Voices for Justice: Ann Coburn on Gaza with photos by Boyd Evans
On the Ground in Palestine with EPF PIN
In May/June 2016, an EPF PIN delegation spent time in Gaza. Ann Coburn writes about one visit to a building bombed in Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2014. Boyd Evans took the photos.
We were driving through Shuja’iyya, a neighborhood of Gaza City, where a year ago we had first seen the results of the massive bombing by Israeli forces in August 2014. Nine months after Protective Edge the area was mostly rubble and no rebuilding was happening. It was one of the most depressing sites any of us had ever witnessed, especially knowing that these homes belonged to civilians many of whom lost their lives in 2014.
Now almost 2 years after Protective Edge a lot of the rubble was gone and some homes were being rebuilt. These were not big construction sites, but rather it looked like the rebuilding was being done by groups of family members and friends. Knowing that the Israeli government was still restricting building materials into the Gaza Strip we all wondered out loud how these people got so lucky.
Our van drove through an open wrought iron gate into a parking area in front of what looked like a 2-story building that had escaped the bombs. We all got out of the van and walked inside passing a sign on the outside saying the building had been built with funds from one of the Gulf nations. The entry hall was an open area with a reception desk and a number of closed doors around the perimeter that apparently were offices but no one was around.
The large stone staircase took us upstairs to a floor that was so totally different from the one we had just left that it literally froze us in place. We were then told that this building had been a center for children with Down Syndrome, and fortunately they were not there when the bombs reigned down and obliterated the second floor where they had been gathered just hours before the first bombs hit. Rubble and glass was everywhere and pieces of ceiling and roof still hung precariously over our heads. Those of us wearing closed shoes were able to crunch our way from room to room; those with sandals had a harder time as glass and concrete rose above the soles of their shoes.
The most devastating sight of all was to see the small stuffed teddy bear in the hallway covered in dust and debris and the plastic toys and puzzle pieces in the classrooms that were strewn about the floor. Only hours before the bombs fell a child held that bear and played with the truck and pieced together a puzzle.
We were told that all the children were safe but there were no funds forthcoming to clean up and rebuild their center. We had to wonder whether the children were truly safe as everyone seemed to be waiting for the next bombings that they were sure would come soon. Were the children really safe from those who destroyed a place of play and sanctuary for them in a world where those were hard to find? Were the children really safe from the nightmares and the threats to their safety? Were they safe from the knowledge of family members who had been killed or wounded or traumatized?
All of this made me think of standing outside the building unprepared for what we found inside. The façade it presented gave nothing away. Then I thought of the rebuilding we had passed on the way to the center and wondered what was behind those new walls. Were they facades as well hiding empty spaces, untold stories? What about all the people of Gaza we met over those 4 days? So many seemed to be “normal”, going about their everyday lives, offering us hospitality and greeting us warmly, grateful that we were there. Even those who shared the trauma of what that tiny strip of land had gone through and continues to go through, they, too, I am sure, had facades that hid their deepest wounds and their worst nightmares. Each time we go however, I pray that maybe we pass through a layer or two of the façade.
None of us will ever know the depths of their despair and grief and mistrust and loss of hope, but being allowed a small window into their world, to walk a few steps together with them, to sit and listen to their stories has been the most transformative and life-giving experience of most of our lives.
I was part of a delegation during the first intifada in 1988. Hundreds of delegations go and come as the situation steadily deteriorates.
Why? My take is the Palestinian toleration of violence as another legitimate form of resistance. The net effect, "Palestine bad, Israel good" in the minds of the marginally informed. This public perception keeps politicians unwilling to invest political capital... going out a limb that could be cut at any time.
Friends of Palestine would do well to point out their efforts are for naught until Palestine's intelligentsia provides insights into how violence amounts to a permission note to the advocates for greater Israel.