For the people of Gaza, the four-day truce has only afforded them the chance to fully comprehend what they went through: “Only today have we realized that they’re gone. Only today do we feel death’s presence here.”
Gaza is mourning 21 members of the Abu Rayya family who were burned alive when a fire ignited the small apartment they had gathered in for a family celebration.
The tragedy is a direct result of the Gaza blockade, as frequent power cuts have forced families to use alternative fuel sources to fight the dark, often in hazardous conditions.
My family members were killed in Israel’s massacre in May 2021. This year, my childhood friends were killed in the latest escalation. This is life in Gaza. Sometimes, to survive, you have to die. And to live, you have to die, too.
Hamza Abu Al-Tarabeesh’s fear of the coronavirus is based on his late grandfather’s death during a Tuberculosis epidemic in Gaza’s refugee camps during the mid-1960s. “I have no idea what the future holds for the refugee camps in Gaza,” Abu Al-Tarabeesh writes, “but I do know when it comes to infectious diseases and viruses, the past has been alarming.”
After rockets fired from Gaza landed near Tel Aviv Friday morning, Israel launched 100 raids on the enclave. And the organizers of the Great March of Return suspended the demonstrations in their 51st week out of concern for safety of protesters.