Gaza Unsilenced Read online

  “This was a massacre of the people of Khuza‘a.”

  The Nation, July 25, 2014, http://bit.ly/1adr5cW

  Poems of Mass Destruction at Gaza University

  Refaat Alareer

  During the current conflict, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), where I teach world literature and creative writing in the English department, has been hit by many Israeli missiles. The administration building has been seriously damaged. Two departments have been completely destroyed: the personnel department and the English department offices. IUG was established in 1978 and served tens of thousands of Palestinians. Now more than 20,000 students study at IUG which has 10 faculties and more than 70 fields of study, ranging from medicine and engineering to languages, education, and psychology.

  IUG Students and Israeli Occupation

  When I started teaching at the IUG, I met young students most of whom have never been outside Gaza and have suffered greatly under Israeli occupation. This suffering became even worse when Israel tightened its siege in 2006. Many of them could not go to the West Bank for family visits, or to Jerusalem for a simple religious ritual, or to the U.S. or the UK for grants and visits. Even books were not, along with thousands of other commodities, normally allowed in. The consequences of putting this young generation in the dark, the world must know, has far worse ramifications than we would ever expect.

  At the beginning my students must have found it difficult to study Yehuda Amichai (because he is an Israeli Jew!) or to accept my “progressive” views about Shylock or Fagin. For many, Fagin was the source of evil; the embodiment of the devil that destroys society by murdering, at least metaphorically, its future, the little ones, by turning them into thieves and murderers.

  Challenging Questions

  Only later were they able to open their eyes a little bit and see that Fagin was a mere product of a society that hates those who are different, those with a darker skin or a different race. They came to realize Fagin was even better than the church itself. They saw Fagin offering a shelter for the homeless and making the likes of Oliver feel happy and hopeful for a little bit. Fagin, the Jew, was no longer a Jew. He was a human being, just like anyone of us. Fagin’s refusal to wake Oliver up to send him to break into some house and his comment “Not now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow” were no longer seen as ironic, but as evidence of a man with a heart. The most challenging question I asked was, “What would you do if you were Fagin?”, a question that invited my students to reconsider issues of race and religion, and transcend them into much higher concepts of humanity and shared interests.

  But Shakespeare’s classes of The Merchant of Venice were trickier. To many of my students Shylock was beyond repair. Even Shylock’s daughter hated him! However, with the open-mindedness, dialogue, and respect to all cultures and religions IUG promotes, I worked very closely with my students to overcome all prejudices when judging people, or at least when analyzing literary texts.

  Shylock, therefore, was also transcended from a mere simplistic idea of a Jew who wants a pound of flesh just to satisfy some cannibalistic primitive desires of revenge into a totally different human being. Shylock was just like us Palestinians exposed constantly not only to Israeli aggression and destruction and racism, but to its war machine of misinformation and defamation. Shylock had to endure many religious and spiritual walls erected by an apartheid-like society. Shylock was in a position where he had to choose between total submission and humiliation by living as a subhuman, or resist oppression by the means available to him. He chose to resist, just like Palestinians nowadays.

  Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech was no longer a pathetic attempt to justify murder, but rather an internalization of long years of pain and injustices. I was not at all surprised when one of my students found the similarities between us and Shylock so striking that she altered the speech to:

  In Khan Yunis, a girl salvages her books from the rubble of her relatives’ home, which was destroyed by Israeli strikes on the first day of the assault.

  Photo by Eman Mohammed.

  Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a Christian or a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

  Perhaps the most emotional moment in my six-year teaching career at IUG’s English department was when I asked my students which of the characters they identify with more, Othello, with his Arab origins, or Shylock the Jew. Most students felt they were closer to Shylock and more sympathetic to him than to Othello. Only then did I realize that I managed to help my students grow and shatter the prejudices they had to grow up with because of the occupation and the siege. Sadly, the exam papers which I stored in my office have been set ablaze in a way that echoes how Shylock was stripped off his money and possessions. I always wanted to make use of the answers and compile them into a book.

  A Merry Sport

  But now! Now with all the death and obliteration Israel has been bringing on the heads of Palestinians in Gaza will I be able to repeat that experience? Will I be able to speak about the humanity of Fagin and similarity between us and Shylock, and still look my students in the eye? How are they going to react after what they have seen from the Zionists who are using Judaism as their excuse and discourse to kill us?

  From the pictures I saw, the personnel department and the English department are totally destroyed. My office, along with those of my colleagues, is gone. My office, where I met hundreds of students for office hours and further discussions, is gone. The wonderful small department library is gone. I am not sure whether the whole five-story building has to be demolished or whether it can be renovated.

  Soon after the attack, an IDF spokesman on Twitter declared they destroyed a “weapons development center!” at the Islamic University. However, a few hours later Israel magnified the reason why it bombed IUG—Israel’s defense minister in a press release said, “IUG was developing chemicals, to be used against us.” When I tweeted them back, challenging them to produce any shred of evidence, of course I got no reply. We just have to take it for granted that Israel never ever lies. We are even supposed to ignore the glaring inconsistency between the two statements above. To us, the lie, if not very tragic, would be hilarious.

  I know my students will not stop joking about me developing PMDs, or Poems of Mass Destruction, or TMDs, Theories of Mass Destruction. Some might even start rereading certain texts in search for any chemical traces, or ask to be taught chemical poetry alongside with allegorical and narrative poetry. I assume [that] short range stories and long range stories might replace normal terms like short stories and novels. And I might be asked if my exams will have questions capable of carrying chemical warheads!

  But why would Israel bomb a university? Some say Israel attacked IUG just to punish its 20,000 students or to push Palestinians to despair. That is true, but to me IUG’s only danger to the Israeli occupation and its apartheid regime is that it is the most important place in Gaza to develop students’ minds as indestructible weapons. Knowledge is Israel’s worst enemy. Awareness is Israel’s most hated and feared foe. That’s why Israel bombs a university; it wants to kill openness and determination to refuse living under injustice and racism. But again, why does Israel bomb a school? Or a hospital? Or a mosque? Or a 20-story building? It could be, as Shylock put it, “a merry sport”!

  Palestinian Wounds and Israeli Impunity

  The wounds Israel planted in the hearts of Palestinians are not irreparable. We have no choice but to recover and stand up again, and continue the struggle. Submitting to the occupation is a betrayal to humanity and to all struggles around the world.

  And I know it will be a very tough task for me to engage my students in the kind of discussions where we P
alestinians fight injustice side by side with many fellow Christians and Jews from all over the world. I believe I know where to start, however. I will start from Ilise and Dan, my Jewish friends I met on our Gaza Writes Back book tour in the United States. They have been in constant contact with me to make sure I am okay and that my family is okay. They have been my ray of hope in the face of darkness and oppression. I will tell my students about Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) whose tremendous work, especially for the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, is making a big difference in the Palestinian struggle. I will teach my students that Judaism is hijacked by Israel. I will teach them what Ali Abunimah teaches us: “Despite Zionists’ relentless efforts to implicate them, Jews are not collectively guilty of Israel’s genocidal crimes against Palestinians. To stand against anti-Semitism means to utterly refuse Zionism’s claim that its atrocities are done in the name of Jews everywhere.”

  And I know they will ask if enough is being done, if these friends still can do more to prevent Israel from committing more horrifying crimes against us. That I will leave to Ilise and Dan to answer, to pro-Palestinians working hard to promote BDS and to JVP’s work to bring those Israeli war criminals to court and to end their impunity.

  Middle East Eye, August 4, 2014, http://bit.ly/1APUCly

  Israel Destroys al-Wafa Hospital as Staff Evacuates All Patients

  Allison Deger

  The Israeli military has destroyed al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital in the Gaza Strip, after first targeting the facility with five missiles on July 11, 2014. The Israeli military began striking the building around 8:00 p.m. this evening and within two hours all hospital staff and patients had evacuated the only rehabilitation center in the Gaza Strip. As they departed, what remained intact from the medical center burned to the ground.

  Al-Wafa is the Gaza Strip’s only rehabilitation hospital. Even though Israeli authorities said they did not believe weapons were inside of the facility, Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital was heavily shelled Thursday evening causing an emergency evacuation of all staff and patients. Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital treats long-term injuries and physical disabilities. All of the patients have some degree of paralysis, require around the clock care and many are on oxygen support and feeding tubes.

  “We’ve seen a lot of launches of rockets that came from exactly near the hospital, 100 meters near,” said a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), continuing, “Obviously the target was not the hospital.”

  The IDF News Desk also confirmed that the military understood there were no weapons inside of al-Wafa hospital. When asked how far a humanitarian site needs to be to ensure there is not direct fire, the IDF said, “It’s not a matter of science, the IDF is very precise and they usually target what they intend to target.”

  Still the hospital was an army target.

  The night of the shelling, Basman Alashi, the hospital director, asked me to inquire with the IDF why they fired on the hospital. When I told him they said it was fired on because it was within 100 meters of a rocket site, but they knew the hospital itself was clean of munitions, he said, “My authority, my control is within my premises, it is my hospital. I cannot control what people do 100 meters from me.” He reiterated, “My control is my hospital, my staff my patients. I have nothing to do with what happens 100 meters from the hospital,” adding, “A hospital should not be involved in any conflict according to Geneva law.”

  While under fire from the Israeli military on Thursday, Basman Alashi communicated with the army via a delegate from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). The military said that they were not only going to shell the facility, but that it would be fired upon so heavily that they recommended all people in the hospital evacuate. The ICRC attempted to coordinate the evacuation, relaying messages from the IDF in two phone calls made to al-Wafa’s hospital director during the shelling.

  Mahmoud Naouq, 32 years old and married, lost both legs when a tank shell struck his Deir al-Balah home on July 21; unable to travel to Germany for treatment as planned because of the closure of Gaza’s border crossings, he received physiotherapy and prosthetic legs at Gaza’s Artificial Limbs and Polio Centre. The number of amputees caused by Israel’s summer assault is estimated to be about 3,000.4

  Photo by Mohammed Asad.

  “It’s already destroyed,” said Basman Alashi, director of al-Wafa, continuing, “I don’t know how much is left of it, but we have evacuated all of our patients. We lost power, there was a fire in the building.”

  Alashi spoke to me via telephone from his house in Gaza, unable to cross the Israeli shelling to reach the hospital. “I left the hospital at seven and within two hours they had bombed the hospital.” Shells hit every floor of the building, and a fire spread throughout.

  After the Israeli army began striking the hospital, Alashi and al-Wafa’s 25 nurses made desperate arrangements to relocate the last 17 patients. Many of those in al-Wafa’s care are paralyzed and are connected to oxygen support. Some of the nurses left the building to seek help, braving Israeli fire on the streets in order to track down an ambulance with an oxygen tank.

  “My nurses were unable to stand on their feet because of the smoke and the heat,” said Alashi. Al-Wafa’s staff managed to evacuate all of the patients to a nearby medical clinic inside of a hotel. “The ones who could stay, stayed, but the ones who lost consciousness and lost control, we moved,” he continued.

  Only after the facility was under heavy fire and in the process of being abandoned did Alashi receive a phone call from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) relaying a message from the Israeli army. A women who identified herself as a delegate of the ICRC said, “the Israelis asked ‘how much time do you need to evacuate,’” said Alashi, answering “two hours.” However, within an hour when the woman called back and said the Israeli army “will halt the bombings, and not bomb the hospital any more,” the facility was already in rubble. Alashi responded, “Are you joking, are you making a mockery of me? I told her it’s too late they have already destroyed it.”

  “I said that the Red Cross is cooperating with the Israelis to destroy the hospital,” Alashi continued, recounting his earlier conversation with the representative from the ICRC. “I’m going to take you, the Red Cross and the Israelis to the International Criminal Court,” he announced before hanging up the telephone.

  When I spoke to Alashi his voice was dry and sunken compared to when we talked a few days ago after the facility was first hit by Israeli fire on July 11. Five missiles had knocked the hospital taking out exterior walls and causing significant damage to the fourth floor. After the assault, patients who could be cared for at home were discharged and the remaining were relocated to the first floor.

  Alashi had to rush to get off of the telephone with me; he was on his way to finally check on his patients now in the safer Sahaba clinic. He concluded that Israel’s destruction of the hospital would only hurt their military goals. A devastated Alashi said:

  The Israelis and the Red Cross have destroyed the only rehab clinic in the West Bank and Gaza. They are not solving the issues; they are creating more suicide bombers. You cannot solve issues like this at all. They are the ones creating suicide bombings, not us.

  Mondoweiss, July 17, 2014, http://bit.ly/1y75Nbn

  Water Disaster Hits Every Single Person in Gaza

  Ali Abunimah

  Video and the infographic referenced in the article are available via the website link on page 84.

  Right now, none of the 1.8 million Palestinians living in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip has access to a safe and secure supply of water. The water situation was already severe before Israel’s bombardment began on July 7. But now water experts are calling it a disaster. Ninety percent of wells, wastewater treatment plants and desalination plants cannot operate due to power cuts and lack of fuel.

  In the video interview, Monther Shublak, director of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, says that much
of the infrastructure has been damaged by Israeli bombing. This includes Gaza’s central sewage pumping station, which was recently upgraded with German taxpayer funding The wastewater treatment facility in Gaza was hit twice, he says, and could cause an environmental disaster in Gaza City. Three wells and “a long list of water carriers and wastewater carriers” were damaged or destroyed all over the Gaza Strip, he says. The Beach Well, which provides seawater to the only functioning desalination plant, was also destroyed.

  Water Workers Killed

  Trying to maintain the flow of water to people has been incredibly dangerous. Seven water technicians were killed while on duty at the height of the Israeli attack when almost half of Gaza’s territory was declared a no-go zone.

  One of the workers, technician Zeyad Al-Shawi, died on July 14 from critical injuries he suffered during an Israeli airstrike on July 12 as he opened valves to supply water to people in Rafah, southern Gaza, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility reported.

  Due to the risks, workers could not access areas to carry out repairs or to operate pumps and open and close valves to direct water to different neighborhoods. Repairs are also hampered because Israel’s eight-year-long siege prevents the importation of needed materials.

  Water experts estimate the damage to be at least $20 million. “The money of taxpayers or UN agencies is again and again wasted...during these endless wars,” Shublak says, referring to the constant cycle of donor-funded infrastructure being destroyed by Israel and then repaired with international aid.