Gaza.

June 2018

Gaza.

Razan al-Najjar, volunteer with the Medical Relief, was 21, and had a white coat
and her hands raised high when on the border, as she tried to tend to an
injured, was shot, and killed. It was the 1st of June. And all over the world, her
picture turned into a symbol of Gaza. But in Gaza, what turned into a symbol
was rather the shattering of that picture: during the funeral wake, in her house.
In a Hamas raid. Because she was a Fatah activist.
And she had to be just one among many.
The demonstration of the following day was expected to be the largest since
the start of protests. Palestinians deserted it.
For Gaza, the March of Return is the first grass-roots initiative ever. Every
Friday, since March 30, thousands of Palestinians gather along what nobody
refers to as border, here, but fence, because on both sides of the barbed wire,
you are explained, there is actually the same country: and they try to cross it.
Israel believes it is just a Hamas ploy to divert the attention away from its
internal troubles. From its endless confrontation with Fatah. But groundwork
went on for months, with the involvement of all Gaza. Because it is life, here, to
drive you to rise up. What's hard, it's rather to stop you: the wounded, with
plasters still on their heads, rush straight away back to the fence. "But it ended
as it always ends. When a new idea works, and the world starts talking of
Palestine again, Hamas and Fatah and all the factions seize it: and they waste it
all. Unable to convert that visibility, that momentum, into political effects,"
says Atef Abu Saif, Gaza's most famous novelist. "And somehow, it's like when
a rocket hits Tel Aviv. For a few minutes, it's general excitement. But then?
What did you change?," he says. "Nothing."
Gaza has been cut off from the world for more than ten years. There isn't even
water anymore. There is only salt water. Sea water. You feel sticky all the day,
in Gaza. All the days, for years. And every now and again, an F-16 comes and
bomb.
Every now and again, suddenly, you die.

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 Gaza. June 2018

We have got familiar with the brutal figures of Gaza. Nearly 2 million
Palestinians live here, and literally "here": in 2017, Israel issued only 9,600 exit
permits. Per capita, it means to get out every 201 years. 80 percent of the
population live on aid. 50 percent, is food insecure, in UN jargon. 50 percent is
hungry. And 45 percent is under 15. And yet, in Gaza there is a word that tells
more than all these figures: Tramadol. Which is a painkiller. And it is the most
popular drug, here. So many youth, in the world, use ecstasy, cocaine, meth, to
feel high until dawn. But in Gaza, if you are in your twenties, you just want to
fall asleep and forget.
Every two, three days there is a suicide attempt.
No one talks of politics. The priority, here, is to find food. The few who still get a
salary, with their only salary support brothers, fathers, cousins. Because there
is like no government anymore. It collapsed. There are just mosques, and
mutual help. In downtown Gaza, a shabby lawn is now a camp of makeshift
shelters, a patchwork of old, rancid blankets tied together with twine. Inside,
families haven't a single biscuit, a slice of bread. Nothing. Like the family of
Hamam Maat, 32 years old and five children, the youngest still in his cradle, his
skin red from bug bites. They were evicted ten days ago. They received 750
shekel every three months, about 200 dollars, but the ministry of Welfare run
out of money. And there is no point in trying to make the kids smile: they stare
at you hugged each other, in a corner. Speechless. "Israelis fear that with the
border open, we would get in and attack. But I don't have a shekel. I couldn't
even reach the border," he says. In 32 years, he's never had a job.
Many of the 13,000 wounded of these weeks underwent amputation. More
often then not, they didn't need it. But they could die from infection: there were
no antibiotics.
Palestinians believe it's time to negotiate. Not only because they are
exhausted, but because Israel, they say, is focused on Iran, on the Syrian front:
it can't have a second front in Gaza. And indeed, the fresh wave of rockets and
airstrikes that the world is following with concern, here is read as a sign of
dialogue: Hamas fires its rockets late in the evening or early in the morning,
when they are unlikely to make victims, and Israel, on the other hand, so far
has been targeting basically empty areas. As if it were a kind of Morse code.
Because in the end, Hamas, too, can't endure a new war: it is totally alone. And

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totally broke. It depends on tunnels. But al-Sisi's Egypt, a staunch opponent of

the Muslim Brotherhood Hamas derives from, flooded the few ones still
functional after the 2014 attack. While the Gulf countries, that are deeply wary
of Hamas because of its ties with Shia Iran, are busy with conflicts and refugees
all across the Middle East: and cut donations. Even though, when you ask
Palestinians what their strategy is, at this point, their first reaction is always the
same: outrage, and they say: Why you don't go ask Israel? Who is to blame?,
they say, The prisoner, or the warder?
Isam Hammad is one of the masterminds of the March of Return. Whose goal,
he says, is return, actually. Period. Because should even the border be open
again, he says, it is too late. Gaza is too small. Too overcrowded. There is no
space for agriculture, he says, for industry. There is no space for a sustainable
economy. The only option is to return: to return to what is today Israel - out of
1,9 million Palestinians, here, 1,5 million are refugees. Or more often, truthfully,
more exactly: they are descendants of refugees. And so if no one, but really no
one, is willing to give up on the right of return, then, matter-of-factly, not all
Palestinians would leave. Quite the opposite. Many Palestinians would simply
like to work in Israel. Commuting. As they were allowed to do before the Oslo
Accords: when there were no walls, no checkpoints, no borders, they say, and
Israelis were used to come here to buy fish. It is probably the only point all
Palestinians agree upon, and not only in Gaza: there was more peace before
peace.
Shams al-Assil is 19 and lives in al-Shati, one of the poorest areas, they are 11
in one room with rotted walls. And yet for me what's really tough, she says, it's
not the fridge that it's not that it's empty, there is no fridge at all, because
there is no electricity: what's really tough, she says, is watching my friends
passing by with their books and bags, in the morning, ready for university.
Because she can't afford it. If tomorrow Eretz opened, her mother says, if
tomorrow Gaza were normal again, first I would go to Jerusalem. But then, she
says, I would return here. Because she is from Be'er Sheva. "And Be'er Sheva is
like Gaza. It's just 30 miles away. If we have to live this way for other seventy
years, only for me to return to Be'er Sheva, I can stay here," she says. "In the
end, Gaza has also the sea."

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Palestinians urge, urge negotiations. Now or never, they say. Not because they
trust Israel. The opposite. Because they don't trust Israel. At all. And so, what's
the point of waiting for change?, they say. We must bring change.
But their leaders seem to be stuck. Today I've met Basem Naim, I tell friends in
a café. Basem Naim is Hamas spokesman for international affairs. And in Gaza,
and beyond, is held in high regard. "Really? And what did he say?," they ask
with one voice. He said they want the end of the siege, I say. An immediate,
unconditional end of the siege. "And then?", they ask. And then he said that
the siege is immoral, I say. Not only illegal. "And he didn't say anything else?",
they say. They look at me with disappointment. "But that's obvious. Of course
we want the end of the siege. We didn't need all these dead to say what we've
already said countless times."
Because what hurts Palestinians the most, is that if after so many years they
are on the verge of breaking down, it's actually because of the Palestinian
Authority: that a few months ago cut again salaries. And stopped paying for the
electricity. That now is on for only fours hours per day. Even the antibiotics that
could prevent all these amputations: they are blocked in the West Bank. It is
Mahmoud Abbas' extreme attempt, or as you are told here, extremist attempt,
at forcing Hamas to step down. Even though it is definitely not easy to
understand who enjoys more support, Hamas or Fatah. Because they have
been all elected in free and fair elections, yes, as they always remind you: but
in 2006.
And Mahmoud Abbas, too: his mandate expired in 2010.
For Ahmed al-Asi, honestly, it's not such a big deal. He is 29, and he is one of
the many fishermen who now fish only for themselves: because no one can
afford fish anymore. "We have Hamas, that doesn't talk to Israel," he says.
"And we have Fatah. That waits for the international community to talk to it.
But Gaza has two borders, not one. Egypt could open Rafah, and solve it all. We
get no help from Arabs, and we should expect it from the US?", he says.
Of the Palestinian Authority he says nothing. "They get all richer by the day."
And so, in what has been announced as the Friday of all Fridays, the 8th of
June, the last Friday of Ramadan, only a few Palestinians eventually show up.
About 10,000. Mainly brothers, fathers, cousins, friends of the 123 killed so far.
They resolutely head toward the army, with these kids who tell you: I am 12

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years and 3 wars old, and it's impressive: straight toward Israel, toward its
snipers, all lined up in front of us: because the border, here, is simply a sand
flat where you are completely visible. Always. Completely exposed. Your only
shield, is the black smoke of burning tires. Palestinians have only stones and
kites, these famous kites with oily rags tied on top, that set on fire the fields
across the fence: and that more often, with the wind, land on us. And yet, they
are a powerful symbol. They cost a few cents: but they challenged the Iron
Dome, with its missile batteries worth 100 million dollars each. "They are not a
weapon, they are a message", a boy says. "We can't win. But Israel can't
either," he says, while from the back, other boys push toward the barbed wire
the first tire, to kick off the day, and the crowd, around, gives way, and cheers
on. But the tire is too heavy, and tips over, on an old, thin man who looks
already worn out, and risks to get torched. Everybody laughs. That's Palestine!,
they say, as the first injured start to arrive: from behind the black smoke, you
don't even hear gunshots. Suddenly, simply, the man next to you falls on the
ground. And his shirt turns red. If this is a march, it is rather a march in reverse:
instead of advancing, Palestinians come back. On stretchers. One after the
other. Rushed toward hospitals, toward the second front: the front where the
battle is fought with denied antibiotics. And when a kid who is tinkering with a
long twine, and a sort of giant butterfly net, catches a drone, all Palestinians, all
together, forget Israelis to huddle around the drone that comes down: and take
a selfie. At sunset, there will be four dead, but this Friday, basically, ends here.
With the drone paraded in the streets of Gaza as a saint statue.
For now, it's the only feasible achievement.
The next day, the border is a quiet sand flat again. A few Palestinians nap in
the shadow, some are graduates, some amputees: all are jobless. A woman in
black arrives. Her son was killed. He was supporting all the family. And no one
even asked her how she is doing, she says. She is desperate. She grabs hold of
one of us, crying, and she collapses, exhausted, Help us! Help us!, she
screams, on the ground, in the dust, as a man, rudely, takes her away.