockets
on Wednesday were an understandable response to the killing of two Izz
al-Din al-Qassam fighters. The fact is, Israel expected the response and
admitted that it was a mistake to shoot and kill them. People
understand that there has to be a response,” said a Rafah resident,
hoping, as others did, for a positive outcome from Israel’s cabinet
meeting.
This is proof that
Israel and the Palestinian “street,” as he called it, aren’t interested
in a war. This is how everyone convinces themselves that soon the bombing and missile attacks would end, that the nightmare would be short this time around.
Still time for a wedding
At Gaza's southern
approaches, in the neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, a wedding took place
Wednesday evening. It carried on in the street until 11 P.M. There were
songs and dancing, says another friend. Another wedding party, for women
only, took place in a hotel on the beach.
The father of the
groom insisted that everyone keep dancing at least until 11, concluding
with the words: “We’re strange. We’re afraid but unafraid at the same
time. We understand what’s happening yet we don’t really understand it. I walked through the
streets and everything seemed normal. People were walking about, buying
less due to sanctions imposed by Mahmoud Abbas, and because people are
saving ahead of the holiday. But no one expects there to be a war.
Everyone expects it to end today. It’s a fact, so far only three people
have been killed.”
When compared to the 60 or 120 people killed daily by the Israeli army in past campaigns, it's indeed "only" three casualties.
A young female
university lecturer who had returned earlier than expected from
preparations for the new school year thought everyone was actually
hurrying back home early and that traffic was lightHer impression was that many people hadn’t gone to work after the night’s bombardment.
“When people do go
out they stay close to home; no one ventures far," she said. "It’s a
strange situation. First they say there’s a respite, then it’s the brink
of war. We don’t understand anything.”
Her 5-year-old niece
heard bombing near the port and got frightened. “Those are fireworks,”
the father said in trying to soothe her. “It can’t be,” she scolded him,
“no one’s afraid of fireworks.”
A war at this time
would find Gaza more beaten and weakened than in the three previous
wars. In addition to the impoverishment, exacerbated this year by the
slashed salaries of Palestinian Authority employees, Israel has
prohibited the flow of fuel into Gaza since August 2. Reserves are
dwindling since the flow was also stopped between July 16 and 24, in
response to the incendiary kites.
he dire fuel shortage threatens the operation of
hospitals, which are filled to capacity with people wounded in the March
of Return, and suffer a shortage of medications and supplies.
The fuel shortage
required some municipalities to reduce sewage treatment and garbage
disposal. On Wednesday, health organizations and water- and public
health agencies warned that to ensure the operation of central hospitals
and water- and public health services to the end of the week, emergency
fuel reaching at least 60,000 liters must be supplied.
The fuel is there, waiting for approval by
Israeli authorities so that it can be moved in,” the organizations said
in a statement.
In the absence of
regular and adequate electricity supplies, the emergency fuel will go to
hospital generators and for the operation of water- and sewage
treatment facilities. If this emergency supply is not provided
immediately, 1.2 million people will be threatened by sewage overflow
around the 41 sewage pumping stations scattered across Gaza.
Commenti
Posta un commento