my article in Boston Globe Monday 10th of july

By Mona El-Farra



Since the capture of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a large scale military operation, what Israel calls Summer Rain. Because Israel bombed our power plant, and we need electricity to pump water, most of Gaza now has no access to drinking water. In the heat of our summer, rain would be a blessing.

To the outside world it might seem like an easy decision for Palestinians: let the soldier go and the siege will end. Yet for us Gazans, even in the face of this extreme violence, another decision comes, not with ease, but with resolve. Shalit is one solider who was captured in a military operation. Today, 122 Palestinian women and 400 children under 16, are inside Israeli prisons. They deserve their freedom no less than Shalit. Their families mourn their absence no less than his family. So while we suffer Israel's Summer Rain, most Gazans, want the soldier held - not harmed, only held -- until our women and children are released.

We will pay a high price, long after the bombing has stopped. I am already starting to lose track of days and nights, of how many bombs have dropped. Since the main power plant was destroyed, we have had to live with no electricity. What we get is patchy, an hour or two at most, just enough to recharge our laptops and mobile phones so that we do not lost all touch with each other and with the outside world.

As a physician, I fear for the hospitals, for our patients. Twenty-two hospitals have no electricity at all. They have to rely on generators. But the generators need fuel to run and our fuel supplies are running dangerously low. We have enough for a few days at most. But our borders are completely sealed so no fuel can get in. Hundreds of operations have been postponed. The lives of patients on life support machines, children in intensive care, renal dialysis patients and others are threatened because there is no power. Our pharmacies were already nearly empty because of the closed borders and economic sanctions inflicted on us. What little supplies were left have gone bad because they needed to be refrigerated.

More than 30,000 children suffer from malnutrition today, and this number will increase as diarrhea spreads because of the limited supply of good clean water and high rates of food contamination.

As a mother, I fear for our children. I can see the effects of the continuous sonic booming and artillery shelling on my daughter. She is 13 years old and she is restless, panicked. She is afraid to go out, yet frustrated because she can't see her friends. When the Israeli planes break the sound barrier, which they do at all times of the day and night, the sound is terrifying. My bed shakes tremendously. My daughter usually jumps into bed with me, shivering with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. My heart races, yet I need to pacify my daughter, to make her feel safe. Now she knows that we need to pacify each other. She feels my fear. When the bombs sound, I flinch and scream. I can't help myself. I am a doctor, a mature, middle-aged woman. But with the sonic booming, I become hysterical. I am only human after all, and we all have our threshold for fear and pain.

This aggression will leave scars on the psychology of our children for years to come. Instilling feelings of fear, anger and loss in our children will not bring peace and security to Israelis.

Many of us in Gaza believe that Israel's Summer Rain was pre-planned, that Shalit's capture is being used as a pretense. Israel attacked Gaza within hours of a national consensus accord signed by Fatah and Hamas, an accord that could have led to negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Yet Israel knows that for negotiations to succeed it would have to give up its desire to maintain control of Palestinian land and resources. We in Gaza believe that the goal of Israel's military campaign against us is not Shalit's release. The goal is to bring down our elected government and to destroy our infrastructure, and with it our will to secure our national rights, even on the small pieces of land that remain to us. Though we do not now live with ease, we live with resolve. Until the world pressures Israel to recognize our rights in our land, and to pursue a peace that gives freedom and security to both peoples, we both will continue to pay the price.