How fast everything happens in Gaza. Everything goes very well; however, everything could turn upside down overnight. How hard when you are put in a position where you cannot expect how the next second of your life would look like– and if you expected something, you would probably find the very opposite.
In Gaza, traumatic things happen all of a sudden and this would have an irreparably everlasting effect upon you. In a blink of an eye –hold on! Don’t freak out- you could become homeless, parentless, jobless, ownerless, penniless, hopeless, helpless, lifeless and a long list of an endless-less.
A trauma of losing a scholarship overnight…
You are one of the top students, working very hard to get a scholarship to study abroad, willing to face all the severe conditions and restrictions for the sake of education. YOU surf the net, apply for a scholarship, work on its application and your CV, send them off via e-mail, receive an acceptance, feel overjoyed, start preparing yourself, your ticket, your visa and all the needed documents, and then you say farewell to your beloved family, shedding tears, promising them to come back very soon with a very promising future. How easy to read such procedures and how hard to get done with a single one of it is! You feel you reach a turning point in your life the instant you wrap your arms around your mother’s back and place a tender kiss on her tearful cheek while hearing her heartfelt prayers mingled with her heartrending sobs, wishing you the best of the best. Ultimately, you leave your home with many hopes and ambitions. Have you or have you not forgotten that you are trapped in an impoverished coastal enclave? In Gaza, to implement an implementable thing is un implementable. Well-done Israel!
Don’t get disappointed. Your visa is refused; your prestigious Fulbright scholarship is denied; your seat in your appointed university is lost; such golden opportunities are gone overnight and you are still –seemingly forever-besieged. Overnight, you are devastated; your dreams are usurped; your parents are heartbroken; your Gaza is still helpless. After several years of preparation, you receive an overnight trauma by losing an unattainable scholarship.
A trauma of losing a whole family overnight…
At times, you go to the sea because it is one of the free-of-charge places available in Gaza and, perhaps, the only place where you have the absolute freedom regarding your food sustenance, your humble outfit and your not-luxurious lifestyle. You can either take a thermos of tea with some simple Thyme Manakeesh or you can order some expensive takeaways. It doesn’t matter. No one is there to judge you. You just go to the sea to enjoy the overwhelming azure scene displayed there; the cool breezes gently touch your face; the melodious sound of the waves eases your ears; even the hot sands touch your toes give you the sense of freedom while walking barefoot along the beach. Splendid! You go with your parents to have a very intimate atmosphere and spend preciously memorable moments. Have you ever imagined that you might go with your beloved parents and then, out of a sudden, your parents and brothers are no more and you had to return home a fatherless, motherless, and, perhaps, a sisterless and a brotherless orphan. Your whole dear family is callously uprooted OVERNIGHT. In a moment, you are left alone in this mercilessly ruthless world. This is exactly what 10-year-old Huda Ghalia experienced in Gaza four years ago. She witnessed her fathers and siblings dying after a deadly Israeli explosion while picnicking on a Gaza’s shore. Her screams makes any living heart bleed to death but in vain! Nothing would console her tiny heart for her immense losses. Who is going to pay her back? And how? This overnight trauma has taken away everyone dear to her in a blink of an eye.
A trauma of losing your job, missing your exams and … also overnight…
In Gaza, Israel can’t stop surprising you. In a twinkling, large factories, buildings, houses, mosques, hospitals…etc. could be totally bombarded and completely destroyed. Imagine someone owned a large food factory which employs tens people of large families and then in a few seconds, such a factory is no longer a factory but devastated rubble and scattered debris. The owner turns out ownerless, the laborers are left laborless and families end up penniless. These things happen overnight in Gaza. OVERNIGHT and you are what you were not. You go to the university with hopes and ambitions only to figure out that your university is being targeted by the Israeli forces and what’s the reason? Only some Israeli fabricated lies!
Chin up!
Israel hates not only you. Israel is ready to kill whosoever supports you. Israel devours everyone who cares about you. Israel wants to eliminate anyone who thinks of you. Israel targets someone other than you. This time, Freedom Flotilla is the victim not you.
A trauma of losing a chance of meeting your international peers….
You are chosen as a translator in the governmental committee. You feel excited, not only you, but every one in Gaza feels the same. Many are gathered in Al-Mina, Gaza’s Fisherman Port where hundreds mini-boats set sail to greet the Freedom Flotilla coming from Europe and Turkey. This massive fleet, loaded with more than 700 solidarity activists, consists of eight ships, carrying thousands tons of humanitarian aids and construction materials, coming in solidarity with the Gazan people in an attempt to break the hermetic siege imposed on the Gaza strip for more than four years. You feel enthusiastic and Freedom Flotilla’s members feel so as well. You keep following up their news to know how much left before them to be in Gaza. They are getting closer, closer and closer. After watching many YouTube videos, reading news articles, waiting the Flotilla on pins and needles, you go to your bed early to wake up early to meet those heroes, to express how grateful you are to them, to mutually share different experiences…. God! You can’t even sleep, thinking of the coming lovely moments you would spend with them.
Ooh! You only wake up to find out that your excitement dissipated the moment you hear that overnight this Freedom Flotilla turns out to be a savage massacre. The so-called democratic state of Israel attacks them in the international waters, killing tens and wounding dozens. When you watched those Freedom Fighters having such delighted faces, waving the Palestinian flags cheerfully, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans ecstatically and then overnight you see the very opposite of what you have seen for a couple of weeks, what your reaction would be?! A traumatic shock, wouldn’t it?
After spending a considerable period of time planning and preparing, sadly their efforts and yours as well come to naught. Everything turns upside down overnight in Gaza and the reason behind such brutal atrocities is the lunacy of the state of Israel.
Fidaa Abu Assi authored a piece on the Gaza war of two years ago that we published here last week. She published the piece above last year at her site. We asked her whether the piece is autobiographical and she said she had witnessed all the events described, was supposed to serve as a translator for the flotilla of last May, and had lost two scholarships because she was not allowed to leave Gaza. “Last year, I was supposed to have a training course in Greece and a couple of months ago, I was nominated to go to Canada to have a course in Media and Journalism. I couldn’t fulfill any. I am now working on another scholarship, hoping this time I can make it.”
