Read at the November 29th International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People event in Olympia live from Rafah.
By Serena
Olympia-Rafah Sister
City Project delegate
Up until now Rafah has only been a word on a page to me. Images of rubble and tanks. Nothing of everyday life beyond this. No smell of falafel or burning trash, no sound of the music coming from the trucks selling gas or the constant honking of taxis. No faces I knew, friends to say hi to walking down the street or looks of confusion like “what are you doing here”?
Gaza in general and Rafah in particular feels much different from the West Bank, not only because of the isolation people here have experienced for years, leaving a psychological impact on everyone, but also because of Israeli military redeployment., otherwise known as the disengagement.
After being here for 3 weeks I know that people feel a difference between life now and life 3 months ago. There are things people are able to do that would have been deadly before the withdrawal. But Palestinians are quick to point out that although the military is not inside Gaza they still maintain control from the outside. It has become an occupation from without rather then from within. Therefore we call it redeployment rather than disengagement.
We have been meeting many people here. One family lives on the boarder between Gaza and Egypt. The bright lights of the wall still illuminate the street outside their house. This area, Yebna, was one of the most devastated and dangerous before the withdrawal. Tom Hurndall was shot in front of their home. Now they are able to have visitors without fear. We have visited them at night, driving to their home, past bullet riddled houses. Looking at the wall Israel built separating Gaza from Egypt all I can think about is how before the withdrawal anything moving outside past dark would be shot at.
Visiting them, a family with 3 young kids and a one week old baby I watch the children run in and out of the house, playing in the street, carefree. I can feel the newness of this all around me and it is surreal how one moment this seems so normal I can almost for get where I am. The next I am listening to the father tell a story about being shot through the neck and hand for throwing a stone at a tank when he was young. The contrast between the destruction I see the stories I hear and what I am experiencing is immense.
Now is a time when people can touch a small piece of freedom, yet they know it is not whole. It is like being given drop of water but not the whole bottle when you are dying of thirst.
Still there is a feeling of hope for the future even though it is weighted down with the knowledge of past promises broken time and time again. We must demand that this
so-called disengagement not stop at the boarders of Gaza but continue beyond and into the West Bank. This must be the next step if this hope is to last and peace is to be fostered.
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