Letters from Gaza
By: Majeda Al Saqa
16 November 2012
Dear C,
I don't know what to tell you and how to describe things in
Gaza.
I don't know if it's war or what they call a “military
operation,” if it's for a long or a short period of time. It’s different from
the first war but similar to the first war:
The Israeli strike Gaza Strip almost every hour ... each
strike is an exercise in memory that brings back moments of the previous
attacks... in 2008 or after or even before. At the end of each air strike, it's
the same shit: birds flying away looking for rescue, children crying, mothers
looking for their sons and daughters, phone calls and messages in and out, and
then there’s the collective discussion and each one talking about how they felt
and what they did, jokes about who jumped and who ran and who cried. And the
justifications that are even funnier some times.
But we are different today.
You know, I don’t watch the news. I watch the streetsand
live with the people there, they are my news and they are
who I care about. Did I tell you that I have two small kittens that I adopted
two month ago? They also make the atmosphere different...
The kids are four years older now. Wael, my nephew, is more
scared than he was in the first war. When I asked him a few months ago if he
remembered anything from the last war, he said “no.” But last night he reminded
me how he used to come down and sleep next to me the last war; last night he wanted to come and sleep next to me like
before.
My niece Deema is 14 now. When she was 10 she didn't cope
well with the war... with time she managed to overcome her fear. Last night she
was so scared she couldn’t walk and she had to sleep next to her parents again ...
We have a new kid now, Yazan. He’s 4 years old. He knows more than his brothers... He lived the Arab Spring,
so he knows Mursi and talks with an Egyptian accent sometimes. He told me today
that Mursi was in Gaza to protect us...
During the first war I was not on facebook,
This war I’m on facebook, lots of Egyptian friends. .. I don’t
know why I’m comparing the first war and now and don't know why I keep
mentioning Egypt ...Unfortunately... some of the revolutionaries in Egypt
expressed their fear of supporting Gaza because they think it will be
misunderstood as supporting Hamas and that would be misunderstood as supporting
the Muslim Brotherhood. I told them on facebook: you were fighting not to mix
religion with politics, so don’t mix politics with humanity.
I don't know if I’ve managed to tell you all that’s in my
head.
17 November 2012
Good morning,
The weather is very weird today... it's warm and cold at the
same time... I didn’t sleep well last night -- not because of the air strike
over Khan Younis but because the kids decided to stay over... It was nice and
cozy but uncomfortable as we were all sleeping in the same bed and they move a
lot... every time they heard the air strikes, they would wake up.
I am worried that my coffee will finish. I don't drink
Arabic coffee in the morning; this is not a luxury or me being spoiled. I just
need an espresso with tones of caffeine to clear my head.
The schools are closed in the Gaza Strip. I don't think
there is a moment or a place that we could call safe in Gaza; the uncertainty
and the unknown is what controls life here. I don't think there is any routine
in Gaza. If there is a routine it means there is stability right? But I try to
create a routine in a way... to wake up, check on my mother and sisters, the
kids, the cats ... all at the same time,no categorizinghere ... I try to make
it a routine not to listen to the news.
In war, I find that the community becomes one family. .. We
become closer and more loving ...everyone shares everything: information, food,
water, whatever is needed. Gaza in general and in normal days is like that. But
if we are not in war, we call it sneaky, nosiness and maybe curiosity...
Seriously, I don't want you to worry ... I want you to come
:)
18 November 2012
Sleepless night... there was bombing everywhere in Gaza.
They’re targeting houses.
You ask me about Hamas... I don't know how people feel about
Hamas but to me Hamas is the black and white, the death and the hope, Hamas is
one thing and its opposite at the same time...
To me, Hamas is not a movement or an organization. It exists
within my culture and my neighborhood, the doctor, the electricity man, the
teacher. They are not static. They are humans. But the media made them who they
are to lots of people now: just terrorists. I disagree with Hamas about so many
things but I agree with them about so many things.
I have been who I want to be in Khan Younis since Hamas came
to power. From the first day I was out in the streets, without veil, with short
hair. It was not easy in the beginning... but I claimed my rights and I got
them.
To me they are a right wing movement that we need to argue
with in order to maintain and protect our rights.
How can they target a house?
Sleepless night.
But how can they TARGET a house. 4 children were killed last
night.
How on earth is this self-defense?
19 November 2012
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I have no idea
what time it is.
We had another sleepless night. An air strike destroyed, a
new house in Khan Younis; the kids woke up ill. Yazan and Majed are feeling
dizzy, vomiting, they don't want to talk. Arslan and Wael are too hyper and
speak too loud. We had to call doctor because Yazan’s vomiting was non-stop.
Wael was asking me: “If I recite the Quran and certain dou'a
and ayah from the Quran, the rocket might hit me but I will not die,
right? I will just have some blood on my face.”
You were asking me if they understand what’s going on. You
know: I don't let them watch the news. If they ask, we answer -- but they don't
see images.
Majed was saying: “If they see that we have a new wall, and
a beautiful garden and a nice door, they might not hit the house.”
They play, but all they play are war-related games.
They keep asking me: “Who is stronger? Us or them?”
They keep asking me the most horrible question -- why I'm
not fighting back. They think I have the power to challenge everything and I am
the one who will solve the world’s problems for them...
The kids know that some of the people they know were injured
or killed during the air strikes: Ahmed, a taxi driver, who they know because
we use a taxi to send the kids to school when the bus doesn’t arrive.Then there’s
Hussam, a young boy who was killed who is the son of a woman from our neighborhood,
and who I’ve known since I was very young. Did I tell you that I was very young
once? And then there is my colleague Murad and his sons and
daughters, who I visit with the kids occasionally. They heard me talking to
Murad checking on his sister who was hit by a shell -- not sure from a tank or
an air strike -- while she was in the garden of her home trying to go to the
mud oven to bake bread.
I guess that the kids make the association that if you go to
bake, or take a taxi... or go to the mosque, then you are most likely to be
killed ... don't you think?
20 November 2012
As the ceasefireis announced and confirmed in the news, I’ve
become very anxious about the coming few hours, before the targeted time 00:00,
today.
My experience of
the last hours before ceasefires is always bloody, the question now becomes
personal... will my family survive this. ..
or are we going to be one of the unlucky ones...
or are we going to be one of the unlucky ones...
will we be added
to the 119, 120, 121...
unidentified
humans in the eyes of the world and the machine guns...
I don’t want to
think like this so I go and tell Arslan, my nephew, a ceasefire is signed...
this mess is ending in a few hours ..
Arslan quietly asks me, while looking at the palmof his hand as if he’s reading his future, "Who won?"
I am shocked by his question: "Who won what?"
Arslan quietly asks me, while looking at the palmof his hand as if he’s reading his future, "Who won?"
I am shocked by his question: "Who won what?"
“This war --who
won, who announced the cease fire? US OR THEM?”
Oh my god. I
have been fooling myself thinking they don't understand what’s going on...
Then he looks me in the eye and asks,"What's next?"
This is a very good question.
Then he looks me in the eye and asks,"What's next?"
This is a very good question.
I can escape
with him from our reality.
"Next is
going to the beach and going to Sharm Park."
I’ve been feeling so guilty about not taking them to Sharm Park during their days off a few weeks ago.
I continue, "Next is fun ... it might be raining soon, and we will go back to the sea and take photos."
I’ve been feeling so guilty about not taking them to Sharm Park during their days off a few weeks ago.
I continue, "Next is fun ... it might be raining soon, and we will go back to the sea and take photos."
23 November 2012
I feel it's so unfair not to update you on the situation in
Gaza... Yes, there’s a ceasefire, and some are celebrating in the streets, but
many more are still bleeding, waiting forpermission to go to Egypt or Jerusalem to get the
right treatment.... like my colleague, who was running from one hospital to another
trying to get a referral for his sister – the one I told you about who was
targeted while walking through her garden to the mud oven to make bread for her
family.
Children were taken from under the rubble today -- one whole
family, Al Dalu family.
Driving through Gaza’s streets today, I saw this child on
the second floor of a building. He was watching people in the streets celebrate
the victory through a window made wider by a rocket. He would look at the
streets for a few seconds and then turnhis headto look back at someone -- maybe
his brother -- who was cleaning the room of all the stones and broken windows.
I was in the car looking up at him, feeling I wanted to go and give him a hug. But the loudspeakers celebrating behind my car and the mass
ofcar horns pushed me meter by meter away from him and his street. But he’s rootedin
my heart now -- one added love,one more meter of pain to carry with me.
I saw sad, devastated humans preparing for funerals, others
trying to fix or reclaimwhat's left of their homes.
I saw the absence of an apartment building, on the third
floor the ghost of an apartment which looked so much like it belonged to a
newlywed couple. But just one wall was standing. It wasdecorated with what
looked to me like a panoramic image of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa. I can't take the
idea that privacy is invaded by “targeting” rockets. A room that was maybe
prepared for the honeymoon of two humans left, so public....not just the
rooms invaded, but all those very
private belongings nowmaking the rubble I pass by in these targeted places and
the smoke still rising...The eyes of
children broke my heart... Resistance and resilience is what I saw. Victory, I
did not see,I only heard about it on the loudspeakers..
I have no way to express my feelings or what I saw today in the streets of the Gaza Strip, in the pharmacy, the bakery, the supermarket. And when I met with my friends. My friend was hunting for a
Palestinian flag with both Fateh and Hamas all together, in the hope that this
photo might put some pressure for unity.
In the end, what amazed me, what somehow gave me a sense of strength
and hope,were the trees in the targeted areas. There they were -- standing up
and green... I’m not sure if it's because trees die while standing up or
because it’s their way of telling us to overcome and look for tomorrow.
Whatever their reason might be, both are lodged in my heart...
I will not upload photos any more, nor am I going to write...
because photos and words...
how hard they are and whatever dimension they have or take,
they are far from reality.
