GAZA IS ALREADY UNLIVABLE AND ISRAEL IS MAKING IT EVEN WORSE

GAZA IS ALREADY UNLIVABLE AND ISRAEL IS MAKING IT EVEN WORSE
by Rana Alshami
Israel has launched yet another campaign against the Palestinian people. This time their excuse is the kidnapping of three teenage “boys.” Israel is using this incident to once again collectively punish my people. According to international law, collective punishment is a crime.
Israel worries about these children of illegal colonizers who threw my people off of our land, but what about the thousands of Palestinians, including young children, who have been abducted by Israeli soldiers and thrown into Israeli jails without charge? What are our children guilty of to be imprisoned and trapped in cages? Did they fire rockets into Israel in reaction to the many times more rockets Israel fires at our homes and lands?
You must not forget these crimes, nor should you forget Israel’s bloody massacres of my people.
My people suffer behind walls and the rest of the world remains ignorant and silent. Thousands of Palestinian children have been tortured in Israeli jail cells. No one knows the pain we live with. What proof is there that we really kidnapped the “boys?” And if Palestinians did kidnap these Jewish boys, you must know they did so as a result of the atrocities they and their families have been subjected to their entire lives.
Beginning over forty-five years ago, Israel began building settlements in order to prove their claim to all of our land, which they stole by virtue of their greater strength and cunning. They build new settlements and continue expanding existing ones. Chedi Klibi, former Secretary-General of the Arab League, outlines three basic objectives of Israel’s expansionism:
1). The annexation of more Arab lands, including the displacement of the inhabitants which lead to demographic changes that increase the Jewish population; expropriation of Palestinian property and the necessary and continuous repression required to prevent us from keeping what is rightfully ours.
2). The preemption of any attempt by the Palestinian people to affirm our human rights, among which is the right of self-determination in our own land. Thus, the original and long term objective of proliferating and expanding settlements is to eliminate my people and our recognized national rights from the political map of the region.
3). To use the settlement issue to foil any political solution that doesn’t concede full Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territory. Israel is saying, in effect, that it will accept nothing less than surrender, even though it insists on calling this surrender “Peace.”
Dear reader, do you know what it means to be a Palestinian? It means you are not able to move here or there; you don’t have many of the basic requirements needed to live a decent life. We are even deprived of our sleep and the only thing the powers that oppress us expect us to do is to remain ignorant. As Palestinians, curses follow us everywhere we go. For example, last year I went to Cairo to be interviewed for my Visa. I did the interview very well but the officer smiled at me and said, “Rana, sorry, but we can‘t issue your visa to the US.” I asked, “Why?” His only answer was “because you are Palestinian.” My American friend spent $1,000 on the visa application, travel expenses to and from Cairo and three days of food and lodging for my mother and me. The U.S., which assists Israel in making life difficult for us, made us go through an expensive and time-consuming process that it knew all along would result in rejection.
How much longer will the world stay deaf? Is our blood free of charge? What crime have our children committed that they are forced to live in hell? We are human beings, not aliens. We are exactly like you. Regardless of color, sex, nationality, or religion we just want to live like you in peace and under good conditions.
Imagine sleeping when, suddenly, you are awakened in the middle of the night to the sounds of rockets and warplanes, and children screaming. Tell me, how are you going to deal with this situation? What would you tell your child if he came to you crying and shouting because of the bombing? Last night, unable to sleep, my fourteen year old brother said to me, “Rana, I put the bicycle on the door of the balcony because of the strong explosion I heard.” When he told me this, I felt helpless knowing I could not do anything to stop the bombing.
Israeli forces shoot gas bombs on my people. Israel practices repression as a major cornerstone of its policy in our occupied land.
Raise your voices and stand by the truth no matter how much it costs. Our children want the same freedom you have. They want their human rights. All the world should know what life is like here in Gaza. Only justice will heal the wounds of my people.