Looking for Trouble

March 27: We are in Gaza but the world community is not, by Gerri Haynes

(Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility has traveled to Gaza since 1993. Since 2009, following the Cast Lead invasion by Israel, WPSR has sponsored nine medical delegations to serve the people of Gaza.)

Today we traveled through Gaza, trying to gain a wider perspective on the physical situation here. This is the birthday of my daughter, Joan. Her eldest son celebrated his birthday this week also. I miss them.

We were joined for our bus tour by many of the young women from the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme who have helped with our time in Gaza. When they learned I was about to sing “Happy Birthday” to Joan, they crowded around my phone and sent her a joyful greeting! “Happy Birthday” is one song that knows no borders – the tune is the same in every language and we sang first in English, then in Arabic. Happy Birthday, Joan!

Hamada Al Bayari from The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) spent the morning with us, telling us of his work and narrating the challenges faced by people living in the destroyed areas of Northern Gaza.

We stood on the bare earth in places near the border with Israel where the local economy was destroyed when Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive and citrus trees – to improve visual “security”.

The heartbreaking scenes in every village along the northern border revealed that almost no repairs or rebuilding has occurred since our visit here in November 2014. Remains of thousands of bombed

homes lie in heaps along street after street.

Where the potential for shelter exists, families continue to live in these ruins. For most of these areas, access to electricity, water, and sewage service was also destroyed and through the cold and very wet winter, families have struggled to survive.

Tens of thousands of Gaza’s residents still shelter with other families, in UN schools, in scrap metal structures, temporary caravans or in the bombed out caverns of their previous residences. Political barriers continue to prevent reconstruction money (and money from taxes) from reaching Gaza – money that could provide building materials and jobs for vastly unemployed Gazans.

Before Egypt destroyed hundreds of tunnels between Rafah and Egypt, some construction materials came to Gaza through the southern border. Now, all materials must come through the singular “goods” crossing between Israel and Gaza at Kerem Shalom and precious few materials are arriving.

So, tens of thousands of Gazans remain homeless. Tens of thousands of Gazans remain jobless. Tens of thousands of Gazans who have jobs as doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. continue to work with no pay.

Our afternoon tour of Gaza took us south to the Rafah border. We visited the tunnel area where destruction was evident and learned that a few tunnels are being rehabilitated. For the first time in many visits, we were escorted deep into one of the tunnels, a small space, wired and lit through the efforts of local men.

Large quantities of material could not move quickly through this space, but the possibility of any connection with the “outside” world is compelling to a fully imprisoned Gaza.

Through the magic of cell phone communication, our hosts were able to locate one small boy in Rafah City. A World Vision patron in Seattle had asked that we take gifts to this boy and we briefly visited him and his grandparents in the compound of his home.

Along the Western border with Israel, strips of homes and tunnels were destroyed by Israeli bombs and tanks in the 2014 assault. We visited one of these areas and found that, as in the North, virtually no reconstruction has occurred. Desperately poor people shelter in the bombed out remains of their homes. Cloth and cardboard walls provide little protection to small rooms that house many people.

We visited one family of eight living in a single room of perhaps 350 square feet, its walls damaged or destroyed. We realized again that this family is one of many thousands. The number is overwhelming – the powerlessness to provide the volume of help needed is sickening.

Where is the world community – why is this being allowed to continue? And with these questions, the background voice of the people repeats, “If we rebuild, how long will it be before Israel again destroys?”