![Palestinians in Rafah call for end to internal fighting and replace it [with] brotherhood.](http://bbsnews.net/bbsn_photos/topics/Israel_Palestine/Palestinians_in_Rafah.jpg)
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-02-07.
Gaza demonstrations now are including protests against Israel's Al Aqsa Mosque excavation
Rafah Today via BBSNews 2007-02-08 -- By Mohammed Omer. "For what crime are we being cold-bloodedly killed? we are only passing by, with no connection to Hamas or Fatah," said the mother of one of the children killed during Hamas-Fatah clashes in Gaza City few days ago.
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Palestinians in Rafah call for end to internal fighting and replace it [with] brotherhood.
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-02-07. |
Inside Al Shifa hospital, the mother had come to see the body of her child, Anas, killed in the fighting. Young men carry Anas' body, taking it from the refrigerator to the funeral. The mother screams, before collapsing, "For God's sake, please, please let me have a last look at his body, for just one minute!" She continues screaming and crying, her cries heard throughout the hospital.
It starts me thinking. Why should all those kids and innocents be killed?
It seems to be Madam Secretary Rice's new Middle East plan: ship weapons from the US to support Abbas so he can fight Hamas. This, no doubt, causes tragedies in Palestinian streets. Wherever you go, you see people are devastated and so terribly scared that any shred of hope disappears every time there is the possibility that such clashes might end.
Saudi Arabia invited both Fatah and Hamas for talks. These negotiations are considered to be the last chance, among nine previous attempts, to stop further bloodshed. But the coming days will show Gaza's future: will a coalition national unity government be formed, or will the violence continue? Forming a national unity government, however, means that it will be up to the US administration whether or not to approve the government.
"Enough is enough—we are scared, there are no results on the ground, we need to live. I can no longer go out of my home—there is shooting and fighting everywhere and it scares our children," said a 52 year old woman, just leaving her house after a ceasefire announcement between the two main political factions.
There is little doubt that hidden agendas lie behind most of the recent chaos and fighting in Gaza. With each ceasefire agreement from both Fatah and Hamas come unidentified people breaking the ceasefire by starting clashes in some areas, leading to other rounds of violence and destruction.
In Rafah, the Children's Mini-Parliament took to the streets in a large demonstration, asking both parties to end the fighting immediately. The children, protesting against the internal fighting, appealed to all parties to find an end to all the damage, damage which the children call, "a free gift to the Israeli Occupation."
A shaky ceasefire between warring Palestinian factions in Gaza teetered but then appeared to take hold on Monday as the guns, mortars and grenades fell silent for the first time in days. As quiet returned to Gaza City's streets, residents ventured tentatively out of their homes amid the first bout of calm since Thursday.
Yet, in the coming days, a new round of violence is expected, due to damage from Israeli excavation work to Islam's third-holiest shrine, Al Aqsa mosque, from Israeli excavation work near a compound housing the mosque.
The governing Hamas movement said "any assault" on the sacred mosque "will lead to a termination of the limited ceasefire" declared in November and would spark "a volcano of anger."
Israel's opening of an entrance to an archaeological tunnel near Haram Al Sharif in 1996 triggered Palestinian protests and led to clashes in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed. Many Palestinians fear that this recent Israeli excavation will open an endless round of violence in protest to the violation of Islamic sites.
This morning, Al Jazeera TV and other eye-witnesses said that two bulldozers began breaking up parts of the pavement at the foot of the ramp next to Al Aqsa Mosque, damaged by a snowstorm and an earthquake in 2004, to clear the way for what the authority called a "salvage excavation."
Today there have been large numbers of demonstrations throughout the Gaza Strip. One women's demonstration asked for the protection of Al Aqsa. Palestinian academics, as well, asked the world to stop such excavation actions, and appealed to all Palestinians to protect Al Aqsa mosque.
"This is where we should all be united. Instead of internal fighting, we need unity to end the violation of our holy Islamic sites," said a Palestinian teacher who preferred to remain anonymous.
The coming days may very well show new rounds of violence which might not end easily, despite the shaky truce between political factions that now exists.
Mohammed Omer is a young journalist/photographer in the Gaza Strip. He and his family have a very rough time in living day to day and they have lost much. In October of 2003, one of Mohammed's younger bothers, Issam, was injured and had to have a leg amputated. Later in the same month another younger brother, Hussam Al-Mouhagir, was killed in his home; shot to death by the Israeli Army that occupies and regularly devastates Palestine. These stories are written by Mohammed who knows no peace, only the continued devastation forced upon civilians who have little voice in the world. Mohammed has covered the Occupied Territories for several years. In 2006 Mohammed won the New American Media National Ethnic Media Award for best Youth Voice. Visit Mohammed's Web site, or write to him to get a more complete picture of what is really happening that main-stream news sources rarely brings to its audience. We are proud to feature articles from Mohammed Omer here at BBSNews, his reporting is some of the only original, on the ground reporting available from the Israeli Occupied Territories.
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