“Israel’s” Strategic Support to USA.

Here is what the strategic ally of USA gave Bush in exchange for the killing machinery and monetary support that “Israel” receives from the US every month!…

in addition to this :

I am from N’ilia and I will return

Today is the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba (catastrophe) when thousands of Palestinians were murdered and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes and lands by the “Israeli” militias. The Palestinian homes were given to the Jewish immigrants fleeing the Nazis. “Israel” in 1948 did to the Palestinians what they suffered from in Europe and in few years they transformed from victims of Nazis to become the new Nazis victimizing the Palestinians people and confiscating their lands and fields. On this day, I’ve chosen to write about my village, the village that my grandfather was expelled from in 1948. Carrying two infants and holding his wife’s hand while she is holding the other three kids, they headed to the nearby Gaza strip, fleeing from the killing machine of the notorious Givati “Israeli” militia that already killed hundreds in the nearby villages and was headed south to Al-Majdal and the neighboring villages among them N’ilia.

N’ilia

N’ilia was a small village located 3 km to the south west of the city of Al-Majdal (now known as “Ashkelon”). N’ilia was depopulated and destroyed completely in November 5^th, 1948 by the “Israeli” Givati militias during the military operation “Yoav”. Hundreds of the Palestinian inhabitants ( population ~1,520 in 1948 ) were killed and the rest fled to the nearby Gaza Strip. The area of N’ilia is around 5233 Donum (~1290 Acre) and was mostly planted with citrus trees.

the only bricks left in N’ilia.

Map of Palestine showing villages and town prior 1948 (click to enlarge)

This powerpoint presentation gives a timeline of Al-Nakba. The major “Israeli” operations and massacres are pointed out. It’s very enlightening for outsiders and insiders alike. AL-NAKBA ANATOMY

Taste of Freedom

One Sami is free…

Sami Al-Hajj, on the left a young looking 32 years old man, on the right a 39 years old man… This is what 7 years in Gitmo can do for you! Watch Aljazeera English Youtube report about his release.

when the other Sami will be freed?

Dr. Sami Al-Arian is still imprisoned in a Federal jail in Virginia despite the fact that he was acquitted from all terrorism charges brought against him. When the American justice will come to life again!

Watch this heartbreaking documentary about Dr. Al-Arian.

No peace without Hamas

Mahmoud Al-Zahhar published an article in the Washington post a week ago.

My take: I don’t believe that he meant what he wrote there… He is just being smart (not politically) that he knew, contrary to Mahmoud Abaas, that “Israel” will not agree on this for 1000 years to come, so he is just throwing the ball in the “Israeli” side, this is a well known Hamas strategy…

P.S. did you notice that he used the word “nation” when he referred to Israel!

P.S.S I am quite sure that this article was edited by an English literature professor at the Islamic university of Gaza before Al-Zahhar handed it to the WP; Al-Zahhar’s English really sucks!

CNN: The most TWISTED name in news

Link on front page reads: “Israeli-Palestinian fighting kills 21″

click the link, the article starts like this:

“Israeli airstrikes and ground battles with Palestinian militants on Wednesday left 21 dead, most of them Palestinians, according to Palestinian security sources. A Reuters cameraman and two bystanders were killed in an apparent airstrike near El Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Hamas security sources and Palestinian medical sources.”

The truth: 19 Palestinians (15 civilians+4 Hamas militants) + 2 Israeli soldiers were killed. So the 19 out of 21 in CNN logic is “most of them”… Also, CNN all the time used to say “according to Palestinian medical sources” . Now its according to “Hamas security sources”, to make it look like even more unreliable sources!.

Kinda related UPDATE: CNN will have Tony Snow as a conservative commentator! Cool, more garbage into the cable news… I am calling the cable company to tear down my cable connection…  YouTube ain’t bad at all…

A story from the “bigger shoah”

Couple of weeks back, the “Israeli” deputy “defense” minster Matan Vilna threatened the Palestinians of Gaza with a “bigger shoah”, and shoah in Hebrew is used almost exclusively to refer to the Nazi holocaust against the Jews in Europe. Vilna threatened the Gazans with yet a bigger than the Nazi holocaust and here is another heart-breaking story from the shoah that killed more than 136 people… among them 40+ child…among them 3 babies… among them Amira Abu Asr, a 20 days old baby.

This story is about the families of Abu Salamah and Hijazi in Gaza: After the invasion of Jabaliya refugee camp ended, the Abu Salama family started looking for their 15 years old son, Ahmed, whom was missing since the invasion started. They waited several days for Ahmed to return home, but this never happened. Couple of days later, they were asked to come to Kamal Odwan hospital in northern Gaza strip to check an identified body for a teenage boy. The face was totally burned, the body was disfigured and nothing can be identified. The Abu Salamah family took the remaining of their son, buried it and opened a “consolation tent” to receive condolences from friends and families. Few days later, a neighbor of Abu Salamah family, comes hurrying to their home and shouting that he saw Ahmed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Al-Shifaa hospital in Gaza city while he was visiting an injured family member of his. The mother and father of Ahmed hurried to the hospital and as soon as they arrived the ICU room where Ahmed is being treated, they couldn’t believe their eyes! their son was alive! he was not that poor teenage who was hit in an airstrike. However, the relief did not last long as they came to learn that their son’s face is severely burned and that he lost the ability to speak! But the story doesn’t end here, Ahmed’s name in the hospital papers was “Mansour Hijazi” a name for a teenage who was Ahmed’s look-alike … This news came as a lightening strike on the father and mother of Mansour Hijazi who were waiting all that time outside the ICU room waiting for “their son” to make it and leave the hospital… While their actual son, Mansour, was kept in the morgue of Kamal Odwan hospital for several days and later has been buried by Abu Salamah family!…

When does CNN wake up?

When more than a 116 Palestinians (the vast majority of them were civilians) were killed during last week attacks on Gaza and which among them were more than 40 children (see post below), CNN barely put one line on the side to talk about the story the next day, even they underrepresented the number of civilians killed and claimed the “Israeli” “OPERATION” was aiming to stop rockets!!!… Now, look at CNN after six “Israelis” were killed hours ago in Jerusalem… Within minutes CNN puts a BREAKING NEWS banner about the “TERRORIST ATTACK” (not even a “TERRORIST OPERATION”) …

This is after just minutes of the attack…

UPADATE: UN[FAIR] Security council will hold an emergency meeting tonight re the attack in Jerusalem…

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN he saw no connection between Thursday’s shooting and Israel’s operations in Gaza. “There is no retaliation,” he said. “These people have been terrorizing Israel for years, have been carrying out suicide bombings and indiscriminate attacks for years.” Source: CNN.COM

No connection!!! Ok! Is that may be because Palestinians are bloody people and just addicted to killing like you son of a terrorist occupier!

The 20 Days Old Princess…

Ameera (Arabic for princess), 20 days old killed by “Israel” while in between her mom’s hands… Apparently the innocent “Israeli” soldiers thought she was the one behind the home-made rocket launched into Sderot…

Photo Credit: AFP

The story told by her injured mom: ” We were going to visit the sick mother of Yousif Missiri, she is suffering from kidney problems and lives in her son’s house, they are friends of our family [Yousef Missiri is wanted for "Israel"]. While we are about to eat dinner, one of the kids came inside and started shouting the “Israeli” tanks are surrounding the neighborhood. Moments later the “Israeli” soldiers started calling on us to exit the home one by one, first three sisters of Missiri exited, then I followed them holding Ameera in my hands and shouting to them, Please don’t kill us, don’t kill my children [she was also accompanied by her 2 other kids]” she continues ” while I was holding Ameera and shouting, the soldiers mounted a strong flashlight on us and started firing shots at me and me daughter, I got heavily injured in my arm while still holding Ameera not knowing she is already dead, I knew she was dead the next morning”. She continues, ” I want to know why they killed her, did she fire rockets on the settlements or was she fighting them!”…

Ameera’s father was also beaten up and taken into custody because he kept asking the soldiers “why did you kill my daughter!”.

Enough with calling upon Arab leaders!

I am in an extremely bad mood… I have to finish writing a research proposal by this weekend, but this is not exactly why I am feeling bad! the situation in Gaza and watching Aljazeera makes me not able to focus!… I am extremely horrified by the pictures coming out of Gaza! Three babies were killed by the continuing “Israeli” airstrikes, this is in addition to more than 65 people killed, most of them are women and children… Let’s say that I don’t feel bad for those who die fighting; because they chose to fight and may be most of them were wishing to die fighting… but those babies, children, women and civilians did not choose to die! They want to live normally in that abnormal place called GAZA… They cannot leave it, the borders are closed since many many months ago, they cannot evacuate it, it’s sieged and surrounded… They even prefer to stay home and choose not to go to school or to work, thinking they can be safe inside!… and yet, the F-16 missiles don’t spare them! Those Bush gifts to “Israel” killed that baby in his crib, killed that woman while cooking in her kitchen! killed that man while trying to get some groceries for his family… And amid all this we hear Khaled Mishaal, the CEO of Hamas, calling upon the Arab leaders to rescue the Palestinians in Gaza!!! What Arab leaders you’re talking about! When will the time come and we understand and realize that the Arab leaders cannot do any good for us, they cannot do any good for their own people! why to bother with the Palestinians!… Your president, Mahmood Useless Abbass cannot do any good for his own people so why you are asking others! I mean tell me what Abbass can do for the Palestinians! Nothing, absolutely nothing except futile negotiations that end up resulting in more settlement built than before! tell me what can you do for the Palestinians? Aren’t you now the leader-in-chief of the devastated Gaza! Give us a break man!… We don’t need any Arab leader to help us! We need to work out our own way out of this, we need first to fix ourselves and unite ourselves! so we don’t have a Hamasstan and Fatehland… Then we can figure our way out of all these massacres and carnages…

13X1

UPDATE: Death toll reached 106 Palestinans (among them 3 babies under 1 y.o.) X 2 “Israeli” soldiers

Last night 13 Palestinians, the vast majority of them were civilians, including the baby in the picture below, were killed by multiple “Israleli” airstrikes on the sieged Gaza Strip. The “Israeli” army claims that this came as a response to one person killed in Sderot by a Qassam home-made rocket! The matter of the truth is that killing and airstrikes never stopped whether there was a rocket or there was a top wanted Hamas member walking down the streets and civilians happened to be walking in the same street!, how ironic that might sound, this is the truth… The pretext for killing and mass killing justification is always there… It’s noteworthy to mention that before “Israel” started the raids, they filed a complaint to the U.N. Security Council about Qassam rockets being fired from Gaza! and before the ink of that complaint dried up, they killed 13 people! including the may be a “terrorist-to-be” pictured below, six months old Muhammed Al-Bura’i.

Photo credit: Aljazeera.net

Photo Credit: www.paldf.net

his crib

Photo Credit: www.paldf.net

Obama on Palestinian/”Israeli” issues…

“OBAMA: Well here’s my starting orientation is A - Israel’s security is sacrosanct, is non negotiable. That’s point number one. Point number two is that the status quo I believe is unsustainable over time. So we’re going to have to make a shift from the current deadlock that we’re in. Number three that Israel has to remain a Jewish state and what I believe that means is that any negotiated peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is going to have to involve the Palestinians relinquishing the right of return as it has been understood in the past. And that doesn’t mean that there may not be conversations about compensation issues. It also means the Israelis will have to figure out how do we work with a legitimate Palestinian government to create a Palestinian state that is sustainable. It’s going to have to be contiguous, its going to have to work its going to have to function in some way. That’s in Israel’s interest by the way. If you have a balkanized unsustainable state, it will break down and we will be back in the same boat. So those are the starting points of my orientation. My goal then would be to solicit as many practical opinions as possible in terms of how we’re going to move forward on a improvement of relations and a sustainable peace. The question that I will be asking any advisor is how does it achieve the goal of Israel’s security and how does it achieve the goal of sustainability over the long term and I want practical, hardheaded, unromantic advice about how we’re going to achieve that. Something that Robert said that I think is very important. I have consistently said this, and I have said this to Palestinians, I said this when I was in Ramallah, that you cannot fault Israel for being concerned about any peace agreement if the Palestinian state or Palestinian authority or Palestinian leadership does not seem to be able to follow through on its commitments. And I think the approach we have to take with respect to negations is that you sit down and talk, but you have to suspend trust until you can see that the Palestinian side can follow through and that’s a position that I have consistently taken and the one I will take with me to the White House.”  NY Sun, Feb 26th, 2008.  The rest is here

“Israel has to remain a Jewish state” and ” … to involve  the Palestinians relinquishing their right of return [to their lands where they were expelled from in 1948]“
How this sounds from an African-American whom his ancestors suffered segregation  and denial of their civil rights…

and on the same day, I read the following [Arabic]. It talks about a Palestinian journalism student from the isolated Gaza Strip, who is reaching out to the American voters to support Obama. Using free internet calling to the U.S. to contact Americans, he talks to them about voting for Barack Obama in the coming Ohio and Texas primaries! He goes on saying that Obama is the one who can solve the Palestinians’ problems and achieve for them what no one has succeeded in before…

How naive this sounds after your read the NY Sun article and this letter sent by Obama to the U.S. rep. in the U.N. council.

Obama buying Jew’s votes…

Click thumbnail to enlarge

UPDATE: Obama buttons in Hebrew! Sold on his campaign website

If this guy wins, I am out of here…

It might be a bit early, as still the presidential nomination is not there yet for both parties… but as I was listening to John McCain talking on CNN today, I decided that if he’ll win the U.S. presidency, I am moving to Canada within few months…

All what this person knows is bigger army, bigger Marine corps, bigger air force, bigger destruction, bigger war crimes, bigger occupations… yet smaller economy, less human liberty, less scientific research, less peace in the world…

If McCain wins, this means we’re gonna have another Bush for another 4 years at least! that makes it 12 unfortunate years for this world…

 

John McCain-Bush

Trip to the Unkown… Ghazza (Gaza)

I found this piece on the wikitravel.

“Gaza is completely closed off now, pretty much like an outdoor prison. The only way in is through the Eretz crossing in the north, and then you need a permit from the Israeli Army. If you do have a permit, you need coordination with the Israeli Army, specifying when you are planning to go into, and more importantly, go out from Gaza. Don’t miss out on this part, as it dramatically increases your chances of not being shot at by the Israeli Army.

When you passed through the Israelis side, you end up in a long barren concrete tunnel. Coming through the tunnel, you have to cross an even more barren no-mans-land. This can be a bit nervous, depending on the general situation in the area at the moment, and this is the most likely place for you to be shot at. After some hundred meters, you come to “Shamsa shamsa” (five five in Arabic), which marks the spot where Palestinians stop if they do not have coordination with the Israeli Army. Here you will find a bunch of taxi drivers, desperately waiting for …”

 

Interesting, ha? …  note that this applies to foreign visitors only, not to the Palestinians,  since any Palestinian who comes close to the borders (even if he is farming his land) will be shot at with no second thought from the solider up the borders tower… Actually any regular Palestinian who lives in Gaza would feel enormously lucky if he or she be able to leave Gaza under any circumstances and believe it or not he/she surely won’t be worried about all the horror described in the quote, as his/her chance of dying while living inside Gaza is the same as the chance of being shot at the border,  if not the later being less risky.

 

 

No! You Don’t Know…

“I know what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian … I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness.” Condoleezza Rice [here]

 

Madam Secretary! … You don’t know nothing! Absolutely nothing…

Life in Gaza… May-August 2007

Well, a lot of people may wonder how is life in Gaza during the past 6 years! actually I was one of those who wondered about this! yeah, I am a Palestinian from Gaza, my family lives there! but before my last visit in May 207, I haven’t been there for more than 4 years ago… I can tell you, that the Gaza I found, was not the Gaza I used to live in before 1998 and during those short visits during school breaks usually for two-three weeks in the summers of 1999-2003. It’s totally different! well, different to the extreme worst! … I spent three months in Gaza full of disappointment, stress, anger,…. it was only these few days before and after my wedding that I could forget about the life in Gaza… The life there is unbearable or I can invent a word to better describe it as “un-live-able” . People of Gaza and Palestinians in general, suffer all kinds of hardships in their “lives” , if you can call it lives… It’s full of despair, horror, stress, anxiety, humiliation,… you can go forever about this. People there don’t know from which side they can shelter themselves amid all the fierce fightings in their neighborhoods between the two dominant gangs that are called “factions” in modern politics add to that the shelling, bombing, invasions, destruction,… carried out by the “Israeli” army (AKA “Defense Forces”!… the most absurd description someone can dub the “Israeli” army with)… not even this only, add to this whole list, a deprivation of the very simple human needs! For example, in Gaza, you can hear children cheering up out loud because the electricity is back after 8-10 hours of outage, and the outage is not because of overusing the electric power! no, it’s because the “Israeli” want to collectively punish the people of Gaza for firing bird-size “rockets” by militant groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad, (parties, the vast majority of people secretly abhor and disdain, and have no control whatsoever over their activities) … I want to give you words-pictures of what you’ll see in Gaza if you decided to visit now …

* In Gaza, piles of trash/garbage are piled up at many streets and intersections: why? because municipality workers were not paid for months and months as a result of the financial sanction put forth on the Palestinian government dominated by Hamas (note that Hamas has a lot of money to support its supporters and workers, and they’re the least suffering people in all this), those who suffer are the mainstream people who are not either this or that! and that’s the result of the stupid policy of the U.S. government and EU governments! they think they’re restricting Hamas activities, while Hamas is buying the people affection by food and money! yet increasing their influence in the Palestinian community!…

 

* In Gaza, you can see a lot of cars with no plates or tags, or if there is a plate, it’s illegible and tag printing is faded out. You can also see drivers drive in the opposite direction (to avoid a far U turn) and this become like a normal practice, that’s shamefully sometimes I had to do it…

 

* In Gaza, there is a timetable for power outage since there isn’t enough supplied power to accommodate the 1.5 million who live there… This is a result of a summer 2006 “Israeli” raid on Gaza main power plant in addition to “Israeli” restrictions on the amount of power that should be supplied to the coastal strip. As a matter of fact, the longtime warrior, the current “defense” minister in “Israel” Euhud Barak just issued today an order to decrease the power supply to Gaza to the minimal level needed for emergency usage. This is in addition to the already dwindling supply of petrol that is sold by “Israel” to the Gazan people…

 

* In Gaza, there are cars that run on natural gas with no safety precautions are taken into consideration!… because a galon of gas (Banzeen) is $6 (note that now more than 70% of Gazans are below poverty line, where many families spend less than $2 a day)…

 

* In Gaza, you can see youngsters carrying automatic guns, I saw this first-hand where a 15 years old guy fired two loaded magazines (about 60 rounds), [Note: one AK-47 bullet is sold by arm dealers in Gaza for $2-$3, Hamas ammo is cheaper, because they smuggle it from the underground tunnels between Gaza and Egypt] during a martyr funeral… the guy’s hands were terribly shaking that I backed from the window fearing that he will loose control of his AK47. He was allowed to have an AK47 because he is Hamas militia member; after the Hamas took power over Gaza, it’s only Hamas members that are allowed to fire during funerals. I might add here and say that it’s may be the only thing that I kinda liked from Hamas coup is that they enforced a zero-tolerance rule prohibiting a long time practice at wedding parties,.. etc which is using automatic guns in these celebrations! nonetheless some of Hamas-loyal weddings can secretly fire few rounds with no questions asked!

 

* In Gaza, the police or any “law-enforcement” members barely finished high-school and those comprise of about 90% of Hamas and Fateh militants, specially Hamas newly formed “militant police” (Executive Force or “Tanfeezya”) .

 

* In Gaza, there are a lot a lot of people who want to live peacefully and in tranquility.
* In Gaza, there are a lot of children who want to play outside without fearing the flying F-16s or the shells falling from the skies.
* In Gaza, hope is rapidly dwindling inside many many people, if this persists, it will become irreversible…

 

… To be continued.

Cannot find a suitable title…

Well, if you remember, I left the United States on the first week of last May heading to Gaza for a vacation! It was my first time to return to Gaza since I arrived the U.S.  some four years ago…  Well, I just want to say this… This past summer was the most dynamic part of my life… dynamic, in  a good sense, and in a very ugly sense! … First, I arrived Amman en route to Gaza which at that time was still not under the control of Hamas…  I stayed in Amman for two weeks waiting for the Rafah crossing to open so I can enter Gaza! which turned into a prison just few weeks later…  I arrived Gaza on May 26th via Rafah crossing, surprisingly with almost no hassles or difficulty… Actually it was the most comfortable trip to Gaza through Rafah crossing that I ever had before… I arrived Cairo airport on  Friday night and the border luckily opened Saturday morning… The Egyptians put all of the male youngsters, some of them was “stored” for several days in a holding cell in Cairo airport pending Rafah opening, they put all of us in a bus guarded by two police officers who seized our passports until we reached the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing… I couldn’t imagine that this procedure will be very comfortable to me and my fellow young Palestinian males who are not allowed to enter Egypt without a Visa.  All what you need to do as a “mar7all” (escorted passenger) is to sit in the bus and everything will come to you inside the bus from stamping passports, paying departure fees, not have to talk to or deal with o’h my god rude Egyptian officers,…etc…

 So Finally I entered Gaza after four years since my last visit… The first five minutes inside Gaza, I felt it did not change, it’s the same Gaza that I left four years ago… this impression did not last long… I started to see armed men all over the place,  this wasn’t new to me, as I have seen armed persons all over Gaza before, but not in that capacity, RPGs, rifles, bombs,…  I felt that I am entering a military zone, which Gaza is indeed one… My two brothers who picked me up from the crossing, will then tell me, ” look to those armed men, those are the executive force (Tanfeezya) that you were always asking about who’re they, and what they do, when you were calling us from the U.S.” …  So, I said to the two armed men while passing them “Asslam Aliukm Shabab”, I used to do this always to armed resistance men I see in the street. I arrived home to see my mom, dad, sisters waiting to see me after these years that passed while I was away… I was eagerly waiting for that moment,  also I was eagerly waiting to meet my two nephews, Ahmed, then 3.5 years old, and Adam, then 8 months old, they both were born when I was abroad…  That day was something different for me, I stayed all night chatting and talking to my sisters and brothers… That night was also full of shells fired by Israeli and falling in the nearby villages of Bait Lahia and Bait Hanoun.  I will suddenly be shaken after each tank shell or Apache missile that is fired, my little sister will calm me down and say, “this is far away from here… don’t worry”…  That night was the beginning of the extreme suffering, despair and ironically happiness in some moments that I experienced while in Gaza.

Two weeks after my arrival, Hamas took over Gaza after a very fierce fighting with the Fateh dominated security forces, a lot of killings, a lot of destruction and a lot of suffering… for what purpose?  nothing but to define who is stronger in Gaza…  Of course, I had no passion for any of those two parties, actually I abhor both of those parties or should I say “gangs” because they don’t qualify to be dubbed as political parties like any other parties in any country in the world…  Given that, I was trying to live my life normally and to “enjoy” my vacation.  Well, yeah, I got engaged to my lovely and adorable girl, Heba… I didn’t want to live the life of my fellow Gazan citizens, I wanted to enjoy my time… But how you can enjoy your time in a place that is defined by chaos, killing, destruction, bullets, bombs, missiles,…  It did not work that well… Well, neither did I surrender to the status quo.  While Hamas was fighting the president security force in the president headquarter in Gaza (known as Al-Montada), I was with my fiance shopping for engagment rings… I remember that day very well, the streets were almost empty of any thing that can move; no cars, no people, no shops open, no cabs, nothing moving except few numbers of people wandering around, watching what is happening in the next neighborhoods where fights are taking place,… I left home, picked my fiance from her home, despite her disagreement to go shopping in such situations where bullets are flying all over the sky… I told her, “I don’t want to wait for those assholes to finish their game… I don’t have any business whatsoever with what’s happening and I really don’t give a damn about any one who is killed in these fights except for those innocents who get caught in between”… inside me I was hoping that I will not be one of those who get caught in fire… I must admit, that I was not feeling comfortable with being outside in such risky, full of death smell streets… We went and found that most of the shops were closed or partially opened. Those who were partially opening their stores refused to show us their jewelery, they were fearing that someone will come and rob their shops in such chaotic situations… they will say ” you can come whenever the situation gets better!” … I was telling myself, then we can come tomorrow, it might calm down…  It took more than that! … 10 days later we were able to go and buy our engagement rings… by that time, Gaza was under the full control of Hamas and everything seemed to be normal, except one thing that was making me so nervous… Gaza borders are now closed, no crossing is open, and I was telling myself, how and when I will be able to leave… I was planning to return back to the U.S. on the first week of August, It was then the middle of June… Many thoughts crossed my mind, some were so horrific that I will have nightmares thinking about when and how I will be able to exit Gaza… At some point, I forgot that I am engaged and I should be happy and have fun with my fiance… I tried to forget all these bad thoughts, and was all the time convincing  myself that the current situation won’t last long,  I would tell myself: “It’s a matter of few weeks and everything will return to the pre-Hamas situations”, I will add ” they had fought a lot of before, and they were able  to come to an agreement in a matter of few weeks”,  then I will say: “O’h, but this is different, a lot of killing happened,  this is like a military coup, and it won’t be solved in few months!”… I lived the rest of June like this… thinking about if Hamas and Fateh will sit together again and resolve this issue, that “Israel” took as a pretext to close Gaza and to impose heavy sanctions on its people, collectively punishing all Gazans. I was getting so desperate… Well, July started and the situation was getting worse and worse… Me and my fiance decided to get married that summer instead of me coming to Gaza again (supposing I will be able to leave)  in December to get married… Yeah, I am now a married happy man! I got married on the last week of July… I spent a honey week or so not thinking about Gaza and what’s happening in Gaza… But later, me and my wife, will think about how we will leave and when! we were planning to spend sometime in Jordan or Egypt before we arrive the U.S. … The journey through hell started again and I had to seek help from anyone who could help me exit Gaza… Of course Rafah crossing was not an option, it was closed indefinitely and there was absolutely no sign that it will open in the near future (it’s still closed until this moment)… The only option was to try to leave Gaza from Erez crosspoint, between Gaza and “Israel”…  That wasn’t something a Gazan will do if Rafah was open, since at Rafah you won’t deal with “Israeli” officers that may have the risk of being arrested or detained for few days… I had no other option… Staying in Gaza for a long period of time, missing my study and not being able to travel was in my perspective worse than being prisoned in an “Israeli” jail for whatever reason! Believe it or not, I was suicidal in this… I wanted to leave and that’s what mattered the most for me…  I have requested help from many people who may be able to obtain me a permit from the “Israelis” to cross through Erez to the West Bank and then to Jordan… I tried to contact some friends whom they have family members close to some Palestinian officials who can influence the “Israelis” to issue me and my wife an exit permit… I have requested/begged several top Fateh officials in Gaza to contact someone in the president office to help, I collected a lot of information and contacts who might be able to obtain such permits from the “Israeli” security officials.  I only got promises and promises that they will work on that for me and for the many many students who are trapped inside Gaza… August started with no solution in the horizon, the middle of August approached and I couldn’t find a way to leave Gaza, my school started August 20th and I am still in Gaza, my advisor will then contact me and tell me “Sami, were you able to leave Gaza?” , “Will you leave Gaza before the deadline for re-hire of your Research Assistanship?” of course I had no answers, because I don’t know if I will leave Gaza or not, and absolutely I have no clue about when this will happen, if it was to happen!… That period of time was the worst period in my whole life… I was fighting myself, pretending that everything is going to work out, but had no clue about how it will work out and if it’s really going to work out… I had to pretend that I am not sad in front of my adorable wife, that has no fault not to see me happy and not to take her outside or take her for a dinner in a restaurant of something like that. I was also suffering for her, because I promised her to spend some time in the U.S. before my study starts and to tour around! but this seemed not going to happen!  more than a week have passed of the Fall semester and I am still in Gaza with no exit permit or no date that I will leave… I accidentally was talking about my situation via e-mail to a friend of mine in the U.S. who was working on a program affiliated with the United States Department of State, and she offered to help me by talking to a liaison at the DOS,  they contacted me and promised that they will contact the “Israelis” to obtain an exit permit for me and my wife! … O’h my god! that was like a trillion dollar gift for me! I was able to leave Gaza on the last day of August… I couldn’t imagine that this will happen to me, I already lost hope few days ago, and was about to write my advisor an e-mail telling him that I am not coming back this semester and that he can look for another student to assign him my workload… For me, this meant that part of my future career is gone or at least delayed for years to come… I was told that I have been issued an exit permit and I should go to Erez crosspoint tomorrow (August 30th)… yeah, it was just few hours advanced notice…I had only few hours to prepare my bags and to say good-bye (which I did not say, because I felt that I will come back and the “Israeli” won’t let me leave! I had this feeling, and that’s why I didn’t seem to be happy that I have an exit permit )… So, I did not care much about preparing my bags, I just was praying for one thing! only one thing! that Hamas militants or any other militants for that matter, will not fire missiles on Erez crosspoint that night, because otherwise the “Israeli” will take that as a pretext and close the crosspoint in the face of the very few number of people who will be granted exit permits that next day! … Hamas have done that before… they will fire missiles to hinder people from leaving through “Israeli” checkpoints because their members won’t be able to have the same privilege as those handful of people who are granted permissions to leave Gaza… They usually acted like: “If I am not in, I will screw everything”…  Well, I did not sleep that night and I went to the crossing with my wife, my dad and my mom joined us until we reached the military zone, It was about 6:00am in the morning,  there you hear the sound of tanks, armed vehicles… you see high surveillance towers with guns pointing out of them,…. it’s scary to a great extent, but to me it wasn’t scary as much as staying in Gaza for an indefinite period of time, with no clue about whether I will leave or not…  The crossing gates opened at 7:00am, I entered with my wife and probably other 6 persons who were also having exit permits. We all proceeded to the security checkpoint, we still didn’t meet or talked to any “Israeli” officer, We just proceeded through remotely controlled gates until we arrived a big security machine, it’s a cylindrical shaped glass kiosk that contains an MRI-like scanner, the “Israeli” security officers can see you from behind a bullet-proof glass barrier, you cannot see them… they instruct you about how to stand inside the scanning machine and how to proceed through the gates… the bags went through a different scanning machines like the ones in the airports,  you just leave them for a Palestinian employee that the “Israeli” hire to pick the bags from Palestinians and put them in the machine from the other end of the security zone, before you arrive any “Israeli” officer… I remained in the big, spacious hall waiting for my name to be called… my wife was called and given her permit to the Allenby bridge (connecting the West Bank to Jordan) just an hour later. I waited six more hours to get my permit… these six hours were really really like a 60 years for me… I felt that I will be returned back for no reason! the “Israeli” are used to do this occasionally… They will return travelers without stating any reason!  I got my permit, picked my bags, joined my wife that was waiting for me at the other end of the hall, and ran toward the cabs that will take us to the Allenby crossing. I asked an “Israeli” officer, if he knows when the Allenby bridge closes, he told me it closes at 5:00pm,  the time was 1:30pm…So, we have to reach the “Israeli” side of the Allenby crossing at least half an hour before 5:00pm, the trip from Erez to Allenby is about 2.5 hours.  So I hoped to reach the Palestinian side of the crossing well before 4:30… this wasn’t very easy! I asked the cab driver to speed up so we can make it at maximum by 4:00pm …  We reached the Palestinian side and had to do a lot of paperwork that I am not familiar with, since this was my second time to travel through Allenby bridge to Jordan. The last time was 7 years ago and a lot of things changed since that time… I had to run from an office to another to finish the paperwork and then ride a bus to the “Israeli” side of the crossing. I arrived there with my wife to find the crossing main hall empty of passengers and they were preparing to close! It was a horrific view for me!  I may have forgotten to mention that the exit permit is only for one day: actually it’s only from 5:00am to 7:00pm,  so if you don’t leave to Jordan in the same day (before 7:00pm), you’re in trouble… I proceeded to the passport control and they told me that we will be the last ones to leave today! I took a deep deep breath and give them my passport and my wife’s too… they returned my wife’s passport in no time, everything was good and cool for her…. when they came to process my passport, they told me it’s not on the computer system and that they cannot find my record!I screamed in Arabic “Shoooooooo????” (What?)… they said, that I have to go back to Jericho and obtain a special paper from an office at the Palestinian side so they can locate my record and then give me the OK to leave!  I said: “It’s 5:10pm” now, the Palestinian side closed more than half an  hour ago! … they told me: “it’s not our business”! then came another officer and told me that he will help me as much as he can! he gave a taxi driver my ID card and asked him to go back to Jericho (20 minutes ) to get me a special permit from an office were they locate records of Palestinian passports/IDs… I paid that guy 100 NIS  and he went and came again with the permit!  I said, “That’s it…” It worked out…  Once in a sudden, the same officer came to me and told me: “well, we located your record, but you have a security problem”… I inquired: “What is a security problem?” … He told me that your record indicants that you might be  required to go through security interview with one of the intelligence officers here. I told him ” I don’t care, as long as you will let me leave! ” , I added: ” I don’t fear intelligence officers, because I have never done anything that is of security-breach nature in any country”… He looked me from upside down, and said: “We will see, that’s not my business, wait here until an officer will call you”… 30 minutes passed, my wife was waiting for me at the other end! and I am still inside, the bus driver that will take us to the Jordanian side of the crossing told me :” why you’re delaying us! we want to go home, it’s too hot in here!” …. I told him while trying to control myself real hard: ” sorry for that, it’s not in my hands as you see”, I wanted to kick him in his stomach, but restrained myself from doing so, to save myself additional delays… the intelligence officer then came and told me: “you’re free to go, it’s our mistake “… he handed me my passport, ID and my permit… I ran toward the bus and joined my wife…  The bus moved!  I thought the bus was too slow, so I asked the driver to hurry up! I want to leave this soil! I want to be in Jordan as fast as possible… It took us 10 minutes to reach the Jordanian side of the Allenby crossing… I took the deepest sigh one can imagine!  I looked back toward Palestine and to be honest, I felt that I will miss it too much! I don’t know… I had the feeling that the next time I will visit any part in Palestine will be too far from now… In my mind, I hoped that everything will get better and I can see my family and the other families in Palestine living peacefully… Now, I ask God, that Hamas and Fateh will disappear form our lives soon and there will be only Palestinians, not a Fateh-Palestinian and a Hamas-Palestinian…

 

Wait for more impressions about the life in Gaza! … beyond politics, in my following post… I hope it won’t be that far from now

 

Yes, I am still alive…

O’h my god! what four months have passed from my life…. may be those last four months were one of a kind for me… I’ve been in a very happy mood sometimes, sometimes in a very desperate mood… I will have to talk about everything… Bare with me for the next few days!… I miss all who I used to know through this blog…

Sami…

Final Destination

I’ve arrived the final destination … Yes, I made it to Gaza… Yesterday I fall asleep at the music of 6 missiles fired at two police posts in northern Gaza… I have a lot to talk about, my trip from NY to Istanbul to Amman and the reverse cultural shock and the 10 minutes time needed to cross a street in Amman I used to cross in no time! I will have to talk about my trip to Gaza which was very pleasant (believe it or not), and so many things! … I need to play with my nephews now and after that will talk more … stay tuned! …

 

Over the clouds soon!

Tomorrow: Atlanta –> New York (2 days) –> Istanbul (1.5 day) –> Amman (2 Weeks-2 months) –> Gaza (0 - 2 months, hint: Al-Ma3bar ) ! See you all who are on my way.