Northern Gaza

Sun., May 31, 2009

We divide into A, B and C groups for our tours. Barbara and I split up so that we can cover more locations.

This is the area north of Gaza City, bordering Israel, dominated demographically by the Jabaliya Refugee Camp. During the Dec/Jan IDF onslaught, termed by the IDF “Operation Cast Lead,” the area was attacked by tanks and planes. In all, 1400 residences were totally destroyed, 14,000 damaged and 50,000 people displaced. Factories and flour mills, schools and hospitals were destroyed.

In a macabre twist, one of the most advanced secondary schools targeted and the most completely destroyed was The American International School – a multi story, modern, reinforced concrete structure paid for with US dollars, that now looks like someone stepped on it. Ceilings and floors are pancaked into each other. It was hit by 3 missiles at night. A watchman was killed. The night before, the watchman had asked an assistant director if he could bring his family to stay overnight in the school with him as they had been terrified by the bombing in their neighborhood. The assistant director declined saying he would have to get permission from the director whom he could not reach. The next night, his family at home, the watchman died alone in the attack.

The IDF says the school was used to store munitions. This is vehemently denied by the directors and the staff. No evidence has ever been produced to support the Israeli claim. Ironically, Palestinian extremists distrusted the school’s staff because of the American connection and frequently harassed them. The school lost all of its equipment and books but has re-opened in rented quarters in Gaza City. Only 18 of its 230 students have dropped out.

We visit Al Wafaa Hospital which services the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in North Gaza. The camp holds 150,000 Palestinian refugees from the Nakba.- the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in Israel and the West bank by Israeli gunmen in 1948. The doctors are occupied treating patients so we are taken on tour by a para-medic. He indicates the hospital has treated over 500 white phosphorus burn cases. 14 ambulances, including his own were hit during the IDF offensive. In the first hour of the raid, they took on 200 ICU cases with 100 waiting. They are in great need of emergency room supplies, like lidocaine, a topical anesthetic, which has been deemed unessential by the Israelis.

At the Jabaliya Rehabilitation Society we meet Gazans who have lost limbs and we hear their stories: Firemen who were attacked while trying to rescue families; Gazans who can’t obtain operations outside of the borders; lack of prosthetic devices and wheelchairs. We visit a community center in the camp. Children are treated for PTSD. They have nightmares, insecurity, fear for the future. They are encouraged to tell their stories, paint pictures, sing and dance. There is a rhythm class for deaf children. They are all proud and happy to perform for us. The teachers say we give them hope.

The hospital at Kamal Edwan is next. A new wing had just been built with foreign contributions and was about to open at the time of Operation Cast Lead. New diagnostic and treatment equipment was installed and ready for use. Israeli tanks ground to within 20 meters of the hospital and opened fire on the new wing. Shell holes, a meter wide and shrapnel gouges pockmark the exterior. Every window is blown out. Inside, a doctor takes us on a floor by floor tour. I’m glad I wore heavy shoes. We clamber over twisted metal and slabs of fallen plaster and concrete. Depleted uranium shrapnel litters the floors. He says the Israelis knew exactly where to shoot to knock out the most important systems, which now cannot be replaced. Everywhere broken glass crunches underfoot, bringing to mind Kristallnacht. in Germany, 1938.

Kamal Edwan Hospital

We visit a village in northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun, near Jabaliya Camp, that was completely leveled for several square kilometers. The area was first bombed and then bulldozed. The remains of an ambulance lie in the ruins.

Destroyed Home and Factory in Beit Hanoun

We stop at a craft fair. Dozens of Palestinian women display the things that many of them learned to make at UN sponsored support centers – embroidery, knitting, patchwork, weaving, carving, etc. Surrounding shops carry exquisite traditional embroidered clothes and accessories. Everybody buys something. These artists are prohibited from exporting their wares. A spirited and seemingly inexhaustible folk-dance company performs in the heat for an hour straight, no breaks. They cannot perform outside Gaza.

We are invited to meet with the Palestinian Legislative Council (Hamas). They are the duly elected representatives who were denied power in the West Bank by a U.S./ Fatah /Israeli coup and who had to forcibly oust Fatah fighters from Gaza in March 2006. Most of the Hamas elected leadership is in Israeli and PLO prisons. We meet with the speaker of their parliament. The meeting takes place in a large tent on the grounds of the parliament building. The parliament building is a gutted shell – one of the first victims of Operation Cast Lead.

The Speaker of the Council welcomes us and proceeds to enumerate the many wrongs suffered by his people that he hopes we can convey to our elected U.S. policy makers.. He then makes the significant statement that Hamas is agreeable to separate states within the pre 1967 borders with provision for right of return and an extended truce, without preconditions. This statement is later cited in the US press.

The Council has been informed that Norm Finkelstein is in our delegation. Norm is highly regarded and has been asked to address the meeting. He makes a short but astonishing three point statement and proposal:

1. That Israel is in massive violation of international law in its treatment of Gaza and in particular in its blockade. These have been the findings of every international body that has investigated the matter.

2. That Palestinians, including, but not led by, Hamas, should organize 500,000 Gazans for a non-violent, Satyagraha march across the border.

3. In the vanguard of the march should be Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Desmmond Tutu, Norm, Code Pink, other supportive luminaries, and students from every college in the US and EU.

Norm believes that the Israelis dare not fire on this assemblage and the blockade would be broken. The proposal is breathtaking, whatever objections one might have.

I expect the Council to be offended by his presumption, but their reply is polite and diplomatic. They say they will give the proposal serious consideration

Old Parliament Building

We tour the bombed out parliament building, have pictures taken with the Council reps. Medea is given a plaque by the Council and we are all given commemorative scarves.
Some later complain that this was too close an identification with Hamas, an Islamic party who some believe would impose Sharia on its constituency. But they are the people’s elected representatives, they reached out to us and they appear receptive to constructive suggestions.

New Parliament Building 

We make it back to the Marna Hotel and have dinner with Shelley Fudge from DC and Pat Chafee, an activist nun from Madison, Wis. A collateral benefit to the mission is the chance to meet serious political activists from all over, each with unique stories to tell about their struggles, defeats and victories – like Rich Moniak, a civil engineer with the Coast Guard in Juneau, Alaska who writes a monthly column for the Juneau Empire. He’s a quiet, thoughtful guy who seeks the common thread of humanity in everyone he deals with. One can imagine the grief he must get on the job for his activism . He is a veteran and has a son with the Army in Iraq. Yet he is totally dedicated to the cause of justice for the Palestinians, already at his computer sending dispatches when Barbara and I get up for our early morning walk.