By Samah Sabawi
Israel’s current assault on Gaza will not bring Israel peace nor will it force the Palestinians to surrender. Three years ago, Israel launched a brutal attack on the city it occupies and besieges killing more then 1400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and injuring thousands more while destroying most of Gaza’s infrastructure and turning vast landscapes where houses once stood into rubble. What happened in the years since then is a testimony of the Palestinian people’s real weapon – tenacity, a weapon no one in Israel can understand nor truly match. A weapon Palestinians possess that will see them through until they gain their freedom.
When foreigners visit the Occupied Territories they are often struck by just how resourceful Palestinians are, how positive they remain and how ineffective Israel’s policy of subjugating them is. Yes, Gaza is an impoverished, besieged, overcrowded and occupied strip of land, but a closer look helps shed some light on exactly what it is that Israel is up against.
This past year, despite the crippling siege on Gaza, some amazing things happened. Gazans stood on the cutting-edge of urban agriculture: they were learning through a UN funded project to produce fish and vegetables on their tiny rooftops. The skill of learning to farm without soil in confined spaces is necessary in a place like Gaza where 1.6 million residents are cramped into 360 square kilometers of land and where much of the agricultural land is off limits because Israel maintains a 300-metre deep zone along the length of the border fence denying Palestinians access to their prime agricultural land.
Gaza opened its first ever paintball park bringing equipment and protective clothing through the tunnels that link Gaza with Egypt. The game referee Rami Eid told Reuters this was important so “the youth of Gaza can play games that are played around the world”.
Gaza also hosted this year for the first time an actual circus along with clowns and acrobats. The circus that travelled through Egypt’s Rafah border brought happiness to many children who had never had such an experience. Gaza also hosted its first ‘PalFest’, an international Palestinian literature festival along with poets and musicians coming from all over the world.
If that’s not enough to impress, Gaza opened its first restaurant for the deaf. The stylish Atfaluna restaurant near Gaza port was hailed as one of a few facilities for the disabled in a besieged impoverished city where waiters and cooks use sign language. The restaurant was realissed with help from the Drosos Foundation of Switzerland in order to generate income for the deaf in Gaza, where the unemployment rate is over 25 percent.
This year, as always, the youth in Gaza were finding ways to express their creativity and their skills. From amazing daredevil Parkour, learning how to surf, to rap songs and art exhibits, they were finding their confidence and were healing from the aftermath of the trauma of Israel’s last destruction of their city.
This year, Gazans lead the way to inspire people around the world as they literally turned rubble into art. Gazan women driven by the determination to self-empowerment mixed with environmental awareness turned garbage and rubble into pieces of art that can be sold, this project was made possible with funding from the non-government organization ‘Supporters of Palestinian Environment’.
Despite the restriction on building supplies, Gazans used the tunnels to bring in cement and iron and have rebuilt many of the structures that were destroyed. A highlight for many was the walkway ‘corniche’ by the sea side which many proudly posted photos of on their facebook profiles.
Within the walls of their big prison and in spite of the siege and the frequent Israeli bombardment, the people of Gaza managed to find the space to create, to dream, to build and to hope. This is the essential stuff that resistance is made of. This is why Israel’s recent attack will not defeat the Palestinians and will only hurt Israel in the end, exposing it for the tyrannical state that it is.
Israel has launched a war to break the Palestinian spirit, to destroy all they’ve rebuilt, to uproot all that they’ve replanted. This is a war on the Palestinian people’s tenacity to resist despair. Israel will lose this war because it fails to understand what it is up against. A state that only knows how to destroy will never understand the art of turning rubble into masterpieces.
In January 2009 when Israel bombarded Gaza for three weeks, they called their assault ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Amnesty International had a better way to describe it; they called it ’22 Days of Death and Destruction’. Today, we are reliving that nightmare once again, and once again I find myself searching for words…
Searching for words
Gaza…I search desperately
For words… for definitions
To tell the story of ammunitions
Exploding in a child’s body
I try to shout my indignation
But I am lost in vocabulary
Drowned in phrases as old as me
And I am as old as the Occupation
I need new words
How hard it is to find
Definitions that can restore
Humanity to a small strip of land
Along the Mediterranean shore
Siege, starvation collective misery
Familiar words in my head they linger
Bombs fall from the sky every day
Powerless words I can’t use any longer
I need new words
“Palestine is occupied….”
These are now hollow words…
“Palestinians are oppressed…”
These are now daily words…
“Palestinians are dispossessed”
These are now…tired words
“Palestinians….have a right to exist”
Words often spoken…worn out words
I need new words
Gaza…my home city
My earliest memory of Jasmine flowers and meramiah tea
My first taste of sour lemon dipped in salt
My first climb on an almond tree
Gaza, my destiny
My father’s heart sky and sea
My mother’s first love
My sister’s first breath
My pride and dignity
Gaza is under fire
Obliterated by hate
Strangled by a demonic desire
To erase my history
Gaza is in pieces
And I…the writer…
I’m speechless
What language can possibly save me?
What words?
Samah Sabawi January 2009
Press Release: A new Gaza Massacre!
14.November.2012
Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine–The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel, University Teachers’ Association and The One Democratic State Group condemn in the strongest possible terms the criminal Israeli attack against innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. More than 7 people have been killed within the last 6 hours, including 7-year-old child Ranan Arafat. Charred bodies of injured children are pouring in to Al Shifa hospital and the other depleted hospitals around the Gaza Strip. This heinous crime also comes one week after the re-election of Barak Obama for a second term. Tel Aviv claims to have been given the green light to annihilate as many Palestinians in Gaza as possible.
Gaza has been enduring Israeli policies of extermination and vandalism since 2006. We reiterate our condemnation of the international conspiracy of silence and Arab impotence in the face of these continuous Israeli crimes. We note that not a single action against Israel has been taken by any Arab country. Will the Arab Spring stand aside and watch while we are being butchered? Empty rhetoric will no longer be accepted. Words of condemnation have to be translated into action!
We also reiterate our call on all civil society organizations and political parties to boycott Israeli embassies and compel their governments to sever their diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel. This time, Apartheid Israel must not get away with its crimes against the innocent civilians of Gaza. All students and academics should stand in solidarity with their Palestinian colleagues and peers. We ask, what more does the international community need to see to be convinced to act than the dozens of dead corpses of children in Gaza? It is left to civil society and people of conscience to stop the ongoing massacre in Gaza.
Inaction has led us to this point.
ACT NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
One Democratic State Group
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
University Teachers’ Association
—
When I was young it all seemed like a game
Living here brought no sense of shame
But now I’m older I’ve come to understand
Once we had houses
Once we had land
They rained down bullets on us as our homes collapsed
We lay beneath the rubble terrified
Hoping.. Dare we dream?
We gave up waiting
For us, to dream is still a dream
When I woke up, the house was broken stones
We suddenly had nothing
And nothing’s changed
We live, eight people, in this overcrowded heat
Factory-farmed animals living in our own sweat
Living like this is all my baby brother ever knew
The world does nothing. What can we do?
We will kick the ball
We will skip the rope
We will play outside. Be careful
We will paint and draw. We will say our prayers
Outside the pitiless sun bleaches the broken streets
The darkness drops in the evening like an iron door
The men play cards under torchlight
The women stay inside
Hell can erupt in a moment day or night
You ask for trouble if you stray too close to the wall
My father died ..feeding the birds
Mum goes in front of me to check for soldiers
For every hot-head stone ten come back
For every hot-head stone a hundred come back
For every rocket fired the drones come back
For thirteen years the roads have all been closed
We’re isolated. We’re denied medical supplies
Fuel and work are scarce. They build houses on our farms
The old men weep. The young men take up arms.
We’re packed like chickens in this town of block cement
I get headache from the diesel. When it rains, the sewers too
I had no idea what martyrdom meant
Until my older brother.. my older brother
I’m sorry. I can’t continue.
You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, it is said
When people know they have no future
Can we blame them if we cannot tame them?
And when their hopes and dreams are broken
And they feel they might as well be dead
As they go, will we forgive them
If they take us with them?
Stay close
Stay home
Stay calm
Have faith
With the love of our family we can rise above anything
Someday surely someone must help us
With the love of our family we can rise above anything
Someday surely someone must help us
Even now we will go to school
Even now we will dream to dream
Someday surely someone must help us
Nothing’s ever simple – that’s for sure
There are grieving mothers on both sides of the wire
And everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
But any way you look at it – whichever point of view
For us to have to live like this
It just aint right
It just aint right
It just aint right
We all want peace and freedom that’s for sure
But peace won’t come from standing on our necks
Everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
But any way you look at this – whichever point of view
For us to have to live like this
It just aint right
It just aint right
It just aint right
It’s like a nightmare rose up slouching towards Bethlehem
Like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
Slouching towards Bethlehem
It’s like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
Slouching towards Bethlehem
Stay close
Stay home
Have faith
I can’t know what twist of history did this to me
It’s like a nightmare
With the love of our family
We can rise above anything
Some day surely someone must help us…
November 08, 2012
Agence France-Presse
Mohammed Jakhbir leans back, braces himself, and then leaps off the roof of a Khan Yunis hospital building, flipping backwards before landing on the next roof over. He whoops with delight at performing the dangerous feat, his favorite of the moves he practices with his team — the first parkour group in the Gaza Strip.
Parkour, also known as free running, is an extreme sport that involves getting around or over urban obstacles as quickly as possible, using a combination of running, jumping, and gymnastic moves including rolls and vaults.
Practitioners leap from roof to roof, run up the side of buildings until they flip backwards, vault over park benches, or cartwheel along walls.
In Gaza, it’s still a novelty, and as Jakhbir and four members of his 12-man crew demonstrate their skills in the grounds of the southern city’s Nasser hospital, a crowd of patients and doctors look on, some filming with their cell phones.
“He’s like Spiderman!” says one onlooker as 23-year-old Jakhbir runs up a wall, seemingly defying gravity as he scales the facade.
As the crowd grows, the team decides to move to a quieter spot. Their practice sessions are occasionally interrupted when onlookers call the police to complain, and they prefer to avoid having to make a run for it.
“When we first started practicing, we could do it anywhere. But gradually we found people would complain and the police would come. It became a game, we’d practice until they arrived and then run awa
y,” Jakhbir said with a laugh.
He’s been practicing parkour for seven years, ever since his friend Abdullah showed him a documentary called “Jump London.” It instantly appealed to them.
“We would watch clips and try to imitate the moves that we saw. Gradually we started to make our own clips,” he says.
“Now sometimes people even request that we make clips to show them certain moves. It’s been a long journey for us, seven years, but now we have a real team.”
Jihad Abu Sultan, 24, joined the team four years ago after seeing some of Jakhbir’s clips on YouTube.
He had a background in both kickboxing and kung-fu, but saw something different in parkour.
“It uses physical strength more than any other sport … I was so impressed by it, especially the jumping involved,” he says.
One of Abu Sultan’s specialities is a move in which he flips his body in a full circle with one hand resting on a wall for him to pivot around.
He’s also an accomplished tumbler, throwing himself along the ground in a series of handsprings, rolls and twists.
“Parkour teaches us to overcome obstacles,” he says. “It makes me feel free, it makes me feel my body is strong, that I can overcome anything.”
But practicing parkour in Gaza hasn’t been easy.
At times they’ve had to shift practice locations because the areas have been targeted by Israeli air strikes. And both Abu Sultan and Jakhbir have battled disapproval from their families.
“At first, my parents forbade it,” admits Abu Sultan.
“They tried to stop me, especially after I was injured, but they couldn’t. It’s in my blood.”
Jakhbir’s parents told him to stop practicing parkour and find a job. He graduated with a degree in multimedia from Gaza’s Islamic University, but has been largely unemployed ever since.
“They told me there was no future to it,” he says with frustration.
“They need to understand that sport is something very important. Athletes can raise Palestine’s name throughout the world.”
Jakhbir and other Gaza Parkour members did just that earlier this year, when an Italian group called Unione Italiana Sport Per Tutti invited them to Italy.
“They were able to make our biggest dream come true, which was to get past the biggest obstacle of all — the Israeli checkpoint — and travel abroad,” Jakhbir says.
The trip took them to Rome and four other Italian cities, where they met with other enthusiasts, showing off their skills and learning a few new ones.
“We talked to people about our lives in Gaza, that we’re living under a siege, and in a continually tense situation. We face financial, social and political obstacles,” Jakhbir recalls.
They’ve spray painted “Gaza Parkour forever” on some of the walls, but they acknowledge an uncertain future.
Jakhbir and Abu Sultan say they’d like to continue parkour professionally, and are hoping to eventually win either local or international support that would allow them to commit to the sport full-time.
“Parkour teaches us we can overcome our problems even if we fail once or twice,” says Jakhbir. “We have to try and we can achieve our goals in life.”
This article appeared in Jakarta Globe
By REUTERS
GAZA
It was once the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, but now the site has been turned into the Gaza Strip’s first ever paintball park.
The arrival of the strategic action game in Gaza is offering Palestinian youths a chance to try something new.
But bringing the relevant equipment and protective clothing into the blockaded territory was no small achievement: everything had to be smuggled in through one of the 1000-metre (yard) underground tunnels that link Gaza with Egypt.
“We brought it over via a very hard route, via the tunnels from Egypt, so that we can play games that are played all over the world, so that the youth of Gaza can play games that are played around the world. This is a peaceful game and it’s really, really fun. There’s no danger whatsoever,” said paintball referee Rami Eid.
Palestinian youths have been teaming up for a chance to play the new game, which involves hiding behind positions laid out in a field, before jumping out to spray competitors with balls of colored paint.
“We came to play paintball today. It’s the first time I’ve played it and it’s a really fun game, a really nice game. We were a big group but it’s a nice game with suspense, preparation, action and war. Young men like us like these kinds of games. It’s a nice game and we’ve enjoyed it a lot,” said participant Ahmad Abu Ryaleh.
Paintball has become increasingly popular around the world in recent years, with national teams going head-to-head in regional and world tournaments.
Enthusiasts say it is a game of skill and team-work – something Gaza’s new participants are just discovering.
“I am really happy, I hope there will be more things like this because it is better for young people to use up their energy playing these games, rather than getting up to no good somewhere else,” said Abu Ryaleh.
But with an entrance fee of 10 shekels ($2.5), 50 shekels ($12.8) to rent the paintball field and 30 shekels ($7.6) for 50 paintballs, the experience is beyond the reach of most Gazans.
A recent U.N. report said tougher Israeli policies and settlement expansion were pushing all Palestinian territories deeper into poverty.
Amid persistently high unemployment, one in two Palestinians was now classified as ‘poor’, the UNCTAD report said.
Locals say the croc has evaded captors for two years, has slaughtered farm animals.
By Philip Caulfield New York Daily News
November 4, 2012
A crocodile lurking in the sewers has been terrorizing locals in small city in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a report.
Rajab al-Ankah, head of the Northern Gaza Sewage Station in Beit Lahia, said the five-and-a-half foot sewer croc most likely escaped from a nearby zoo as a baby and has avoided capture for more than two years, Al Arabiya news reported.
“The nets were set up to capture the crocodile, but it managed to escape,” he told the network.
“The slippery ground in the area around the swamps near Beit Lahia in northern Gaza made the escape easier and the crocodile disappeared once more.”
Local in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, said the croc slaughtered a farmer’s two goats that were grazing too close to the sewers.
The beast slips out of the sewage basins to hunt for food, and scurries back underground, evading captors, Ankah said.
“It came as a baby and now it is huge and the more it grows the more dangerous it becomes for the residents of the area and their livestock,” Ankah told the network.
Residents are hoping to catch the croc before it attacks a person, the network said.
by Sara Hussein
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, Oct 29, 2012 (AFP) – Abu Ahmed looks out over a sea of grey, empty Gaza rooftops, and smiles as he looks back at the lush greenery sprouting in tubs and pipes on top of his apartment building.
He is part of a United Nations agency project to introduce cutting-edge urban agriculture to Gaza City, teaching Palestinians to farm without soil in the space available to them in one of the world’s most densely populated places.
Most of his rooftop is given over to an aquaponic system, which produces food by linking fish tanks of tilapia with gravel-filled planters.
The integrated system feeds the water from the fish tanks into the plant beds, where Abu Ahmed’s crops — lettuce, peppers, broccoli, celery and herbs — are fertilised by waste produced by the tilapia.
As the water trickles through the gravel, the plants absorb nutrients from the fish waste, cleaning the water, which then replenishes the tanks.
“The idea really was to help the poorest people in Gaza be able to grow some of their own food, and healthy food, grown without pesticides,” explains Mohammed El Shatali, the project’s deputy manager.
For Abu Ahmed, the project has been a major success.
Not only is he using the integrated aquaponic system, he had also set up his own subsidiary hydroponic system, growing additional crops in plastic pipes that are fed by the same water that runs through the aquaponic system.
“I had a bit of experience with agriculture and farming before, but nothing like this,” he says, examining the leaves of a celery plant.
Thanks to the project, the 51-year-old has been able to feed his 13-member family fresh vegetables and fish throughout the summer.
“The fish taste great, although I’m trying not to eat too many of them because I’m breeding new ones so I won’t have to buy more.”
There have also been other benefits from the system, he says, explaining that it cools the apartments below by providing shade.
“It’s great for the children. Nowadays they don’t see farming, they barely see trees or plants. It’s great for them to see this because it gets them interested in growing and planting things.”
Gaza’s 1.6 million residents live on just 360 square kilometres (140 square miles) of land, and much of that is off limits because Israel maintains a 300-metre (yard) deep exclusion zone along the length of the border fence.
Power cuts threaten fish
In Gaza’s main towns and cities, empty land is being eaten up by the construction of multi-storey apartment buildings, leaving little space for agriculture.
The challenges prompted the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to look for new ways to maximise crop production in tiny spaces.
In Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood, 34-year-old Eman Nofal tends crops in a small yard next to her apartment. Peppers have been her biggest success this year, and both sweet and spicy red peppers dot the greenery in her planters.
Nofal’s husband was killed in fighting between rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas in 2006, leaving her the sole provider for their four children.
When she heard about the project, she thought it could ease the cost of feeding her family.
“It’s been great. It’s really easy, the children even help me maintain the plants,” she says, acknowledging that the concept was somewhat alien at first.
“All our lives, we learnt that farming meant growing things in the ground, in soil, so it was strange to hear it was possible to grow in water and gravel, but I love the idea.”
Nofal says the project also gives her pleasure.
“Just the way it looks is really nice. Sometimes I come out here just to enjoy the greenery and to watch the fish play with each other. It relaxes me.”
The project has faced setbacks, including the Gaza-specific challenge of power cuts of up to 12 hours a day, which shut down the pumps that transfer water between the fish tanks and plant beds.
“Electricity has been one of the most difficult challenges,” says Chris Somerville, an urban agriculture consultant with the FAO.
“At 30 degrees centigrade (86 Fahrenheit), the capacity of the water to hold oxygen reduces, and during the summer many of the beneficiaries had fish die.”
New participants will receive a battery-powered pump to tide them over during power cuts, and the FAO is experimenting with fibres that could be used in hydroponic systems to retain moisture when power cuts stop the water flow.
Initially, the project also had to overcome a certain level of scepticism, Somerville says.
“To tell agrarian societies that you’re going to grow plants without soil can sometimes be a bit of a jump,” he laughs.
But the project has been so successful that the next cycle will expand from 15 aquaponic participants to around 80, with another 80 homes operating hydroponic systems.
It will be the first time the FAO has implemented aquaponics on this scale, and the agency is now looking at implementing the project elsewhere in the world.
“To be able to take this Gaza model and bring it to other countries would really be a massive achievement,” Somerville says.
This article appeared in http://www.mysinchew.com/node/79207?tid=10
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The circus came to Gaza on Friday, accompanied by blaring music, juggling clowns and fire blowers — but getting it there required its own high-wire act.
No women performers were included for fear of offending conservative Palestinians and the Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers, and the circus’ lone lion and tiger were left behind because of the high cost of transporting them legally into Gaza.
The Egyptian National Circus put on its first show of a month-long visit to the impoverished coastal territory on Friday, a sign of warmer relations between Hamas and post-revolution Egypt, which is governed by the Islamic group’s ideological parent, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Although it’s not state-sponsored, the Egyptian circus could only come because the country’s government loosened restrictions on the flow of passengers in and out of Gaza. More foreigners now enter Gaza, including the ruler of the resource-rich Gulf state Qatar earlier this week.
Once in Gaza, the Egyptians’ faced an unusual situation — most Palestinians here don’t know what a circus is.
“I think it’s going to be really surprising for most people,” said Riwa Awwad, 19, ahead of the opening night.
“Gazans are famous for not liking anything and I think they’ll do the impossible to entertain us,” said Awwad, who came with her extended family to the fairground on Friday.
In an ironic twist, the cheery circus with its flashing lights was held on the grounds of a notorious security prison that was destroyed during an Israeli offensive four years ago.
For the Gazans fortunate enough to see the opening show, it was a welcome relief from conflict and despair. The fairgrounds were packed with excited children in new cloths, women in glittery headscarves, others in black face veils, and men in suits and freshly pressed shirts. Families snacked on pumpkin seeds.
They hollered and cheered as a tight-rope walker wiggled his hips and belly-danced on a thread suspended above the ground. A performer hurled silver knives around volunteers. A red-clad fire blower shot whooshing, yellow licks of flame out of his mouth. Two clowns dressed in yellow-and-blue bumbled and fumbled as they tried to juggle, delighting children.
It took months to arrange the visit to the impoverished territory, where 1.6 million people live in a 25 mile-long sliver wedged between Israel and Egypt and face a punishing blockade imposed after Hamas seized control in 2007.
Aside from a circus’ brief visit in the 1990s, there’s never been anything like it since Israel captured the strip from Egypt in 1967. Israeli forces and settlers withdrew in 2005.
Businessman Mohammed Faris said he remembered seeing the circus under Egyptian rule in the 1950s, when Gaza was still a liberal place with casinos and bars. He said he recalled as a child seeing men walking on nails and female acrobats flying across stage.
“It was men and women – pretty women,” he said.
Not this time around.
Organizer Mohammed Silmi said female performers had to stay behind because the circus was worried that leaping ladies in tights would offend Gazans.
He said Hamas didn’t explicitly ban women but he was asked to abide by Gaza’s “traditions” when he petitioned to get the circus to come.
In practice, the circus wiggled a little around the no-women rule. At one point a man in drag, sporting a brown wig and red dress, sang and danced with Bunduk the clown.
After Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that aimed to weaken the militants who seek Israel’s destruction.
Under international pressure, it was loosened after Israel raided a blockade-defying boat and killing nine Turkish activists aboard in 2009. Key restrictions still remain on exports and importing raw materials.
All the circus equipment came through the Rafah border crossing, but expensive fees and cumbersome paperwork kept the circus from bringing lions, tigers and horses across the border.
Gaza’s makeshift zoos and other merchants often bypass that problem by hauling animals through smuggling tunnels linking the territory to Egypt. In one famous scene captured on film, Gazans used a crane to lift a camel over the border fence as the animal twitched in the air in agony.
Animal welfare aside, Gaza’s main zoo recently turned to improvised taxidermy to keep its deceased animals on exhibit.
The area also continues to be violent. As circus technicians were setting up their tent earlier this week, Palestinian militants were fighting Israeli forces in tit-for-tat rounds of rocket fire and retaliatory airstrikes.
Egyptian technician Khalil Gomaa, 55, jolted upon every crashing boom. He told his children he was in Jordan so they wouldn’t be worried. “But I’m worried,” he said.
But the circus’ biggest challenge may be packing the 1,000-seater tent for the month-long visit.
A series of Palestinians interviewed didn’t know what a circus was, and the tickets — ranging from $5-$10 seats — are too expensive for most of Gaza’s traditionally large families.
Some 40 percent of Gazans live on less than $2 a day, a third are unemployed and most need U.N. donated food.
They include the mother of eight, Sabrine Baoud, and her unemployed husband. After the circus was explained to her, Baoud, 35, said she was glad her children didn’t know anything about it.
They’d never be able to afford to go.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Palestinians smuggled sheep to Gaza in a tunnel under Egypt’s border for the Muslim celebration of Eid Al-Adha, where goats, sheep and camels are slaughtered commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail on God’s command. For more incredible pics go to http://www.demotix.com/news/1544458/palestinians-smuggle-sheep-gaza-through-tunnel-under-egypt-border/all-media
Though local elections are slated for the West Bank, Palestinians in Gaza won’t be casting ballots. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has boycotted the elections, leaving the 1.6 million people there in a difficult position.
Between piles of used spare parts and a container of motor oil, Munzer Al Dayya is working on a generator. The mechanic is a popular man in Gaza City, where power can go out for as long as eight hours a day, and he said he’s earning a decent living thanks to the blackouts.
“Every day that we get through is good, but no one knows what’s coming,” he said. “The only thing that’s clear is that the next day will be worse than the previous day. Why, how, and for what? Who knows? No one can explain what’s going on here.”
Al Dayya said getting an explanation for what’s happening in Gaza City depends on who you ask. But one thing is clear – Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and has expanded its control since taking power five years ago. Neither an Israeli blockade nor the US and European isolation policy has been able to change this.
Hamas, labeled a terrorist group by the West, has developed its own bureaucratic structures, ranging from an administration to an all-round security service. Various observers have noted that the political separation between Gaza and the West Bank has been widened by the separate governing structures in the two regions.
No local elections in Gaza
Local elections scheduled to take place in the West Bank on Saturday are expected to widen the gap. Hamas is not taking part in the poll, leaving voters there to choose between the Fatah party and some independent candidates.
“The elections cannot be transparent and fair,” said Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum. “Many of our Hamas leaders and members are in prisons run by the Palestinian Authority. These are Fatah elections – not Palestinian elections.”
Read more http://www.dw.de/life-behind-barbed-wire-in-gaza/a-16318900
Sydney Morning Herald
October 19, 2012 – 10:16AM
The stylish Atfaluna restaurant near Gaza port stands out in a city with few facilities for the disabled. Waiters and cooks use sign language, guests point to selections from the menu and what ensues is a spontaneous form of communication that organizers hope will break down bias and barriers.
“Deaf people have determination and there are no worries except when it comes to communication, the language problem. At first we may get translators to help us with the speaking clients,” supervisor Ayat Imtair said in sign language.
After six months of training with her staff, she was confident the service would go smoothly.
“This is a call on the community, and a working chance for the deaf to help them engage with the community,” she signed.
Twenty years ago Palestinian attitudes to deaf people were negative, said Naeem Kabaja, director of Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza, which runs the restaurant.
“It was perceived by many as a mental disability. But we’ve been able to change that and it has since improved, through our work, the spread of sign language, activities by the deaf and raising public awareness about this disability,” he said.
Still, Kabaja said, many of the deaf themselves tend to shy away from engagement with broader society, afraid of communications obstacles and expecting little understanding.
The staff of 12 were enthusiastic on opening day.
“We’re excited. There might be some difficulty at the start but we will overcome it. We’re all trained in lip-reading and that will help us take orders,” said cook Niveen, preparing a dish of spicy chicken balls.
The restaurant was established with help from the Drosos Foundation of Switzerland to promote income generation by the deaf in Gaza, where the unemployment rate is over 25 per cent.
About 1 percent of Gaza’s 1.6 million people suffer from total or near-total deafness. They can attend school up to ninth grade but have no opportunity to go on to a university education in the territory, said Sharhabeel Al-Zaeem of Atfaluna.
“Unfortunately they have to leave Gaza for that,” Al-Zaeem said. “We are doing out utmost to make special classes for the deaf in universities. We are liaising with different universities to see if there is a chance for the deaf to get places.
CHICO — “‘Keeping Hope Alive — Life and Culture in Occupied Palestine'” is a series of events including film, dance, poetry, folk art, traditional Palestinian food and more,” explained Emily Alma, a representative from Chico State University’s Cross-Cultural Leadership Center, in an interview last week.The presentational series, which begins Monday and runs through Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, is a multi-media exploration of Palestinian culture. The series is free of charge and will primarily be held at the CCLC in Ayers Hall.”The presentations integrate information about Palestinian culture with life in the West Bank and Gaza under Israeli occupation,” said Alma. Read more Art exhibit examines Israel-Palestinian conflict through children’s eyes
The port authorities in La Spezia in northern Italy finally decided to not give in to Israeli pressure. Just minutes ago Ship to Gaza and its vessel Estelle got final clearance to depart from port. Credit to the responsible officials who showed integrity and a sense of justice!
We were beginning to recognise the pattern from last years Flotilla all too well, when a Greek government under pressure took the decision to detain all Flotilla boats in Greek ports.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has already confirmed that it is pressuring those countries whose citizens are on board to prevent them from “approaching” Gaza. If “approaching” Gaza includes sailing from La Spezia to Napoli, that would have been a serious violation of one of the EU’s basic principles: freedom of movement.
It would be unacceptable for the EU to cave in to such pressure, turning against its own citizens and vessels. It is especially serious when such actions are taken against a peaceful, humanitarian action which enjoys wide public and political support. That support is currently being demonstrated in our petition to end the illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza, which has been signed by thousands of people from all over the world in the last few days .
Ship to Gaza and our partners in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition urge each one of our supporters to follow S/V Estelles journey, and if necessary act in their respective roles and areas: sympathizers, local activists, support organizations, union organizations, EU parliamentarians and national parliamentarians.
Use any resources available to you to protest the Israeli government’s attempt to expand its blockade to ports in northern Italy. Ask your respective foreign ministers questions, and do the same to the EU through the EU Parliament. Conduct support actions to demand that Estelle stays free to sail.
End the blockade of Gaza!
Contacts onboard Estelle:
Victoria Strand + 46 727356564
Mikael Löfgren: +46 707983643
Ship to Gaza-Sweden
Spokespersons:
Dror Feiler: +46 702855777
Mattias Gardell: +46 703036666
Ann Ighe: +46 709740739
Victoria Strand + 46 727356564
Media coordinator:
Mikael Löfgren: +46 707983643
Staffan Granér: +46703549687
Website: http://shiptogaza.se/en/Pressrum/Pressmeddelanden/we-are-sailing
GAZA CITY (IPS) – “From the coast to eight miles out, the sea is like a desert: it’s sandy and there are no fish,” said Mohammed al-Bakri, tracing a thick line on the wall map before him.
As the general manager of Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees, al-Bakri is well-versed in the woes of Gaza’s fishermen and farmers. “The Israeli navy attacks the fishermen, arrests them and takes their boats, even within three miles,” he said, referring to the limit the Israeli authorities have unilaterally imposed on Palestinian fishermen.
Under the Oslo accords, Palestinian fishermen are authorized to fish 20 nautical miles into Gaza’s sea. The Israeli authorities have illegally downsized Palestinian fishing waters, using lethal violence to enforce new restrictions on fishing. Palestinian fishermen are routinely attacked by the Israeli navy, using machine guns, water cannons and shells. Abductions of fishermen also occur. Read more
The Free Gaza movement is a human rights group that, since August 2008, has attempted to travel ten times to Gaza by sea to break Israel’s illegal stranglehold on1.5 million Palestinian civilians. We entered Gaza successfully five times in 2008; however, we have been violently intercepted on four voyages, including Israel’s MAY 31, 2010 lethal attack on our Freedom Flotilla,when nine of our colleagues were killed and many more injured by Israeli commandos. And, on the tenth voyage in July 2011, Greece prevented us from leaving as Israel and the U.S. outsourced Israel’s occupation of Gaza to Greece. http://www.freegaza.org/
A play that explores the lives of ordinary people living in the besieged Gaza strip in the winter of 2008. Jomana, a woman from the Shati refugee camp, falls in love with Rami, an American Palestinian doctor who arrives as part of the Free Gaza Flotilla. Breaking the siege sparks their love – but can it be sustained?
To book online go to http://www.trybooking.com/BZDI
Tales of a City by the Sea is a unique and poetic journey into the lives of ordinary people in the besieged Gaza strip prior to, during and after its bombardment in the winter of 2008.
Jomana, a Palestinian woman who lives in the Shati (beach) refugee camp in Gaza falls in love with Rami, an American born Palestinian doctor and activist who comes on the first Free Gaza boats in 2008. Their love is met with many challenges forcing Rami to make incredible decisions the least of which is to take a dangerous journey through the underground tunnels that connect Gaza to Egypt.
Although on the surface this love story appears to explore the relationship between diaspora Palestinians and Palestinians under occupation, there is a broader and more universal theme that emerges – one of human survival and tenacity.
Tales of a City by the Sea avoids political pitfalls, ideological agendas and clichés by focusing on the human story of the people in Gaza. Although the play’s characters are fictional, the script is based on real life events and is a product of a collection of real stories the author Samah Sabawi and her family have experienced during the events of the past several years. Sabawi has written most of the poetry in the play during the three-week bombardment of Gaza in 2008/2009.
Creative Producer: Rand Hazou
Rand Hazou was born in Jordan. His family are from Jerusalem. Rand is an Australian/Palestinian academic and theatre facilitator. In 2004 Rand was commissioned by the UNDP to travel to the Occupied Territories in Palestine to work as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youths. In 2009 Rand was awarded a PhD in Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University. His thesis examined the latest wave of political theatre in Australia dealing with Asylum Seekers and Refugees. In 2011 Rand was awarded a Cultural Leadership Skills Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop The 7arakat|Harakat Project, involving a series of theatre-related initiatives between Australia and Palestine. As part of this grant, Rand travelled to Palestine in October 2011 to participate in an internship with Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. Rand is currently undertaking an internship with Multicultural Arts Victoria. As an academic he has taught across a wide variety of subject at La Trobe and Monash Universities. He is currently a lecturer and tutor in the theatre and drama program at La Trobe University. For more information on the 7arakat project visit http://www.centreforcreativearts.org.au/projectspace/7arakat.phps
The Cast
Osamah Sami
Osamah Sami is an actor and writer of Iraqi heritage. Born in 1983 in Iran – he migrated to Australia in 1995. Osamah has worked extensively on stage, including playing the role of Saddam Hussain in “Saddam: The Musical”, as well as other productions, including Sinners (La Mamma), Homebody/Kabul (Theatre@Risk), Long Day’s Dying (La Mamma), Baghdad Wedding (Belvoir St.), Blackbox 149 (La Mamma)…His TV roles include East West 101 (SBS), City Homicide (Seven), Rush (Ten), Sea Patrol (Nine), series regular in the 13-part series Kick (SBS), the lead role in Tony Ayres’ award winning tele-movie Saved opposite Claudia Karvan, the lead in Dee McLachlan’s feature film “10 Terrorists” and the award winning short 296 Smith Street as well as the feature film Lucky Miles. He is currently working on a feature film with director Tony Ayres “Ali’s Wedding” which he has co-written with Andrew Knight.
Veronica Porcaro
Since graduating from Flinders University Drama Centre, Veronica has had a very diverse and dynamic acting career in Theatre, Film, Television and Role Playing/Training across many arenas from mainstream theatre and television to educational and political theatre, script development and corporate work. Her credits include: The Grace of Mary Traverse, Six Characters in Search of An Author, Stories from the Underground; A Translation in History, Twelfth Night, The Jungle of Cities, 10 x10 play series, Meat Pies and Mortadella, Nile Blue, GP, Water Rats, Heart Break High, Murder Call, Blue Heelers, Satisfaction, Whatever Happened To That Guy and Neighbours.
Hannah Norris
Hannah Norris is a widely acclaimed actress of the independent and professional stages of Australia. She is perhaps best known for her powerful performance of the one-woman show My Name is Rachel Corrie (Daniel Clarke) in Melbourne and Adelaide, receiving Adelaide Critics Circle and Victorian Green Room Award nominations, and the 2010 ATG ‘Curtain Call’ Award for Best Female Performance. Hannah has recently returned to Melbourne from a national tour of David Williamson’s Let the Sunshine (Hit Productions) and is currently working on a 2013 production of Tahli Corin’s One for the Ugly Girls. For more info, go to www.hannahnorris.com.au
Wahibe Moussa
Wahibe Moussa is a performance-maker, writer and Green-Room award winning actor, currently studying in the Master of Writing for Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has gained respect as a Cultural/Language Consultant through Theatre and television projects. Wahibe’s writing practice is informed by her work with diverse Refugee and Indigenous communities, and her interest in connections between the personal and political; the exchange of power within relationships. As a Community Artist, Wahibe works collaboratively in Theatre, Visual Art and Writing Projects in Melbourne and Sydney.
Jomana Najem
Jomana Najem has a background in Film Production and literary journalism, and has been extensively involved with the Arabic speaking community for the last ten years in various capacities. Jomana has also written, directed and produced several short films and documentaries. She has worked both behind and in front of the camera as an actor and television presenter. She has is the writer of a feature length film script that centres around the lives of several Lebanese Australians, and their struggles to overcome their past. “The Borrowed Prophet” is currently in pre-production and has been endorsed by the Lebanese and wider Arabic speaking community.
Majid Shokor
Majid Shokor is a writer, researcher, and actor for stage and screen. Originally from Baghdad, he lives and works in Melbourne. Since his arrival in Australia in 2001, he has appeared in many plays, short films, TV series and the feature film Lucky Miles, for which he was also the cultural consultant. He worked with many acclaimed directors and writers such as Jean-Pierre Mignon, Daniel Keen and Nigel Jamieson to name few. His performances have received critical acclaim and been honoured with two prestigious Green Room Award nominations for Best Actor in Independent Theatre, in 2005 and 2009. Majid holds a Master degree (Honours) and a Post-Graduate Diploma (1st class Honours) in Community Cultural Development from the Victorian College of the Arts – Melbourne University
Ryan Smith
Ryan is a second year student and is currently studying arts at La Trobe University. He has been involved in many highly successful productions in their student theatre program. He has also been highly involved in amateur theatre companies in his home town. He has a large background in musical theatre. This is Ryan’s first production outside of his university and local area.
Beth Sherwell – lighting and sound
Beth is no stranger to the world of theatre, television and drama; having worked on the TV show Neighbours as well as various other films. Most recently she played the character of Amy March (the youngest sister) in the production ‘Little Women’. ‘Tales of a City by the Sea’ is Beth’s first technical gig, she is currently completing a degree in English and Drama Majors.
James Crafti – lighting and sound
James Crafti is co-manager of Under the Hammer an Activist Artists Hub in Coburg a place he founded to explore art within a social justice framework. Crafti completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts at La Trobe in 2009 and directed plays at La Trobe including Creationism, Rope and Seven Jewish Children. In 2010 James worked as an assistant director on Melbourne Worker’s Theatre’s show Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime. Crafti also directed two plays with Platform Youth Theatre Mutha and The Deserters, and is now serving on Platform’s Board. He is currently undertaking his Masters in Community Cultural Development at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Tales of a City by the Sea 