United by Misery: Two Boys from Gaza and Nilin

Tag : Boys' Sandal

By Ramzy Baroud
Ahmed Moussa was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bankvillage of Nilin, near Ramallah. Mohamed Bahloul is a 12-year-oldPalestinian boy from Gaza City. The former was shot and killed 29July by Israeli forces following a peaceful protest against theIsraeli apartheid wall. The latter is awaiting death in adilapidated hospital in Gaza.
Reports on Moussa's death vary. The Anti- Apartheid Wall Campaign'sreport said that the boy was "sitting under a tree with hisfriends when a military jeep drove up and the army shot him -- alive bullet pierced his head. The boy died immediately."
Agency France Press's report, the day following his death,confirmed the nature of the death but said that the boy was killedduring the demonstration. Nilin, one of the numerous villageslosing land to the Israeli wall -- deemed illegal according to theInternational Court of Justice in 2004 -- holds regular protestsagainst the confiscation and destruction of the village's farms.It's part of a sustained non- violent campaign that brings togetherIsraeli, Palestinian and international peace activists.
"Moussa tried to run away but his sandal slipped off after hestumbled over a part of the fence," according to one ofMoussa's friends.
The fact is, a young boy who should be at home enjoying the companyof his family and friends, or attending a summer camp, or playingin the sunshine, is now dead. He is one of hundreds of Palestinianchildren killed by Israeli soldiers in recent years in a consistentpattern of deliberately targeting children.
Trying to make sense out of his tragedy, the father had this tosay: "God gave me my son Ahmed, and he took him as amartyr."
Not an hour and a half drive away from Nilin, Bahloul is sufferingfrom kidney failure. He is hooked up to a pitiable looking dialysismachine in a Gaza hospital. Aljazeera.net reported on Bahloul'scase: for three months, said his mother, Nadia, he received nomedication and no vitamins to strengthen his sickly body."There isn't one door I didn't knock on, hoping to findmedicine for Mohamed," said Nadia. In a place similar in manyrespects to a concentration camp, where 1.5 million people aresubject to the most inhumane conditions, Bahloul's case is hardlythe exception.
Despite the ceasefire between the Hamas government in Gaza andIsrael that ensured that homemade Palestinian rockets are no longerfired at southern Israeli towns, there is no respite from povertyand siege in Gaza. UNRWA's head of Gaza operations, John Ging, saidthat the situation is getting "worse and worse" for thepeople in Gaza, who are largely aid- dependant. He promised thathis office would do all it can to help "those poor people, asthey continue to get poorer and poorer."
The extent of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has alreadypassed many thresholds as poverty has rendered most Gazansdependant on food aid for survival. Hospitals are lacking equipmentand medicine, and neither Israel nor Egypt allows Palestinians fromGaza suffering from life threatening illnesses to travel freely,and on a regular basis. Now even water in Gaza is polluted beyondforeseeable remedy.
The Christian Science Monitor reported 21 July that only one-sixthof Gaza's daily sewage -- estimated at up to 120 million litres aday -- is fully treated. The massive amount of untreated sewagefinds its way into the sea, and into the Strip's water supply."If there is a stronger word than catastrophe, I would usethat word," said Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director ofFriends of the Earth Middle East. The catastrophe is a "resultof Gaza's dilapidated water and sewage infrastructure undermined by[Israeli] attacks and fuel blockades."
According to Monther Shoblak, director of the Gaza Emergency WasteProject funded by the World Bank, due to sewage seeping into theground, the aquifer beneath Gaza, which provides water for drinkingand washing, is now so polluted with nitrates that only 10 per centcurrently meets World Health Organisation standards for safety. Asa result, water-related diseases in Gaza are rife.
Gaza is experiencing devastation on so many levels that it isimpossible to locate any positive health or economic indicators.Bahloul's mother's wrenching search for medicine to save her son iscompounded by her husband having lost his job due to the Israelisiege and while there are other mouths to feed. Unemployment inGaza is skyrocketing and children are often forced out of school tohelp bolster the meagre incomes of poor families. Selling tea inthe street from giant teapots hauled by children often not oldenough to enrol in school is a growing profession.
While Palestinian villagers in the West Bank are fighting evictionnotices from their homes and lands to make space for Israel'sprojected 723 kilometre (454 miles) long wall, of which 57 per centis already complete, Palestinians in Gaza are fighting for baresurvival. Their plight is dreadfully similar. Despite the fact thatthe West Bank and Gaza were divided by occupation and self- seekingand wealthy politicians, they are united by grief, and by theircommon struggle.
Meanwhile, in a report released 30 July, Human Rights Watch claimsthat Hamas and Fatah have both carried out serious human rightsabuses, including torture, against members of the opposing group.While Hamas is regularly derided for human rights violationsreported in Gaza, which have been used to retrospectively justifythe lethal siege, Mahmoud Abbas's party hardly receives anyreprimand. The report faulted "the United States and otherdonors, which have bankrolled President Mahmoud Abbas's PalestinianAuthority and Fatah-dominated security agencies", for"not paying adequate attention to the systematic abuses bythose forces," reported Al-Bawaba in Jordan.
Media reports with titles such as "Palestinians torturePalestinians" quickly flooded newspapers. Hamas and Fatahmembers screamed obscenities against each other and the arrests andtorture campaign, reportedly continued. The conflict seemed for amoment entirely Palestinian, with Israel an innocent observer.
Meanwhile, Moussa's father continues to seek "God'smercy" for his son's soul. Prayer and supplication are hisonly resort. In Gaza, death continues to hover over Bahloul'shousehold.
There is something utterly cruel about all of this, utterlyinhumane.
-Ramzy Baroud ( www.ramzybaroud.net ) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work hasbeen published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. Hislatest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of aPeople's Struggle (Pluto Press, London). If you like this article, please consider making a contribution tothe Palestine Chronicle.