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Come to Gaza
Jane Adas Come to Gaza. See for yourselves the direct results of your government’s Middle East policy, paid for with your tax dollars. This is the message that a Palestinian taxi driver and the Irish head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza asked our New York delegation to convey to Americans.
Majd Abdullah Al-Atannah and his sons lost their homes twice. The first time was during Israel’s Operation Autumn Clouds in November 2006, when Israel invaded Beit Hanun on the northern Gaza border using air strikes, tanks, and helicopter gunships. One Israeli soldier and 53 – 82 (reports vary) Palestinians were killed, among them 18 of Al-Atannah’s relatives. After the U.S. vetoed an already watered-down Security Council resolution, the General Assembly in emergency session passed a resolution 156 to 7 deploring Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Al-Atannah and his five sons moved to the outskirts of Beit Hanun, in the Ezbat Abbed Rabbo neighborhood of Jabalia, and rebuilt their lives, a big house for Al-Atannah and five smaller ones for his sons and their families, in all 57 people supported by their taxi business. Their neighborhood, however, was the first area taken over during the ground invasion phase of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. Al-Atannah described how Israeli soldiers forced families out, firing at them with machine guns as they walked the two kilometers to Beit Hanun, taking nothing with them but the clothes they were wearing. Soldiers also arrested one of his sons, the father of seven children. When the families returned after the ceasefire on 18 January, they found their homes and cars destroyed, including all three of Al-Atannah’s big Mercedes taxis. As though the Israeli army was using the neighborhood as a laboratory to experiment with different means of demolishing homes, they blew up Al-Atannah’s house with land mines, brought down his sons’ houses with bulldozers, and others by aerial bombardment (see photos at end). Many of the land mines failed to detonate, making the rubble dangerous, so most families had the Hamas government remove them. Al-Atannah, however, reached into the debris of his house and pulled out a live land mine with writing in English: “ARMED / DANGER” (see photo, above). Asked why he didn’t have it defused, Al-Atannah responded, “What’s the difference? I’m 60 years old. Do I have time to rebuild … again?” Al-Atannah and his family are now living in tents and he no longer has taxis to drive, but he is an astute political observer: “Where are the Western countries that speak of democracy and human rights? Israel influences the U.S. so much. In your country, you think Palestinians are terrorists. Do you accept the terrorist act of destroying the homes of others? We were hit with American rockets. Is there no conscience in America? You will not speak out because Israelis will not allow it. Bush should go before the ICC (International Criminal Court). He has two daughters who should come see what their father did.”
John Ging, whom the Code Pink delegations met later that same day, has been head of UNRWA in Gaza since 2006. He too believes Gaza needs many witnesses. “Those who make decisions in far away offices should come to see and have to answer. They might then see the detachment of their rhetoric from reality and the results of a deficit of truth and an absence of justice in policy making.” The rule of law, Ging said, should be the starting point, even if it is an inconvenience for politics.
After Operation Cast Lead and for the first time in
years, senior political figures have
been coming to Gaza to see the consequences of their decisions – UN
Secretary-General Ban The basis of hope for change, Ging concluded, is people from the outside willing to come, seek to be better informed, and influence those back home. So, come to Gaza. And the West Bank. And Israel. See for yourselves.
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photos 1-5 by Jane Adas;
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