Newsletter 135 – February 17, 2025
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PEACE LINESMESSAGERIES DE LA PAIX www.peacelines.org |
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Newsletter 135
February 17, 2025
500 DAYS OF WAR DEMENTIA
The intro to our last Newsletter in English (May 9, 2024) :
« On the verge of exhaustion, and beyond. »
“At this crucial moment, while a tangible opportunity for the release of the hostages is on the table, it is of the utmost importance that your government manifest its strong support for such an agreement, This is the time to exert your influence on the Israeli government and all other parties concerned to ensure that the agreement comes through which will finally bring all our loved ones home.” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum
https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/category/english/newsletters/
Then there were four letters for French-speaking people, until the end of 2024.
https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/category/francais/lettres-de-liaison/
More downs than ups. No end in sight. Some hopeless roller-coaster.
Until one month ago, January 15, the announcement that a Ceasefire had been signed. With a trickle of releases based on the equation 1 Israeli civilian = 30 Palestinian prisoners / But 1 Israeli soldier = 50 Palestinian prisoners / 1 Thai civilian = 0 prisoner. Then, whom to trust ?
« I won’t talk of hope and despair, » said Jonathan Dekel Chen, from Nir Oz, last month. « I won’t ride that emotional roller-coaster. We’ve all endured too many dispappointments and frustrations. I coudn’t personally stay sane on that path. »
How to confront such levels of pain ? « I have to hold onto optimism because there’s no alternative. » says Jonathan, adding he had to focus on bringing his son back to his wife and kids, waking up every morning and that’s what I do. « Hope is a dangerous thing ».
His son Sagui Dekel Chen was released on February 15, with Iair Horn, from Nir Oz too, and Sasha Troufanov. There are still 73 Israeli hostages in Gaza (out of 255), as of mid-February 2025, half of them presumed to be dead.
The horrendous business of trading human beings as if they were metal chips.
Another sad heavy day, hearing that most likely the Bibas infants from Nir Oz and their mom were killed in Gaza – by an Israeli bomb ? by their captors ? – along with their neighbour Oded Lifshitz. Oded was born in May 1940, making him the oldest hostage detained in Gaza. Four victims among the fifty thousand killed (1,700 of them Israelis, 224 of them humanitarian aid workers – including 179 UNRWA employees / surely not all of them terrorists ?).
1-Take it back to Nir Oz, October 7, 2023.
Such a lovely rural community of four hundred souls until October 6, in the ideal oasis wrestled from the desert by Ran Pauker, the Nir Oz gardener. The man who planted trees.
« On October 7, 2023, 50 members of Kibbutz Nir Oz were killed, and 76 were kidnapped. Twenty remain in captivity, including nine confirmed dead. Forty women and children from the kibbutz were freed in a November 2023 deal, and nine more have been released so far as part of the second agreement. Additionally, the bodies of seven kidnapped residents were recovered in IDF operations in Gaza. » (Haaretz, February 15, 2024).
Let me tell you about Nir Oz. In Nir Oz 207 homes were devastated or burned to the ground, out of 220. What’s left of Oded & Yocheved Lifshitz’s home : 
Yocheved, a committed peace activist born in 1938 was also kidnapped from their home in the morning of October 7. When she was confronted to Yahya Sinwar in one of the tunnels, she asked him if he was not ashamed of doing such a thing to people who had struggled for peace all their life. Nir Oz is only about a mile from the border. Yocheved was known for driving sick people from Gaza to adequate hospitals in Israel. Sinwar was stunned, he remained silent. https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/2025/02/19/nir-oz-2017-2024/
Yahyah Sinwar, the failed mastermind of the October 7 rampage (1,200 people massacred in a few hours, most of them civilians, 255 kidnapped), was killed on October 16, 2024. If we had a final equation to offer to shed light at the end of these tunnels of shame and their aftermath, it would be that the man behind so much horror and vain pain was aptly named : Sin War.
2- From a strictly non-partisan point-of-view, is the human tide of January 27, 2024, of tens of thousands of ruined human beings walking back « home » from the refugees’ camps in the South, any less heartbreaking, shameful for humankind ?
What could they find back « home » ?
70% of buildings and structures in Gaza destroyed, by the most common estimate. Speaking of 2,200,000 people living, surviving there. Raw facts : 80% of them urban, their median age 19.5, most of them decently educated (14 years of school life for girls, slightly less for boys), 40% of them under the age of 15 (close to 900,000). Their average monthly wages, $250 before the war – reduced to nil since. This is Gaza gazing at us. NaGazaKi.
What did the Gazan strategists think ? Did they care at all about human costs ?
Everybody knows there were no shelters for civilians in Gaza. The endless tunnels were only for war.
35,000 people were killed in Nagasaki (10% of the population). 50,000 have been killed in Gaza.
There stops the parallel. Nagasaki is 10,000 km from the USA. NaGazaKi is right next to Israel. Next door. The USAF bombers were manned by few men, who did their job from a high altitude. Whereas thousands of young men have been sent to Gaza, to destroy it and trudge through the ruins. How can these men survive and pretend their life is fine ?
How can Gazans survive at all, without water, without electricity, without schools ?
The last message we received from Gaza said : «… our flat is more than partially demolished. Thieves left nothing to us, including all our furniture, doors and clothes, taps… No water in the building. The sewage system is also broken. Life is miserable in Gaza. » That was sent on February 2. No news since. The man who sent the message was a highly respected university teacher, in love with English literature of the early 20th and late 19th centuries. What is left of the university itself ?
3- From Dekel Chen to Einstein and Luther King.
From Jonathan Dekel Chen’s viewpoint (« No amount of military pressure will bring them home ») to Einstein’s formula (« Peace cannot be kept by force ; it can only be achieved by understanding. »).
When do we, in the rich, profit-driven countries, start focusing on the ways to achieve understanding ? Granted that hope is a dangerous thing, but can be replaced by a degree of optimism, we have to remember and repeat that « Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. » Martin Luther King
The same reminds us that « The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. »
Not to forget that « The physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam [3 million Vietnamese & 58,281 Americans killed, plus the countless wounded] are not alone the catastrophies. The casualties of principles and values are equally disastrous and injurious. Indeed, they are ultimately more harmful because they are self-perpetrating. If the casualtie of principles are not healed, the physical casualties will continue to mount. »
4- Landmarks on the way out : Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran on July 31, 2024. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah was killed by bombing in Beirut on September 17, 2024. Eventually, as stated above, Sinwar himself met his death in Rafah on October 16, 2024.
What more was needed to stop the war machines ?
5- Day 500 + 3. What’s the point of « a strictly non-partisan point-of-view ?
The writer of this Newsletter was in Nir Oz repeatedly last year. A witness of the horror and devastation that engulfed the lovely community on October 7. The images are vivid in my eyes. The surviving elder, Nathan, took me around – March, April, May, we met again in November. Nothing had changed since October 7, 2023. Nir Oz has become my heart anchor in Israel. I can see the homes of Haim Peri, Alex Dancyg, Amiram Cooper, the Bibas family, Oded & Yocheved Lifshitz in detail. I keep and cherish a golden teaspoon given to me by Rita Lifshitz, Oded’s step-daughter. It was a shared wink between us, to Amos Oz’s theory that we should create an Order of the Teaspoon, and wear it on our lapel : there is a fire endangering us all, and we need to bond our forces to extinguish it. With whatever comes at hand, hoses, buckets… If there are no buckets left, use jars or even glasses. When you cannot even find jars and glasses, seize spoons : the number of committed volunteers will make the difference.
We long kept Oz’s portrait as our gate opener in our Peace Lines site. Recently replaced by Martin Luther King, Ibn Arabi and Spinoza. Plus the video of Tula and Dina singing United, Playing for Change. Does it matter that Tula and Amos Oz are Israelis, Yehudi, and that Dina is Egyptian ?
Do we have to wag our index, label, and reject ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vT_7AX06UQ&list=RD6vT_7AX06UQ&start_radio=1
Take a tip from Amos : « … if I were a European [or an American for that matter], I’d be careful not to wag my finger at anyone. Instead of wagging your finger, calling the Israelis this name or the Palestinians that name, I would do anything I could to help both sides (…) if you have an ounce of help or sympathy to offer, now is the time to extend it to the two patients. You no longer have to choose between being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. » Between Right and Right, How tu cure a fanatic
6- Looking for context, from Gilad Shalit (2006) to Yahya Sinwar (2011-2024) and beyond
My Gaza testimony too.
The rising danger we now face, everywhere, is to let ourselves carried away by violent emotions related to shock, extreme pain, and dismay verging on rage; to share in and spread the « convenient » denial of the Other, that « there are no innocents in Gaza », that they’re all monsters. Six years I have spent in Gaza, off and on. My first time there was during the First Intifada, in the eighties. I have been a witness to the evolution of the Gaza Strip from pre-Hamas days, under the fragile authority of Yasir Arafat, until the days of PM Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.
Our job there was to instil the principles of non-violent resistance in schools – with the clearance and hopeful approval of COGAT – Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
In the process I have to say, straight ahead, that we failed. Despite a written agreement of the Palestinian government, then led by PM Haniyeh, our Bilingual Experimental Programme (for ten schools in ten cities, from Jenin to Rafah) was never implemented.
Still, you will often learn more from the failure of an experiment, than from a success.
And then, a vital part of it was not a failure, according to our criteria. In the summer of 2011, I was in Gaza, one of the longest stays there, pleading with senior leaders of Hamas for detained captive Sergeant Shalit, a prisoner underground since June 2006 – one year before Hamas seized power.
Sergeant Shalit was eventually released two months later, in October 2011, after more than five years of detention incommunicado in Gaza tunnels, against one thousand Palestinian prisoners (among them Yahya Sinwar) and twenty-seven women.
It should be reminded that the young corporal at the time of his abduction on June 25 was only 19, and he was captured in his 65-ton Merkava tank by a squad of Palestinian fighters composed of three groups, the Qassam Brigades (Hamas), the Army of Islam, and the Popular Resistance Committee (a mixture of secular Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas).
To make the point clear that this type of strategy, to dig tunnels into Israel and abduct Israelis in exchange for Palestinian prisoners does not originate in « Hamas » alone, nor did it begin with the June 2007 coup, when Hamas + Islamic Jihad seized power from secular Fatah in Gaza.
In Nablus, heart of the West Bank, you could find posters, in May 2007, that read « May we have a new Gilad each year ». In November of the same year 2007 (Nov 11), you find a rare editorial, in Haaretz, titled « An endless pool of prisoners ». It can still be found online.
Since it appears that the fate of prisoners, for both sides, is the burning crux. Some would dismiss the Haaretz editorial, due to its « left wing » reputation. It does not matter to us which side a source of news may be, as long as it provides unprecedented angles and takes. Should it ?
Our Media section daily spans all kinds of media, from Al Arabiya, Al Monitor, Al Jazeera, The Middle East Monitor, Egypt Today, L’Orient Le Jour, The Jordan Times, to Israel National News, The Jerusalem Post, YNet News, The Times of Israel, The Guardian, BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Le Monde, etc.
7- « Are there innocents in Gaza ? » A close friend, in France, without any connections whatsoever to Israel, upon learning of the Nir Oz infants’ fate in Gaza, sent me an emotional message – « as far as I am concerned, Palestine must be razed ». For him, and for anyone with similar thoughts, I will simply testify that I have only met with innocents in Gaza, during my many stays there. High-school teachers and school heads, lovely pupils – my heart and throat squeeze when I look at their pictures : what have they become ? University teachers, crowds of decent students of both sexes. Opticians, shopkeepers, waiters, nurses, doctors, ordinary kids on the streets, old men, smiling, serious women… I truly loved them all on my way. Did we not speak together, eat, drink, joke, laugh, share good times ? Did they not host me in their homes and flats, did they not open their favorite places to me ?
True, I stood as an outsider. A non-partisan. How Nice to Be an Outsider, writes Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann, in one of his deepest works, On the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry.
How nice, indeed, to make yourself an alien, and look at it all from outside, on the outside of whatever side there was/is, as another Nobel poet put it. Or, in Paul Arden’s words, « WHATEVER YOU THINK THINK THE OPPOSITE .» Not just to think outside the box, but eventually escape from whatever box you were in.
Only innocents in Gaza ? What of the senior Hamas leaders I had to meet then ?
We had so many conflicts over the years. Rough, direct, but never final. I guess a measure of mutual respect was present, at the core. How to define the divide between us then ? Was it a case that we, our peace-minded side, did not try hard enough ? Could there be common ground between our Weltanschauung, worldview, and theirs ?
The conflicts between us were not about the ends (freedom and daily quiet), but about the means to get there, and the rationale behind the means. At times, they were about the type of society we envisioned, the type of time control or mind control it implied.
The eternal mistake being procrastination, the weak idea that it can wait.
Take the day they fired an antitank missile at this yellow schoolbus across the border, April 7, 2011, killing Daniel Viflic, 16. It happened to be a Russian Kornet missile, seized by militants from the libyan arsenals bombed open by the French bombers during their anti-Gaddafi military campaign. I was there then. They were so proud and excited with their new toy. I raised my voice, yelled at them. Don’t you have field glasses ? Can’t you make the difference between one lone teenager on a yellow schoolbus and a military target ? They kept smiling, and did not really understand. To them, any Israeli was either a soldier or a soldier to be.
There were no innocent Israelis in their view. Hence the October 7 attack.
How does that compute with the above statement « I have only met innocents in Gaza » ?
In the midst of ideological deafness-blindness you find a sort of ignorance that verges on innocence.
They simply lack the elements of complexity that would take them to another level of awareness.
The mental frames of their experience are what you find in Obedience to authority (Milgram) and Mass psychology of fascism (Wilhelm Reich). No judgment there. The opposite of a judgmental conclusion. The human mind builds the hardest shells depending upon the depth of trauma it experienced. Achilles himself, the mythological prototype of the Angry Man was post-traumatic. You could add Achilles in Vietnam, by Jonathan Shay, to your booklist about war and its consequences. And read a recent article by Ofri Ilany (January 4, 2025), Israelis and Palestinians are Trapped in an Endless Cycle of Trauma, and May Never Heal. Subtitled Only recently have we begun to process the traumas of the previous century, and yet here we are, living from war to war again, from tragedy to tragedy.Trapped.
For a fact, this was years before October 7, 2023, and I never met with Islamic Jihad members, or the most hardened fighters of the Qassam Brigades. My one meeting with Yahya Sinwar in 2012 was brief and without a future. He knew what we were about, with our Bilingual Experimental Programme, based on Martin Luther King’s teachings, but it was clear it was of no interest to him. The man was never alone, escorted by his younger brother, bodyguards, and was hard-pressed for time. He obviously had other plans.
That’s where our ways parted, and I got tired of struggling against walls of inertia year after year. They had the means to print hundreds of copies of our little red book, and the power to let us bring them to high schools, but we were only authorized to go test it at the Islamic University, with students of English, and our stock was too limited to really last beyond a few seasons.
And yet, there were manifest signs that they, the politico-religious nomenklatura at the higher echelon, were open to changes. It was printed in the media : Hamas Shifts From Rockets to Culture War. The New York Times, July 24, 2009. Palestinians try a Less Violent Path to Resistance, ibid., April 6, 2010. Those were the years of our commitment in Gaza – again, with the approval of the Southern Command, headed from 2005 till 2010 by Yoav Gallant. Then, by General Rousso, from 2010 to 2013, and General Turgeman, from 2013 to 2015. All three generals never vetoed our continued attempts in Gaza. 2014-2015 is when we stopped our work there, having run out of that dangerous thing, hope.
To put it simply, it had become manifest that they would not cooperate, despite the original written agreement, first supported by PM Haniyeh. Their faith in the armed struggle was too deeply rooted. Along with the separatism between East and West, hugely bolstered by the birth of ISIS, the Islamic State, in nearby Syria and Iraq in 2013-2014. Isis, spreading tentacles into Palestinian territories and Sinai, leading to the Sinai Insurgency (2011-2023), gathering up to fifteen organizations of jihadis, with some twelve thousand fighters. Among them, the Army of Islam (2005-2025), the Mujahideen Brigades (2006-2025), Ansar al-Quds (2011-2014), Tawhid al-Jihad (2008-2012), Wilayat Sinai (Egyptian branch of ISIS, 2014-2023)…. All of them having ideological and logistical connections in Gaza, which became a hotbed for jihad across borders in those years, 2008-2014.
8- Remember Einstein’s equation : Understanding Over Force.
If it were only Hamas… Where does that obsession with just one side of it come from ? What for ?
Contextualizing our catastrophies, it was clear to whomever spent time in Gaza between 2006 and 2015, that « Hamas » was an umbrella front aiming, in their words, at a « centrist ideology ». Check out with a veteran writer for The Jerusalem Post, Khaled Abu Toameh, April 2015 : https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/hamas-launches-a-campaign-to-combat-extremist-ideology-says-official-396812
And yet, the cadres of the nomenklatura in power in Gaza were busy secretly digging tunnels all the time. The tunnels were their Manhattan Project, so well guarded that I was never allowed into one of them, even to Egypt, despite my repeated requests. The leaders were prodded by hard-core Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with its ten thousand men, following the Lebanese model of Hezbollah, supported and armed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Contextualize our catastrophies. If it were only the old blood feud in the Holy Land (cf Jackals and Arabs, Kafka, 1917), we could circumscribe it rather simply, but it englobes the Afghan wars (1979-2021) as well, the Gulf wars (1990-2011), the Syrian wars (2011-2024), the Lebanon wars (1982-2025), the Yemen wars (2014-2025), and up to the war in Ukraine (2022-2025). They all connect.
« The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. » (1984, Orwell) Has ceased to exist as a real, personal danger in the saturated minds of the post-1984 citizens.
Open the French mainstream media at random, as of, say, February 21, 2025, and what do you find there ? « The executive power wants to prepare the French society to the premices of an unprecedented war effort since 1945 » . No less. By being continuous, the state of war reveals itself as a permanant norm for those societies that belong to the Top Ten of Arms Exporters, i.e. war inciters.
[USA, France, Russia, China, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, South Korea – SIPRI source]
Read the Text of the Address by President Eisenhower, his State of the Union speech in the White House, on January 17, 1961 – about « This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry », aptly baptized by him « the military-industrial complex ».
The sense of defeat, from a human point-of-view, is overwhelming.
And yet, we’re still breathing, searching, reaching out.
Through and over the rubble, the ruins of hope.
Like Mosab Abu Toha, the Gaza poet.
« I am neither in nor out. I am in between. » Displaced
For we truly hold that there is no fundamental difference, no existential gap, at heart, between him, Mosab Abu Toha from Gaza, and Jonathan Dekel Chen from Nir Oz, or between Tula in Israel and Dina in Cairo. Only external circumstances separate them. Scientifically speaking, the human matter, the blood groups, are identical. Spiritually speaking, the believers’ God is one and the same.
Not a question of nature, but of degrees. And context.
A case of external circumstances : meaning how each of us relates to them, and chooses to interact.
The constant, daily choices we make, in thoughts, decisions, connections.
« You no longer have to choose between being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. You have to be pro-peace. » (Amos Oz). Unless, of course, the peace word and concept has become off limits for you, taboo. But then, you would have no interest reading anything related to Peace Lines, would you.
9- The baby elephant in the room.
At that stage in the unfolding of facts and insights, a fast reader could object that there are only pictures of Israelis in these pages, Yocheved Lifshitz, Tula, Amos Oz, Gilad Shalit, Daniel Viflic, with an American President – therefore indicating a clearly pro-Israel bias. What then do you make of the image of the Palestinian January 27 exodus ?
For this is the heart of it all.
You do have two million two hundred thousand people in the 360 square kilometers of the Gaza Strip. Almost a million of them under the age of 15. One million children.
« According to UNICEF, more than 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war: that’s more than the number of children killed in 4 years of wars worldwide. 25,000 children have been injured: Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. »
10- The volcano behind the fence.
https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/category/media/media-2023-2024/
Not that the writings were not on the walls.
“In January 2008, activists broke through the heavy metal fences. Half the population (800,000 at the time) rushed to Egypt, and were driven back after a few days. Check Gaza Border Breach.
What Israelis fear is another Border Breach of such magnitude, this time into Israel. »
https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/2025/02/21/gaza-facts-echoes-2016-2018/
https://messageriesdelapaix.org/index.php/2025/02/21/gaza-gazing-at-us-sending-out-an-s-o-s-2018/
- General Eiland interview, David Horovitz, The Times of Israel, April 2, 2018
“I don’t know what IDF could do if 300,000 try to trample Gaza fence” - https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-general-i-dont-know-what-idf-could-do-if-300000-try-to-trample-gaza-fence/
11- A symmetry of illusions.
The French Maginot Line, built from 1930 to 1937 at tremendous cost, just like the Gaza Fence, «created an illusory atmosphere of safety and security », actually blinding people as to the reality of what was going on on the Other Side (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel, October 10, 2023)
Think of it : a $1.1 billion project of 2 million cubic meters of concrete, 140,000 tonnes of iron and steel, having required 1,200 workers erecting and digging – underground and overground, for years.
Likewise, the construction of Gaza’s formidable underground citadel, from 2006 until 2023, made its architects look and feel invincible.
One side never thought the Fence, « a creative, technological project of the first order », could ever be breached in so many ways. The other side never thought the counter-reaction could destroy 70% of its structures.
12- February-March 2025 Crossroads : Dangling Deal. What to do ?
As of February 22, there are still 60 hostages being held in Gaza, less than half of them alive only. We’re nearing the end of the first phase of the agreement. Talks on the next phase must proceed. Whereas secrecy is of the essence for such negotiations, its key necessities should remain in the light, rather than shrouded in darkness. For there are two paths we can go by : fifty thousand human beings have been sacrificed to the bloodthirsty gods of war, and the choice before us is clear. Shall we sacrifice another ten thousand in the weeks to come ?
What to do with Gaza ? with Gazans ? What to do with the West Bank, with Palestinians ?
Force alone fosters chaos. Twenty-five centuries ago it was clear that « Whoever uses force uses weapons for his misfortune. » (Tao 31). In Princess Reema’s words, « communication is the key. If you want progress you can’t not talk to other people. » (Al Arabiya, February 20, 2025)
In 2018, we launched a call to the European Union, with fifteen Nobel laureates, to re-monitor the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, and let the people go. It has taken seven years for this call to be heard, until the European Border Assistance Mission was manned again (January 31, 2025).
We cannot wait another seven years to finally face our responsibilities ! We cannot wait seven months or seven weeks to stop the killing machines ! Now is the time to push for the second phase of the Ceasefire. Let the voices of humanity and common sense be heard. Do it now.
The Jerusalem – Nablus Call to end the war
For the sake of humankind
Are we not the same blood groups ?
End all fighting now.
Let them all go home,
All the forsaken survivors,
The hostages, the displaced.
Let the fighters lay down their arms,
let them all recover from the deadly din of war.
The only final victory is to break the endless cycle of retaliations.
We are all in counted time, on a limited stretch of land. Let us make the best of it, both in separation and togetherness.
In support of the European border commitment at the Rafah Crossing with Egypt, we call all parties to consider/remedy the condition of severely suffering civilians.
For a true cessation of hostilities, we call for a permanent end to all attack tunnels
and empowering the lasting reconstruction of Gaza within a peaceful, demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The 2017 Hamas Covenant against Non-Violent Resistance
* The 5 articles of the new Hamas Covenant (2017) that formally contradict any pledge of “non-violent resistance” :
20. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
23. Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour for all the sons and daughters of our people and our Ummah.
25. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.
26. Hamas rejects any attempt to undermine the resistance and its arms. It also affirms the right of our people to develop the means and mechanisms of resistance. Managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the process of managing the conflict and should not be at the expense of the principle of resistance.
30. Hamas stresses the necessity of building Palestinian national institutions on sound democratic principles, foremost among them are free and fair elections. Such process should be on the basis of national partnership and in accordance with a clear programme and a clear strategy that adhere to the rights, including the right of resistance, and which fulfil the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
GAZA GAZING AT US… SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. – 2018
GAZA GAZING AT US… SENDING OUT AN S.O.S.
1- The Three Doors
In the Gaza Strip there are three doors, one to the North-East (Erez Crossing), the other to the South-West (Rafah Crossing).
One to Israel, the other to Egypt. Plus the Kerem Shalom Crossing, for trucks only, 2 km South of Rafah.
Today, as of early April 2018, the three doors are practically closed. Few people cross daily to Israel and back through Erez, due to security considerations between Israel and Gaza. None cross through Rafah to Egypt and back, except a few times a year, without any warning, leaving tens of thousands on waiting lists.
When the Rafah Crossing was opened in February, hundreds of Palestinians, women, children, old people most of them, remained stranded on the Egyptian side for days on end, unallowed to come home. “We are being treated like animals” they complained.
In the last months the number of trucks coming into Gaza from Israel has tragically fallen from 800/1,000 a day to 300-350. Not due to restrictive measures taken by Israel, but to the collapse of Gazans’ purchasing power. People in Gaza just do not have the means anymore to buy what they need for basic daily life.
2- The Great Border Breach
Ten years ago, on January 2008, after 7 months of blockade, both by Israel and Egypt, the people of Gaza, under the guidance of activists who demolished the metal wall separating them from Egypt, desperately rushed to the other side. The United Nations observers estimated to half the population the number of those who crossed over for goods and supplies (between 700,000 and 800,000 then). After a few days though, then President Mubarak ordered the border to be sealed again, and they all had to return to what had become a cage to them.
Check : Gaza Border Breach
3- The Open the Doors Campaign
A handful of Nobel Laureates then started the Open the Doors Campaign, based on three main demands :
– “enable Gaza to open to the world”
– “end all killings and attacks” on both sides
– “release a significant group of women prisoners, sick prisoners, the youngest and longest-serving, along with those held under arbitrary procedures”
(among the prisoners was Sargeant Shalit who had been captured in a crossborder raid and detained underground, incommunicado, since June 2006).
As they felt more leverage was needed, they extended this Campaign to the European Parliament – the only major forum worldwide directly related to Israel and Palestine, on every level : historical, geographical, spiritual, and human. Reaching up to 54% of the Members of Parliament in 2014.
The release of Sargeant Shalit was obtained in October 2011, along with the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners and most of the women detained.
Since, things have been stalling, and the human condition of the 2 million Gazans has gradually deteriorated to a point of no-return.
4- Raw facts that “everybody” knows
Electricity can be switched on for 3 to 4 hours a day only. Families, businesses, hospitals, depend on generators – and their fuel, to be bought from Israel or Egypt. Strictly speaking, people live in the dark.
Water from the taps is unfit to drink, and people have to buy water from barrels and bottles, which depletes their misery budget – 80% live in poverty, 65% under the poverty line, 45% of the people are unemployed (as opposed to 20% in the West Bank and 4.3% in Israel). For women and those under the age of 25, the figure rises to more than 60%, close to two thirds.
The median age is 17. Half of the population is under 15. Although they could enjoy bathing along the Mediterranean shore, this has become a health hazard, as the water is tragically polluted from raw sewage rejected into it (100,000 cubic meters a day!), due to electricity shortage. Even the beaches further North, in Israel, up to Ashkelon, are now polluted.
5- Life and death underground
What has changed since January 2008 ?
Precious little. Things have only gone from bad to worse, from one Egyptian president to the next. There’s no leaving the Gaza Strip, except through the Erez Crossing trickle to Israel, and the occasional and chaotic opening of the Rafah Crossing to Egypt for a short period, once a month at best.
Activists and young men working for wages keep digging tunnels, deeper and deeper, often dying underground, buried alive in yellow sandy earth, crushed by collapses. Dozens have died this way. Egyptian and Israeli authorities keep flooding, destroying the tunnels, one after the other. Whereas there were once as many as a thousand, the tunnel business is nothing like what it was in the Mubarak-Morsi years.
6- What of the “March of Return”?
It can be seen as a ploy, a Trojan Horse of vast proportions, with an ultimate scheme of mayhem and bloodshed * – since bloodshed is the only element that may attract the world’s attention.
Close to 800,000 people desperately broke through the border with Egypt in 2008. This time the focus is on Israel, with the irreal goal of the 1948 refugees and their descendants (millions of them) returning to their former lands and homes. No Israeli government can ever yield to that. It would mean the implosion of the Jewish State, by the force of numbers and chaos. 1948 was 70 years ago. Where in the world do refugees return en masse after 70 years ?
Add to this the number of military tunnels that have been dug from Gaza into Israel in the latter years, and you will understand that the Israelis have reasons to fear anything that could look like the Great Border Breach of 2008, this time into their land.
Now, if you were Gazan, what would you do? Israeli citizen Leah Solomon asked.
7- What can – and must – be done, urgently
Since we are free to move and act as we please, whether in Europe, America, or the rest of the world, what can we do not to just sit back and pretend that we just don’t see ?
The very least that can be done is to reopen one of the two Gaza doors, the Rafah Crossing. All the more as no other than the European Union (Nobel Peace Laureate for 2012) has kept its keys since 2007.
From 2005 to 2007, a remarkable team of 60 inspectors, the EU Border Assistance Mission – Rafah, did their job, letting an average of 1,500 Gazans cross daily. In the summer of 2007, these inspectors were sent back to Ashkelon, and later to the suburb of Tel Aviv, where they have been stationed since, at the cost of 1 million euros a year.
Under the motive that “we don’t talk to Hamas”. “Hamas” couldn’t have cared less. The people only paid the price. Since November 1, 2017 though, this pretext has lost its last shred of validity, since none other than the Palestinian Presidential Guard has seized control of the Rafah Crossing. In the current year, from July 2017 until the end of June 2018, the EUBAM – Rafah budget has been doubled to 1.98 million euros. What are they waiting for ?
8- Mach die Tür Auf ! Open that Door !
All we are asking is: let the EUBAM-Rafah Mission get back to work, and do its job. Mach die Tür Auf ! Open that Door !
And let’s start working on Gaza’s offshore harbour! [“A new island in the Mediterranean… just off Gaza” June 2017]
Give Gaza a Fourth Door : to the World !
We, the European Union, the United States, the willing Emirates, Japan, Russia, China (why not?), under the blue flag of the United Nations.
Let the people of Gaza out !
RAZAN AL NAJJAR, MEDIC, 20, IN JUNE
Iyad Abuheweila & Isabel Kershner, The New York Times, June 2, 2018
A Woman Dedicated to Saving Lives Loses Hers in Gaza Violence
FOUR BOYS IN APRIL
http://www.maannews.com/Photos/470702C.jpg
Tahrir Mahmoud Wahba, deaf boy of 18,
shot down on Friday, April 13,
in the border area of Khan Yunis
Died on Monday morning, April 16
Abdel Rahman Nawfal, 12, sits in a hospital bed in the West Bank city of Ramallah on April 23, 2018, after his leg was amputated following an injury sustained after throwing stones at Israeli forces near the Gaza-Israel border.
Abdel Rahman Nawfal, 12 – threw stones at soldiers
on Tuesday, April 17
shot down along the Eastern border of Central Gaza
left leg amputated below the knee
Friends of 15-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub, who was shot and killed by Israeli security forces during clashes along the Israel-Gaza border, hold up a poster of his portrait by his grave in a cemetery in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza strip on April 21, 2018.
Mohammad Ayoub, 15,
crossed a line of barbed wire
shot in the head, Friday, April 20
http://www.maannews.com/Photos/470702C.jpg
Azzam Uweida, 15
Shot down on Friday, April 27
Died Saturday 28
On May 23, following a visit to a hospital and a rehabilitation center in Gaza, UN Relief and Works Agency Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl highlighted the ramifications of the recent events: “I truly believe that much of the world completely underestimates the extent of the disaster in human terms that occurred in the Gaza Strip since the marches began on March 30. … As many people or even slightly more were injured during a total of seven days of protests than were injured during the full duration of the 2014 conflict. That is truly staggering. During the visits, I was also struck not only by the number of injured but also by the nature of the injuries. … The pattern of small entry wounds and large exit wounds indicates ammunition used caused severe damage to internal organs, muscle tissue and bones. Both the staff of the Gazan Ministry of Health hospitals, NGOs and UNRWA clinics are struggling to deal with extremely complex wounds and care.”
Amira Hass : Along Gazan border they shoot medics too, don’t they May 28, 2018
Juliane Helmhold, The Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2018
WATCH : Behind the Smokescreen Part II – Exclusive footage [The Great Deception, by Pierre Rehov]
Alia Chughtai, Al Jazeera, May 16, 2018
Palestinians’ Great March of Return: The human cost
Amira Hass, Haaretz, May 20, 2018
‘We Die Anyway, So Let It Be in Front of the Cameras’: Conversations With Gazans
Juliane Helmhold, The Jerusalem Post, May 7, 2018
WATCH: Exclusive footage from inside Gaza reveals true face of protests [11 mn video by Pierre Rehov, with M. Zahar’s statement]
Fadi Abu Shammalah, The New York Times, April 27, 2018
A LETTER FROM GAZA IN MAY
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Why I March in Gaza By Fadi Abu Shammalah Mr. Shammalah is the executive director of the General Union of Cultural Centers in Gaza. · April 27, 2018 o o The New York Times
Palestinian demonstrators on a sand plateau during clashes with Israeli forces last Friday east of Gaza City. Residents of Gaza are mounting a series of protests called the Great Return March.CreditMohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Early in the morning on March 30, my 7-year-old son, Ali, saw me preparing to leave the house. This was unusual for our Friday routine. “Where are you going, Dad?” “To the border. To participate in the Great Return March.” The Great Return March is the name that has been given to 45 days of protest along the border between Gaza and Israel. It began on March 30, Land Day, which commemorates the 1976 killings of six Palestinians inside Israel who had been protesting land confiscations, and ends on May 15, the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 war that lead to the creation of Israel. “Can I come with you?” Ali pleaded. I told him it was too dangerous. If Israeli military warnings were any indication, the risk that unarmed protesters might be shot by Israeli snipers was too high. “Why are you going if you might get killed?” Ali pressed me. His question stayed with me as I went to the border encampment in eastern Khan Younis, the southern Gaza town where I live. It remained with me on the following Fridays as I continued to participate in the march activities, and it lingers with me now. I cherish my life. I am the father of three precious children (Ali has a 4-year-old brother, Karam, and a newborn baby brother, Adam), and I’m married to a woman I consider my soul mate. And my fears were borne out: 39 protesters have been killed since the march began, many by sniper fire, including a 15-year-old last week and two other children on April 6. Israel is refusing to return the bodies of two of those slain. Thousands more have been injured. Journalists have been targeted; 13 of them have been shot since the protests began, including Yasser Murtaja, a 30-year-old photographer, and 25-year-old Ahmed Abu Hussein, who died Wednesday of his injuries. So why am I willing to risk my life by joining the Great Return March? There are multiple answers to Ali’s question. I fully believe in the march’s tactics of unarmed, direct, civilian-led mass action. I have also been inspired by how the action has unified the Palestinian people in the politically fractured Gaza Strip. And the march is an effective way to highlight the unbearable living conditions facing residents of the Gaza Strip: four hours of electricity a day, the indignity of having our economy and borders under siege, the fear of having our homes shelled. But the core reason I am participating is that years from now, I want to be able to look Ali, Karam and Adam in the eye and tell them, “Your father was part of this historic, nonviolent struggle for our homeland.” Western media’s coverage of the Great Return March has focused on the images of young people hurling stones and burning tires. The Israeli military portrays the action as a violent provocation by Hamas, a claim that many analysts have blindly accepted. Those depictions are in direct contradiction with my experiences on the ground. Representatives of the General Union of Cultural Centers, the nongovernmental organization for which I serve as executive director, participated in planning meetings for the march, which included voices from all segments of Gaza’s civil and political society. At the border, I haven’t seen a single Hamas flag, or Fatah banner, or poster for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, for that matter — paraphernalia that have been widespread in virtually every other protest I have witnessed. Here, we have flown only one flag — the Palestinian flag. True, Hamas members are participating, as they are part of the Palestinian community. But that participation signals, perhaps, that they may be shifting away from an insistence on liberating Palestine through military means and are beginning to embrace popular, unarmed civil protest. But the Great Return March is not Hamas’s action. It is all of ours. And our action has been so much more than tires burning or young men throwing stones at soldiers stationed hundreds of meters away. The resistance in the encampments has been creative and beautiful. I danced the dabke, the Palestinian national dance, with other young men. I tasted samples of the traditional culinary specialties being prepared, such as msakhan (roasted chicken with onions, sumac and pine nuts) and maftool (a couscous dish). I sang traditional songs with fellow protesters and sat with elders who were sharing anecdotes about pre-1948 life in their native villages. Some Fridays, kites flew, and on others flags were hoisted on 80-foot poles to be clearly visible on the other side of the border. All this was taking place under the rifle sights of Israeli snipers stationed about 700 meters away. We were tense, we were fearful — indeed, I’ve been in the proximity of people getting shot and tear-gassed — but we were joyful. The singing, the dancing, the storytelling, the flags, the kites and the food are more than symbols of cultural heritage. They demonstrate — clearly, loudly, vibrantly and peacefully — that we exist, we will remain, we are humans deserving of dignity, and we have the right to return to our homes. I long to sleep under the olive trees of Bayt Daras, my native village. I want to show Ali, Karam and Adam the mosque that my grandfather prayed in. I want to live peacefully in my historic home with all my neighbors, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish or atheist. The people in Gaza have been living one tragedy after another: waves of mass displacement, life in squalid refugee camps, a captured economy, restricted access to fishing waters, a strangling siege and three wars in the past nine years. Israel assumed that once the generation who experienced the Nakba died, the youth would relinquish our dream of return. I believe this is partly why Israel keeps Gaza on the brink of humanitarian collapse — if our lives are reduced to a daily struggle for food, water, medicine and electricity, we won’t be able to think about larger aspirations. The march is proving that my generation has no intention of abandoning our people’s dreams. The Great Return March has kindled my optimism, but I am also realistic. Alone, the march will not end the siege and the occupation, address the huge power imbalance that exists between Israel and the Palestinians or right the historical wrongs. The work continues until everyone in the region can share equal rights. But I could not be more inspired by or proud of my people — seeing us united under one flag, with nearly unanimous acceptance of peaceful methods to call for our rights and insist on our humanity. Every Friday through May 15, I will continue to go to the encampments. I will go to send a message to the international community about the devastating conditions in which I am forced to raise my sons. I will go so that I can glimpse our lands — our trees — on the other side of the militarized border as Israeli soldiers surveil me through their weapons. If Ali asks me why I’m returning to the Great Return March despite the danger, I will tell him this: I love my life. But more than that, I love you, Karam and Adam. If risking my life means you and your brothers will have a chance to thrive, to have a future with dignity, to live in peace with all your neighbors, in your free country, then this is a risk I must take. Fadi Abu Shammalah is the executive director of the General Union of Cultural Centers in Gaza and a co-producer of the documentary film “Naila and the Uprising.” |
GAZA FACTS 2024-2025
Facts today are hard to get, as there has been no access to the Gaza Strip since the Summer of 2023, and world statistics are scarce, be they in the CIA Factbook or else.
The Cease-Fire of August 26, 2014
The Cease-Fire of August 26, 2014
After 50 days of warfare, 8 failed cease-fires, and the disastrous toll of 2,192 killed and 11,000 wounded on one side (most of them civilians), 73 killed and 556 wounded on the other side (most of them soldiers), an "unlimited cease-fire" was finally declared on Tuesday, August 26, starting at 7 p.m., with all the factions concerned – not only Israel and Hamas, but also Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and PRC. The main issues remain to be negotiated though :
– the monitoring of permanent passage to and from Israel and Egypt, with unrestricted access for foreign civilians, rehabilitation teams, members of the European Parliament, diplomats…
– the actual opening to normal, regular commercial transactions
– the release of West Bank prisoners (both arbitrarily detained and longest-serving),
– the construction of a seaport, and the reconstruction of the airport,
to really "enable Gaza to open to the world, guarantee the possibility of a viable economy, and improve the humanitarian situation", as required in the Open the Doors Campaign.
So that the future will not become even worse than the status quo ante, both sides must agree to an unlimited pact of mutual non-aggression, with the properly empowered monitoring and verification missions, to ensure that there be no further violations or provocations.
Peace Lines Communiqué of August 25, 2014
Facing the unsustainable war of attrition between Gaza and Israel, we exhort all leaders presently involved in negotiations for a permanent cease-fire to abide by universal humanitarian standards. The erratic war mechanisms holding civilians hostage on both sides must be exposed as counter-productive and conducive to terror.
In their clarion call, more than 300 survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us : “Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water.”
1,800,000 people have been under blockade for seven years, making this the longest siege in modern history. 500,000 persons have been displaced in Gaza. Around Gaza, 70% of the Israelis have had to evacuate their homes.
Since 2008, 69 Nobel laureates and 587 Members of the European Parliament (231 in the current mandate) have engaged themselves with the n.g.o. Peace Lines in the “Open the Doors Campaign”. Its four fundamental objectives remain :
1. The Gaza blockade must end. Israel must enable Gaza to open to the world, so as to guarantee the possibility of a viable economy, and improve the humanitarian situation.
2. The Palestinians must end all rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.
3. The cycle of deadly reprisals must end, including “targeted assassinations”.
4. As a confidence-building measure, the Israelis, who still hold more than 5,000 men and 15 women in their jails, must release significant numbers of prisoners on humanitarian and legal grounds : sick prisoners, women detainees, the longest-serving prisoners, and administrative detainees – among them 25 Members of the Palestinian Parliament, not to forget 200 minors in detention.
Striving for these objectives implies credible negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian government. So that both peoples may at last live in security, dignity and justice, we urge the European Union – in view of its embedded involvement in the history of the Middle East – to assume its inherent responsibility as guarantor of a sustainable resolution.
Among the most influential signatories of the Open the Doors Campaign : Peace Nobel laureates : Archbishop Tutu from South-Africa, the Dalai Lama, Irishman John Hume, ex-US President Carter, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Jody Williams…; Literature laureates : American author Toni Morrison, Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, Australian author John Coetzee from South-Africa…; Chemistry laureates : Roald Hoffmann, Sir Aaron Klug, Yuan T. Lee…; Medicine laureates : Richard Roberts, Torsten Wiesel, Harald zur Hausen…; Physics laureates : Zhores Alferov, Brian Josephson, Jack Steinberger…; Economics laureates : George Akerlof, Daniel Kahneman, Sir James Mirrlees; film director Jean-Luc Godard, Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, Warsaw ghetto survivor Martin Gray, Israeli writers David Grossman and Amos Oz. 3 Former Presidents of the European Parliament Nicole Fontaine, Hans-Gert Pöttering, Jerzy Buzek, and 6 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament in 2014 : Mairead McGuinness, Ildiko Gall-Pelcz, Ryszard Czarnecki, Sylvie Guillaume, Ulrike Lunacek, Dimitrios Papadimoulis.
War in the Summer of 2014
The new year got off to a bad start. For the first time since 2009, we did not get the needed permit to enter Gaza. Hence our Bilingual Experimental Programme was interrupted. So was our network of relations, since the people we know in Gaza scarcely use internet, nor do they use the phone. Needless to say, there are no postal services in Gaza. No letter would get there.
February 2014 : our file was classified as “in progress”. April 2014 : still “in progress”. Blame it on a change in personnel at the gates, or what, we were told we were not considered (anymore) as “humanitarian”.
We pleaded countless times at different levels, still the ax would fall : no access. Bad omen, if anything. Our work proceeded, but in the West Bank only, in various universities, from Jenin to Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem.
Not to underestimate the influence of higher education : good books and the study of languages will take you a long way indeed. Came June 2, 2014, and we learnt that Dr Rami Hamdallah, a linguist who had been President of the An Najah University in Nablus, was confirmed as Prime Minister, at the head of the second Government of National Unity, after the brutal demise of the first one, in the summer of 2006, when some forty members of the Palestinian legislature were taken prisoners (as a retaliatory measure against the capture of the young tank operator Gilad Shalit) – among them, the Vice Prime Minister Nasser Al Shaer, who also was “our minister”, the Minister of Education, the man who was instrumental in getting the Palestinian National Authority to support our Experimental Bilingual Programme in April 2006.
This government is in charge of preparing the next general elections, a process that was frozen in 2006, with the massive arrest of legislators mentioned above.
To us, an encouraging piece of news, since it was established in 2006 that only a strong government, representing all the tendancies of Palestinian public opinion, could implement our Experimental Programme. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Government_of_2014]
This ray of renewed hope did not last long. On June 12, ten days barely after the unity government was formed, three Jewish teenagers were kidnapped in an Israeli-controlled area, and from there all hell broke loose. Immediately, “Hamas” was designated as the prime suspect, which led to the massive arrests of more than 500 of its members and sympathizers in the West Bank. Among them, Dr Aziz Dweik, the Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament – as such, according to Palestinian institutions, the second-in-line after President Abbas.
Strangely, Dr Dweik is the exact opposite of an extremist. A professor in urban geography, with a Ph D in Regional and Architecture Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, practically his whole family has been involved in medical and pharmaceutical studies. Reminding us of the poet’s quote : “they locked up a man who wanted to rule the world; the fools locked up the wrong man”.
Could Dr Dweik be held responsible in anything for the kidnapping of the three teenagers ? Or Hamas for that matter, the usual Bête Noire ? An Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, gives troubling clues on that case, in his inquiry published by Al Monitor, on June 29 : "Accused kidnappers are rogue Hamas branch".
Sadly, and strangely enough, the very next day, the bodies of the three young hitch-hikers were found a few miles away from Hebron, in “Qawasmeh territory”. By Shlomi Eldar again, read "Hebron branch of rogue Hamas wing has dark history" (published on July 2).
More strangely still : the two suspects, members of that “rogue wing” hadn’t been found two months after the crime.
On the same day, July 2, a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped in the Northern suburb of Jerusalem, and burned alive in the small Jerusalem Forest, as “retaliation” for the triple murder in the West Bank.
Six days later, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their “Mighty Cliff Operation” against Gaza, due to the number of rockets fired from there in June and early July.
On this matter, people are of two conflicting views. Some claim that these rockets (including the long-range rockets that can hit Haifa or Jerusalem) are as nothing, since more than 4,000 of them "only" killed 1 civilian, a Bedouin in the Negev desert (in the first days of July). Their contradictors hold the view that just one rocket is enough to drive people crazy and trigger a carnage : on June 28, a paint factory in Sderot was struck by a Qassam, setting it ablaze, sending a huge column of smoke in the sky; on July 3, a short-range Qassam hit a day camp in Sderot, just minutes before the children were due to arrive. On July 11, on the 4th day of the military operation against Gaza, a longer-range rocket hit a gas station in Ashdod, about 40 km from Gaza City, setting it on fire, seriously injuring a disabled man, wounding seven others.
Numbers speak volumes though, when compared to the tolls of the previous operations. As of August 31, 2014, an estimated 11,000 Palestinians have been wounded in 51 days (as opposed to less than 7,000 in 8 years) and around 2,200 have been killed according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza (most of them civilians) – crushing the number of 1,400 for “Cast Lead” and 622 killed for the other four operations altogether. In the same period 66 Israeli soldiers and officers were killed (+6 civilians), 470 of them wounded (+90 civilians).
400,000 Gazans have become refugees in schools, mosques, public structures, including a few churches, or at distant relatives’. Ominously, one of the UN schools was hit by a shell, on July 30, and fifteen refugees were killed in their sleep. UN Aid Chief Pierre Krahenbuhl warned that this was the 6th time one of their schools had been targeted by shelling (check Daily Mail : July 31, 2014). On August 3, another UN school was hit, with some 3,000 displaced persons inside, leaving more than 10 killed (check BBC : UN school hit in Rafah). No place is safe anymore.
The Al Najjar family, who had escaped heavy shelling in their village near the Eastern border to find refuge with relatives in densely populated Khan City, was hit by a missile on July 26, leaving 11 children and 5 women killed. Around thirty of them died in a few days in both locations. Where to go from there?
In what ways this concerns us, and strikes us too :
The boys you see in the pictures [Gaza (Palestine)] are students in Shujaieh, East of Gaza City – the area, with Khuza'a, that most suffered from the military operation in mid-July 2014. How can they relate to Dr King’s approach to non-violent choices, non-violent resistance now ?
The man who took their pictures is a member of the Al Najjar family. How can he continue with our programme, and its philosophy ?
“I believe that even today amid rocket bursts and bullets whining, there’s still hope for a brighter tomorrow” ?
Make no mistake : the one-ton bombs and the $100,000 Hellfire missiles presently targeting Gaza, along with the 32,000 155 mm tank shells fired in July, have not destroyed “the infrastructures of terror” (or if they have here and there, they will be rebuilt in no time). Rather, they have created irreversible damage to the minds of 1 million children and teenagers, making our work in the wake of this onslaught all the more difficult. Almost impossible, in the aftermath of this “inhuman war”.
Short selection of books published since January 2015 about Jihadism
Since January 2015, a great many books have been published about Jihadism at large, and its repercussions in Western Europe, notably in France.
Here is a short selection of some of them (to be continued)
