Al-Awda New York, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

NEIGHBORHOOD DESTRUCTION IN PALESTINE

By Samia A. Halaby

A photo essay documenting an inspection tour June 29-30 and July 1, 2001. The team was composed of one member of the New York branch of Al-Awda (Palestine Right to Return Coalition) and one from Idust Foundation in Colorado, one from Laka Foundation in Amsterdam. They worked in cooperation with the Union of Health Work Committees in the West Bank and Ghazze (Gaza). The author, and organizer of the team, is a Palestinian activist born in AlQuds (Jerusalem) prior to the establishment of Israel on Palestinian soil.

Part Six -- Khan Younis, A Town in Ghazze

Our next stop is Khan Younis and we are invited into the home of Ibrahime Ali Abu Awad. At one window there is a truly disturbing sight. As I photographed I was strongly warned to get away from the window and told that when ever the Israelis see anyone at the windows they shoot.

What had caught my attention was a gondola hanging from a tall crane extending diagonally from what we were told is the settlement of Nave Dekaleem. This gondola is the source of much of the nightly shooting at Palestinian homes in addition to the tanks which approach nightly and bombard. It is critical to note here that the gondola would be exceeding vulnerable if the Palestinians had any weapons which would reach it. It makes it amply clear that the Israelis are not feeling threatened but are rather mounting a premeditated and cowardly military attack on residential neighborhoods.

An entire scene of total destruction - a plain of rubble where homes once stood is what we saw and photographed when looked at where the gondola was shooting. These apartment buildings are what the Israeli military youth have in their gun sights. On either side of the road leading to this scene are small shops pock marked by thousands of holes. In some areas there are holes which are about 6 x 6 feet created by a single missile each. In the street you can see the tents in which some of the people whose homes have been demolished now live.

These photos are close-up views which give a powerful idea of the damage inflicted on Palestinian homes. This is how Israelis kill -- slowly without too much bloodshed by destroying all that life requires. This is how, ever so slowly, they kill without letting the foreign media pay too much attention.

In this photo is a crowd of boys one of whome I interviewed. He, Muhammad, tells me that his family used to live in one of the damaged apartments in the apartment building with purple stirpes. His family now lives in one of the many tents pitched along the street even more vulnerable to Israeli fire. He tells that it has been seven months since the destruction of their home. As I question Muhammad further I find out he is 15 years old not 10 or 11 as I had estimated. I am in disbelief considering his size but his friends all confirm this. Yes, he is indeed 15. I become aware of the devastation of malnutrition.

Above is a toddler who stands next to the tent where his family now lives. Since January 2001, the Israeli government completely close ninety-two Palestinian schools and they shot at and raided several others. Seven thousand and five hundred children have been deliberately wounded by military and settler fire. Many of them were deliberately shot precisely in the eye or the spine. This is Zionist brutality executed in the name of their god and their greed.

Life is difficult beyond imagining in Ghazze. The ratio of habitation per square kilometer is nearly 1 to 700 between Israeli settlements and Palestinian areas. There is massive unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, a paucity of all that allows children and communities to thrive. Youth often take up a stance of defense of their communities and often many of these beautiful freedom fighters die. Notice the destruction above and notice the poster photo of a "martyred" freedom fighter on the electric pole to the right. Also Notice the barrel marked "UN" so clearly revealing the twisted hostility of the United Nations' intitutions who pretend peace but fail their promise of sending a defense force for the defenseless.