Summer Holidays & Palestine
Below are some words shared during our last demonstration.
Good morning!
And what a fabulous way to start the school summer holidays with this glorious sunshine. Maybe some of you will be jetting off to somewhere even warmer and sunnier. Some of you may be taking your tent or camper van up to Scotland in search of cooler climes. Or maybe you are staying here to enjoy the summer and our beautiful coastline in Southport.
But whatever we are doing this summer, we mustn’t forget that the Palestinians will receiving more Israeli bombardments and more terror.
I have been privileged to spend several months in the West Bank during the summertime, and wow, was it hot! Deheishe Refugee Camp is considered the largest refugee camp in the southern West Bank, by population. The camp has a network of streets and alleyways running through it, most of which are narrow, dark and small. The houses open out onto the streets, and open spaces are non existent. There is nowhere for children to play and the camp is severely overcrowded, with 15,000 people living in 1 square kilometre of land. Where I was living there was no air con and with temperatures reaching 35 degrees, you felt the heat. The lack of water made life even more difficult – washing ourselves using wet wipes and drinking coca cola because it was cheaper than water.
Less than 50 miles away the scenes couldn’t be more different - the Mediterranean sea beaches of Tel Aviv were bustling with tourists, lying on sun loungers, drinking cocktails surrounded by beautiful white sands. But the children I worked with in Deheishe have never been to the seaside. They are not permitted to travel outside of the West Bank. Worood and Mohammed had never built a sandcastle, Ward and Laila had never paddled in the sea.
And what about Gaza? Gaza shares that same beautiful coastline as Tel Aviv and the other Israeli resorts, but what a different picture. It has about 40 kilometers of sandy shore, which was enjoyed by Gazans as a place to relax, but all too often it has become a place of tragedy – do you remember the four boys killed whilst playing football on the beach back in 2014?
Fishermen like Nafez al-Sheikh, who operate off the coast of Gaza are restricted to a fishing area to just six miles off the coast and it is patrolled by Israel with ships and naval commandos who injure and kill anyone who crosses the border. Israel also controls how much and what type of fish can be caught.
Nafez is constantly chased, harrassed and intimidated by Israeli forces. Since October 7th fishermen only dare venture about 100 meters from the shore.
And earlier this year we witnessed about 1,000 American troops, at the cost of nearly $230 million building a floating pier which, it was promised, would deliver aid to the starving people of Gaza. It delivered only a fraction of that aid and last week it was dismantled.
Gaza’s beautiful beach is now a military zone. One image, released by the IDF, shows tanks and armoured bulldozers on the beach near Gaza City. A photo of the same beach from last summer shows people making the most of a hot day in Gaza, families splashing in the sea and fanning out along the beach.
Across the agricultural lands and along the coast in central and southern Gaza, tens of thousands of tents have become shelters for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the ongoing, bloody Israeli bombardment for the 10th consecutive month. After enduring harsh tent life for ten months, engineer Mohammed Munir wrote this on Facebook about living in a tent. It is…
“To burn while sitting inside, to suffocate with no air or cooling. It’s like a greenhouse during the day. A tent means living on the ground, separated only by fabric, coexisting with all the insects of the earth as if you are now their guest.”
Since October 7 th Palestinian Health Authorities say Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, mostly civilians, and driven 90 percent of the enclave's 2.3 million people from their homes.
A total of 143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since October last year. Two Israeli children have been killed in the West Bank in conflict-related violence during the same period. Additionally, more than 440 Palestinian children have been injured with live ammunition.
“For years now, children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been exposed to horrific violence,” said UNICEF Director “ We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the streets. The violence needs to stop .”
I’m so angry at the actions of the Israeli military, angry with our politicians for not standing with the oppressed and I know many of you feel the same. Sometimes I feel as if I shouldn’t be enjoying our beautiful coastline, somehow it feels wrong when friends are suffering so badly. And yet, those same friends tell me to enjoy my life. I guess being unhappy will not make the world a better place – not for myself or anyone else. But what I can do is to make a choice to speak out whenever I can. To refuse to be silent. To keep calling and working for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation. To keep demanding a Free Palestine.
I’ll finish now with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi - an Indian independence activist and leader who played a key role in the peaceful resistance movement against British colonial rule - which always gives me hope...
“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
Free Palestine
Sources
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-us-aid-pier-for-gaza/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20415675
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-casualties-west-bank-skyrocket-past-nine-months
