Palestinians drive through a destroyed
quarter of Al Shaaf neighborhood, in Al Tuffah, east of Gaza City, March 21,
2015.
Published April 19, 2015
A group of young activists in Gaza are organizing an international day of
solidarity to protest against the impossible conditions and human rights
violations created by Israel’s and Egypt’s siege, the occupation, internal
Palestinian conflicts and poverty.
By
Yael Marom
“Life
in Gaza has always been hard. But after Israel’s last attack it became
impossible to live here. The problems became worse and the conditions
deteriorated to the point that it is no longer possible to live humanely — and
nobody cares,” Sajida Alhaj, 21, says in a Skype interview.
Alhaj
is part of a group of young activists in Gaza that last month published a call
for a mass protest in the Strip on April 29, demanding an end to the siege, the
occupation and the human and civil rights abuses that accompany them.
The
activists are calling on anyone who believes in freedom, justice and equality,
the world over, to join them and organize parallel protests in their own
countries, to express solidarity and to recognize their suffering.
“The
situation in Gaza is disastrous,” she says. “We are calling on people to
support Gaza by demonstrating in front of the Israeli and Egyptian embassies in
every country, and force them to open the borders and break the siege — let
building materials in to allow rebuilding, and let sick people out for medical
treatment.”
Alhaj
is a student and Palestinian refugee who lives in the central Gaza Nusirat
Camp. In the past, the activist group she is a part of has mostly worked with
women, children and the wounded in Gaza. Now, they are trying to unite the
entire Strip.
“This
action is our answer to the siege under which we live,” she explains. There are
more and more human rights violations each year, and there is no sign that
anything is getting better, she adds.
When
you walk down the street, she explains, you see one house standing and one
house in rubble, one after another, on and on. In order to reach her university
every morning, Alhaj says she must “walk between homes damaged in the war, to
walk through places where people were killed.”
“And
all that to reach my damaged university just to meet with my professors who
haven’t been paid for political reasons,” she adds.
The
idea behind the protest in Gaza is to get everyone onto the streets, to fill
the central squares, with people of all affiliations and ages, decrying the
problems from which Gaza suffers: the occupation, the siege, internal
conflicts, the lack of electricity, poverty, holdups in rebuilding after the
war, unemployment and a deteriorating education system.
The
activists say they have gotten the various Palestinian factions on board and
received permission from the authorities in Gaza. So far, over 12,000 people
have joined their Facebook page.
Elizabeth Tanboura stands with three of her
daughters: Sundos, Malak, and Marwa (right), in front of their destroyed home
in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, March 19, 2015. Elizabth’s husband, Radad, and
their children Ahmed (15) and Amna (13), were killed during an Israeli attack
on August 25, 2014. Two other boys survived because they were not in the house
at the time of the attack.
A
group of Israeli women has already answered the call to action and is
organizing a solidarity demonstration in Tel Aviv on the same day as the Gaza
protest.
“It
is important that there is a protest in Israel,” Alhaj says. “It is important
that people in Gaza know that there are people in Israel who care about us and
who oppose the occupation, who are calling to lift the siege and open the
borders.” Such solidarity gives hope, she adds.
A Palestinian walks during a storm in one of
the destroyed quarter of Shujayea, east of Gaza city, February 11, 2015. Anne
Paq / Activestills.org
Activists from Costa Rica and Chile have also
organized similar events. The Palestinian organizers in Gaza are calling on
people in the United States and Europe to join them and organize events in
additional cities.
Israelis — and people worldwide — are only
interested in Gaza when rockets are flying, says Esther Rapoport one of the
organizers of the protest in Tel Aviv.
To Rapoport, the young activists and
organizers in Gaza are inspiring. “They are not giving up their belief in
humanity, including the humanity of Israelis who care about them. They are
willing to work in cooperation with us — something that shouldn’t be taken for
granted — and to call on us to act. Let’s not disappoint them.”
Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement
manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where this article was
originally published in Hebrew.
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