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Joyce Ravitz I knew before our May 2009 trip to Gaza that there had been terrible damage there from the 23-day Israeli assault on Gaza. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights estimates that 2,500 tons of explosives were dropped on the Gaza Strip, an area about twice the size of Washington DC. I would like to relate some of the destruction I saw and how it made me feel. In our travels, we visited not just piles but whole areas of rubble which men, women and children had called home before the end of 2009. One man told us that he was afraid to excavate his former home because he had found several live bombs around the pile of wreckage where he had once lived. His home had housed an extended family of 30 people who were now living in tents. We saw what life was like for people who had been bombed out of their homes. The tents were bare, with little inside them -- no beds, no clothes. “Home” had been reduced to a clean space protected from the sun. We saw the first target of the December bombing: the police academy where a new graduating class had been receiving diplomas. The entire class was killed, although police are considered civilians under the Oslo Agreement. We were told that the Israelis bombed almost every police station in Gaza. They also bombed the fire stations. I saw fire engines parked on the streets. The sewer system was destroyed as well, and we saw the filthy black water going into the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Fields, too, and with them significant parts of the food supply and the livelihood of farmers, have been destroyed. White phosphorous dropped by Israeli bombers burned wheat and other crops. We were taken out to fields that had been burnt and shown fragments of white phosphorus that farmers are still finding in the ground. This substance makes it dangerous to plant more crops. When the fragment is exposed to oxygen it starts to burn again. Of the bombed schools we saw, my most vivid memory was of the International American School, which was completely destroyed. Only the sign in English told us what the wreckage had been. Our guides told us that hospitals, too, had white phosphorus bombs dropped on them. Israel has destroyed so much in Gaza, and continues to block its reconstruction. Gaza once produced many tons of cement, but cannot do that any longer. Cement factories were among the ruins of an industrial area we drove through. Today, Gazans are building their houses with mud because cement is not legally allowed across the borders. Seeing this massive destruction and the bare,
difficult lives of the survivors, I felt horrible. I first visited Israel
50 years ago as a young teenager and saw an exciting new country founded
by people in search of freedom and justice. Whatever idealism fueled early
Zionism is long gone, replaced by brutality and destruction. And I, as a
Jewish American, had been silent for too long. I decided that when I
returned home I would tell people what I saw and felt during my short time
in Gaza. I would not be silent, never again! |