Gaza, this “poor desperate place”: Waiting for the end?

Every Palestinian I met on my visits to the Holy Land urged me to tell their story when I got home. Some have written to me with very moving accounts of misery and excruciating hardship under Israel’s brutal occupation, reinforcing the appalling truths I’d seen for myself.

Two years ago a young woman, a war-weary mom of three in a Gaza refugee camp, wrote to tell me that schools in Gaza were working in 2 or 3 shifts a day “especially in areas where displaced people of the last war still shelter in UNRWA schools — they don’t have any other place to go.”

She also said it’s “difficult for us to live or to leave” and “We just dream of leading a decent life.”

Let’s call her Amal, which means Hope in Arabic. The pseudonym is her idea. She has a university degree and her English is remarkably good. Palestinians, especially the ladies, are very keen on education and determined to pursue it as best they can. Her message powerfully described her little family’s situation in the aftermath of Israel’s 7-week genocidal assault (Operation Protective Edge) the previous year which killed 2,250, mostly civilians, did massive damage to homes and infrastructure, and brought Gaza almost to its knees. She told how she and her neighbours were overwhelmed by death, destruction, grief and chronic deprivation.

I relayed her words in an article titled How on earth do they survive in that ‘hell called Gaza’? in May 2014.

Amal’s latest email is again in…

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