Looking for Trouble

Guest blog by Gerri Haynes: Meeting with the prime minister of Gaza

As she did last year, Gerri has organized a Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility delegation of doctors and other health care providers to work in hospitals and clinics in Gaza in an effort to directly help the people there and to bring attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis that the Israeli blockade has created. She will be sending back reports from inside the Israeli blockade.

This, our next-to-the-last day in Gaza has been full of activity – a day that began last evening.

Our beloved friend, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, first director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, returned from abroad and spent the evening with us, reviewing the current situation – its challenges and hopes.

Eyad is revered in his community and internationally for his wisdom. He spoke of the war on Gaza and the ongoing siege – the need for justice and peace in the Middle East and the reality that the international community seems unable to insist on this.

After this morning’s assigned work in hospitals and clinics, our group gathered to meet with the Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniya. The Prime Minister related his hopes for a future of peace and stability for Gaza and for the Middle East.

Questioned about the destruction to the UNWRA Summer Games site and threats on the life of John Ging, (the head of UNRWA) he spoke strongly about his condemnation of the action, about his good relationship with John Ging, his commitment to John Ging’s security and about his determination to discover and prosecute the perpetrators of the recent destruction.

He stated that he has sent three delegations to meet with John Ging: the Deputy Minister of Health, security people and leadership people from Hamas to show solidarity. While the amount of destruction was not large (one tent burned), Haniya wanted us to know that this action of destruction does not reflect the nature of the Palestinian people.

Following our meeting, we traveled to the affected UNRWA site – no one was being allowed to enter – where security guards were present in abundance and photography was not allowed. A demonstration protesting the damage was quietly underway.

At UNRWA headquarters we held a press conference. Dr. Sarraj and David Hall spoke about the imperative need for actions of destruction to end – that the Palestinian leadership must take steps to assure the people of Gaza, Palestine and the world that Gaza will not tolerate such actions.

Half of our delegation then returned to work. There are many opportunities to serve in Gaza – surgically, medically and psychologically – and only one day left in this visit.

The people here are continuously generous and gracious and we were pleased tonight when we celebrated the birthday of Anne Hall, to have new Palestinian friends join our celebration. Happy Birthday Anne!

And then, at the end of the day, we happened to see one of our friends from GCMHP as he was leaving the restaurant of the Marna House where we are staying. With our friend, Husam, was a gentleman who works with environmental issues in Gaza. His specialty is water and we had a conversation about the problems with water and the soil. He related, as we have heard before, that the soil in northern and central Gaza is polluted with nitrites – chiefly due to unprocessed sewage contamination. An increase in cancers is thought to relate to this nitrite pollution. In the southern part of Gaza, chlorides in the soil – coming from sea water incursion into the aquifer – are believed to be causing an increase in kidney problems. This man promised to send us more information on the work his agency is doing to study these problems. He indicated that research is needed – true for all of Gaza as this challenged land, this prison, struggles to survive.