Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-12-17.
A Fateful Christmas
BBSNews 2008-01-07 -- By Mohammed Omer. Here in the Gaza Strip, isolated and besieged, bloodshed is rampant, Israeli attacks still taking place on a rapid and massive scale, yet strangely absent from the mainstream media, usurped by more important distractions. All over the Strip, Israeli helicopters and F-16s hover, dropping deadly gifts, with tanks rounding out the almost daily invasions which, by some estimates, have killed at least 40 Palestinians in the last four weeks alone.
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Santa Claus distributing flowers to school children, flowers which were not allowed outside due to the US led Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-12-17. |
In their latest attack on December 20, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed at least eight Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip region of Burij and Maghazi refugee camps, leaving a further more than 30 injured. The incursion started early morning at dawn of Thursday by intensive hovering of helicopters and F16s. Inevitably, in a region where Hamas is the ruling party, some of those injured were Hamas members, while others were civilians, including children. At least four were seriously injured according to Mawyah Hassaneen, director of Emergency and Ambulance services in Gaza. This attack came on the second day of the four-day celebration of Eid al Adha, honoured by Palestinians as well as Muslims around the world.
Journalists and Medical Teams:
Among the seriously injured civilians, two cameramen, including one working for Reuters, were also among the wounded, when the Israeli forces fired upon the journalists. Hassaneen reported that Israeli forces prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching the scene of the attack to retrieve more potential casualties. Israel called the incursions on the ravaged central Gaza Strip region, as well as the daily attacks all over the Strip, an assault on the "banks of targets," referring to Hamas, the ruling party which led to the entire Gaza Strip being dubbed as a "hostile entity" since September.
According to Israeli sources, one Israeli soldier was also seriously wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade and two others slightly wounded during the clashes.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions continue to launch home-made Qassam rockets towards Israeli city of Sderot. Although its residents complain of the rocket fire at this city close to the Strip, Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim is encouraging Israelis to move to areas proximate to Gaza's borders, offering free land to those who choose to build in areas as close as five kilometers to the Gaza border. According to Palestinian news sources, Boim has authorized the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) to construct fifty new developments in this region.
Islamic Jihad has pledged to continue launching home-made rockets in revenge for the killing of its Gazan general commander, assassinated last week in central Gaza by Israeli bombers, when at least two rockets hit a car he was traveling in. His death came immediately after those of 12 Palestinians, including two policemen, targeted throughout the Strip in the same period.
The assassinations continued Friday, with the killing of a 17-year old Palestinian resistance fighter who was shot and killed by Israeli Special Forces. Two more fighters were killed on Christmas Eve day, bodies torn apart by the missile which targeted them in al-Bureij refugee camp.
Not including medical cases and border-related deaths, this latest killing brings the death toll to over 20 within one week alone.
Border Injustices Know No Holidays:
In spite of the festive season, the massive suffering imposed due to Israeli border closures since June and an Israeli and international boycott of the destitute Gaza Strip continues with further deaths due to denial of medical care. Wednesday, a 15 year old girl succumbed to kidney failure after Israeli prohibited her transfer for dialysis. She is but one of over 30 medical victims of Israeli refusal to allow crucial medical care to over 900 critically ill and diseased patients who cannot receive the care or medical supplies they need within the strangled Strip.
The Real Peace Process:
Dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has offered and asked for truce, with a cease of home-made rocket fire in return for a cessation of the on-going Israeli air, sea, and ground attacks. The cease-fire pledge, not the first, was – for not the first time – rejected by Olmert's government. Instead, Israeli forces continue to launch rockets targeting leaders in Gaza, alongside near-daily ground invasions in Gaza. This is allegedly with the aim of halting the near-daily firing of the home-made rockets and mortars from Gaza towards military positions near the walled-off border and the Israeli city of Sderot.
In Olmert's rejection of the peace offer, he stated that Israel would not hold talks with the Hamas until it recognizes Israel, something which Hamas has repeatedly offered in the past. Olmert did not, on the contrary, offer recognition of Palestinians and their rights to exist. Olmert also stated that "this war will continue, while making sure to avoid a humanitarian crisis that could harm civilians who are not at all involved in terrorism." It is quite unclear whether he was referring to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza which his government has created, or whether he was attempting to drum up further fear amongst Israelis in order to justify the long on-going attacks and raids on Gaza.
A Few Favourite Things:
Meanwhile, Palestinians Christians are supposed to celebrate Christmas in Gaza in less than 48 hours. But due to the siege, the deaths, the lack of security, it seems like Christmas has chosen the wrong time and place to be celebrated. Gazan civilians, already isolated in every imaginable way, are doomed to suffer further, severed from universal festivities.
While Christians all over the world are busy with last-minute preparations for celebrations –deliberating over gifts, planning family feasts, hanging decorations, caroling and spreading cheer, Gaza's Christian community will pass the day in heightened fear, sorrows, and poverty, under the long-imposed siege and suffering enormously.
Aside from the very real tragedies of the daily deaths from Israeli warplanes and denial of medical care, there is the tragedy of material goods: there simply isn't anything to buy, certainly no chocolates available. Not to forget that basic essential goods are scarce and highly inflated, the few items that trickle in costing triple or quadruple the normal price, an impossible option for Gazans who have seen unemployment skyrocket since Israel shut down Gaza's borders.
Imagine the parents who would create joy for their children, longing to show them that life is beautiful. The magic, the special memories of secrets and baked goods that Christians around the world will enjoy are impossible aspirations. Gingerbread and candy canes are but crazy dreams. What kind of justice is there, when the people who would honor their religion are prevented from so-doing by Israel's arbitrary and collectively punitive sanctions?
While television programs and classic films speak of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, Gazans try in vain to move beyond the graveyards of ghosts of loved-ones killed in the past, present, and certainly the future. For in Gaza, there are no silent nights, and the holy peace has long been forsaken, shattered with each new Israeli invasion and attack, with each tightening of the siege, and with the increasing fuel cuts. Oh, holy night, our stars are quickly dying. Unnoticed.
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. On May 18th, 2007, Mohammed was shot at by unknown militants in Gaza yet he continues to report. 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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