'It’s not a life, it’s mere existence': Surviving the siege in Gaza

Palestinenote, July 12, 2010
 

Gaza – The markets of Gaza are packed with a new variety of food after Israel decided to relax its four-year-old blockade, but to unemployed resident Saleh Al-Da’ma, 38, this Israeli decision is meaningless, because his pockets are empty.

Palestinian children pick up the pieces following Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip, on 20 January 2009. [Photo: RafahKid via Flickr]

“Relaxing the siege means nothing to me since I can’t even buy a pair of socks for one of my kids,” Al-Da’ma said, while collecting stones from a former Israeli settlement (abandoned in 2005) to sell to one of the stone crushers becoming common in the seaside enclave.

Al-Da’ma lost his job as a construction worker in Israel when Israel applied “closure” to Gaza in 2000 at the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. He later worked as a day worker in Gaza, but he became unable to find work after Israel placed the territory under siege following Hamas’ victory in Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.

“I have been jobless for years now, and I only make a few shekels, which are not even enough to feed my 10 kids,” he bitterly said. “Life cannot get any better in Gaza unless the siege is fully lifted.”

The Israeli government, led by right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decided in June to loosen land blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave to avoid growing international criticism of the embargo following Israel’s deadly attack in May on aid ships bound for Gaza and killing nine Turkish activists onboard. 

“The markets were full of all kinds of food even before Israel eased the siege,” Al-Da’ma said as dug up gravel with a broken axe under a pounding sun. “What the Strip really needs is a complete lifting of the siege and for construction materials to be allowed in.”

At least 11,152 houses were totally or partially destroyed by Israel during its war on the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009,according to the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.

Two months after the war, donor states pledged some $4.4 billion to rebuild Gaza. But Israel’s ban on construction materials has meant that not a penny of the pledged aid has materialized. In its recent decision to ease some aspects of the siege, Israel decided to allow in construction materials, but only for certain projects organized by the UN and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority government.