occupation is the secret recipe for suffering

5th of january
there are violent palestinian plalestinian interclashes between fateh and hamas in the north and south of Gaza, and inside Gaza city as well , the clashes continued throug hthre night 6 people were kilede and tens injured ,





Dear All
happy new year , hoping that 2007 will bring the best possible for al lof us , sorry it is belated wish , but late is better than never
with love and solidarity

Mona eLFarra




GAZA

Gaza at the end of 2006

My life in Gaza

Throughout December, I was very busy organizing relief work for hundreds
of families living in different sorts of poverty. Working with colleagues
and tens of volunteers, we managed to distribute food parcels – meat,
blankets, money vouchers, milk, medications for sick children and cancer
patients, university fees for needy students.

I am organizing and coordinating this work for MECA and some other donors,
with the help of 3 doctors, friends and colleagues. A group of volunteers,
mainly women, help as well. We work hard to reach people in different
parts of the crowded Gaza Strip, where we are imprisoned in this small
area of land whose borders are still mainly closed – they opened just 14
times in 6 months.

The Palestinian Egyptian border crossing is very crowded with hundreds of
people waiting to travel on both sides. You can only leave Gaza in very
difficult and inhuman circumstances, and you cannot be sure of coming
back. Passengers wait on the Egyptian side, not knowing when the borders
will open – is it a matter of hours, days, weeks or months? Some have no
choice but to go through this traumatic experience. Students did not reach
their universities on time, and some patients died while waiting to cross
the border for treatment.

I am invited by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London to to attend a
conference.(Enough ) I do not think it will be easy for me to travel, and it may be
impossible in such uncertain circumstances. It is important for me to be
able to go to London and I wish I could go, but this is a luxurious wish
when we all live under very severe circumstances. All of us feel unsafe
and cannot guarantee the safety of our children.

I am surrounded by thousands of people who depend on different sources of
local and international humanitarian aid for their daily basic needs, and
to continue living and resisting these circumstances. They resist
occupation by continuing to live here at all, in such horrific, inhuman
miserable conditions.

IN Gaza YOU CANNOT PLAN SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS LUNCH WITH FREINDS

IN GAZA YOU CANNOT PLAN SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS VISITING YOUR OLD MOTHER ONLY 20 MINTUES DRIVE


Sunday 17 th December

The Palestinian-on-Palestinian internal clashes have re-started. Dozens
are killed or injured, schools are closed. I cannot reach the Red Crescent
Society or the Al﷓Awda hospital or get out to buy some milk. I am
confined to my flat, and it is very unsafe for me and Sondos, especially
because we live very close to the presidential headquarters.

From my window I can see armed men, many of them masked, tense and on
alert. I hear the shooting too close, not knowing where it comes from, and
the sounds of big explosions. I've witnessed this scene before but now it
is a Palestinian-Palestinian fight. last month during november , it was Israeli Apache
helicopters and F16's, army tanks frogmen and gunboats.
The outcome is the same. We
are not safe, no place in Gaza is safe.


25th December

It has been raining, heavy showers of rain non stop for the last 3 days.
There is no electricity and it is very cold. I have heard that there are
some problems with the power plant, though we had regular power last month
after 5 months of living with only a few hours of electricity (patchy
power). I cannot watch television, I feel isolated from the world and
abandoned by the world. I do not have the desire to write or go out, I
feel so low.


27th December

The Israelis have opened the dam on the east of Gaza to relieve the
overflow of rainwater on the eve of AlAdha Eid (the Muslim ceremony of Eid
when Abraham promised God to give his son as a sacrifice). I decide to
visit my mother in Khan Yunis 20 km south of Gaza City where I live.

I reach as far as the Gaza bridge which links the south and north of the
Gaza Strip. But the road under the destroyed bridge is closed, flooded by
excessive rain. The alternative road is also flooded while the bridge
above has been completely destroyed by Israeli jet fighters last June. On
the other side of the Gaza valley Israel has opened the dam and let water
gush into Gaza to avoid floods into Israeli land (historical Palestine),
so on both sides of the valley inside Gaza there are great floods of rain
and sewage water. I cannot visit my aged mother (84), and the road remains
closed during the feast days.

I need somebody to tell me how we in the Occupied Territories can tolerate
or accept or coexist with Israel and its racist acts and continuous
insistence on treating us in the OT as 10th class citizens, on the borders
and everywhere in our own country. Occupation, occupation, occupation is
inhuman and makes life like a hell for us in our own country. Occupation
is illegal and it only exists in Palestine and Iraq, imposed by Israel and
America, the so-called most democratic nation in the new world.

Without a clear comprehensive and just solution for the Palestinian
Israeli conflict, a solution that is based on self-determination for
Palestinians and the right of return, ending the occupation and stopping
the American government's biased intervention in the region, I can see
clearly that the situation in Palestine and the whole region will go from
bad to worse, and then where...

I do not have the answer. If somebody knows can he/she let me know.

With love and solidarity from Gaza