{"id":220358,"date":"2016-01-31T18:40:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T18:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=220358"},"modified":"2016-01-31T18:40:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-31T18:40:18","slug":"gaza-speaks-decade-long-siege-done-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/gaza-speaks-decade-long-siege-done-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza Speaks: This Is What the Decade-Long Siege Has Done to Us"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Whenever Mariam Aljamal\u2019s children hear the sound of thunder at night, they
\nwet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared
\nby a large number of children<\/a> throughout the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Mariam\u2019s three children \u2013 Jamal, Lina, and Sarah \u2013 were all born a few
\nyears after the Gaza siege was first imposed in 2006, and all of them have experienced
\nat least one Israeli war.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy kids feel scared when the electricity goes off, which is most of the time,\u201d
\nsays the 33-year-old mother from Nuseirat Refugee Camp, who has a degree in
\nCommunication and is currently pursuing her MA. \u201cThey are still living the trauma
\nof the 2014 offensive. War is still haunting my family, and life has become
\nso hard for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, after years of trying, Mariam is yet to find work. Unemployment in
\nGaza is the highest in the world, according
\nto the World Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The siege on Gaza was imposed in stages, starting January 2006, when the Hamas
\nmovement won the legislative elections in the Occupied Territories. Donors\u2019
\nmoney was immediately withheld, so the new Government could not pay the salaries
\nof its employees. The conventional wisdom, then, was the new Government would
\nsoon collapse, and Hamas\u2019 rival, Fatah, would quickly resume its control over
\nthe Palestinian Authority (PA).<\/p>\n

The Israeli hope, which was reinforced by the US and also shared
\nby PA President Mahmoud Abbas and many in his party<\/a>, never came to fruition.
\nTo speed up the projected collapse, Israel began sporadic bombardment of Gaza
\nand carried out a sweeping campaign to arrest many of its elected MPs, coupled
\nwith a Fatah and Hamas dispute, which eventually turned into street battles
\nin the
\nsummer of 2007<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was then that the siege became complete, now ongoing for ten years. During
\nthis time, Fatah resumed its control over the PA in the West Bank, reconciliation
\nbetween Hamas and Fatah largely failed, the Rafah border has been mostly sealed,
\nand Israel has launched three major wars that have killed thousands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever Mariam Aljamal\u2019s children hear the sound of thunder at night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza Strip. Mariam\u2019s three children \u2013 Jamal, Lina, and Sarah \u2013 were all born a few years after the Gaza siege was first imposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}