from..http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m70147&hd=&size=1&l=e

September 26, 2010

A blond Israeli boy wearing a black kippa says to a Palestinian boy: "My father told me that you Arabs are evil terrorist animals." The Palestinian boy replies: "My father told me nothing! He was murdered by yours." by Hanaa Hammash, 2010, on a wall in Dr Haydar Abdel Shafi Square in Gaza City.



And suddenly there was money in Gaza. Plenty of money. It was the first Ramadan I didn't hear the people complaining about the lack of money. It was the most opulent Ramadan and Eid El-Fitr I have never seen in Gaza in 10 years.

There was not anymore beggar in the streets. Usually, the beggars come out like mushrooms during the Holy Month. For Ramadan 2010-1341 (according to the Muslim calendar) we didn't see them and even before.

The street vendors were authorized to return by the Municipality of Gaza City and coloured the streets with their goods selling almost every thing. Some vendors spent the night under their small tables in the streets to guard them or because they lived too far.

The people were spending in a frenetic way because for El-Eid El-Fitr - meaning the Small Festival - that follows the month of Ramadan all the children should have new clothes and toys. And for the new academic year all the pupils should have new clothes too. Bad luck for the poor this year because the schools resumed on Tuesday 14 September, only two days after the end of the festival.

Ramadan fell on Wednesday 11 August and on this splendid summer day we returned to winter time. The Holy Month ended on Thursday 9 September and it was a very harsh month for the Muslims who fasted from sunrise to sunset. As says Hanan who works in an office: "We suffered from thirst, the temperatures reached record peaks, there was less electricity than usual and consequently the ventilators were not working."

During El-Eid two youth from wealthy families in the course of a conversation confirmed what is very well known: there is a lot of money in Gaza.

The Gazans have the reputation to be miserly and to keep their money under floor tiles. This is at least the opinion of many Palestinians who returned to Gaza from exile following the 1993 Oslo Accords. From my own experience and what I have seen I agree with them.

We are speaking here about the original inhabitants of Gaza called residents, to differentiate them from the 1948 refugees who constitute nowadays at least 3/4 of the population. To be fair not all the Gazan residents are avid and stingy. Many are extremely generous like most of the 1948 refugees.

What happened during the months preceding Ramadan was an intense activity as usual. The locals always build, transform, restore, rehabilitate, invent, create, innovate, tend their gardens, give fresh paint coats to their facades, install new wonderful gateways or renovate their wonderful old ones, that are all splendid. Every day, in every street, something is new or different. The Gazans astonish us. They have a spirit of enterprise. Moreover, what is even more astonishing is the continuous opening of new money changer shops in the land of "abject poverty".

One Gazan brainchild was after 8 months of work the opening on Saturday 17 July of the Gaza Mall, in Saed El-A's St, in central Gaza City: an ultra modern commercial center on the ground flour and 1st flour of Nahema building erected 20 years ago. The Gaza Mall houses a large supermarket, a cafeteria-restaurant, a number of boutiques, an underground parking. With its marble stairs, modern lighting, soft colours and elegant design the new enterprise is very tasteful. Open 7 days a week the Gaza Mall gives work to at least 50 people. It costed "only" 2 million dollars because the premises were ready but empty since two decades.

Some time before in Sheikh Ajlin, in the southwest of Gaza City, was opened the Crazy Water Park erected on 10 dunums, a few hundred meters from the seashore (a dunum equal 1,000 m2). Although rather expensive, it was always full of people. Unfortunately, on Sunday 19 September, at 3:00, more than 20 masked gunmen stormed the Crazy Water Park The damages amount to 7 million dollars. Almost all the waiters and cooks of Gaza City left their jobs and went to work there. It was a recreational park for families and children and included two swimming pools and a Palestinian heritage center.

In June, also in Sheikh Ajlin, was inaugurated a few meters from the beach Gaza Sky, a pleasant and warm place with three different coffee houses-restaurants on the grass under a large and simple structure. In several basins are grown fish that can be eaten roasted on the spot. The name Gaza Sky was given to the new project because the Gaza sea being under siege the people now look to the sky.

The night Ramadan ended, some meters away from the Gaza Mall was opened the large Sweet Palace, on the foot of a 8-storey big and unfinished building. On the right and on the left of Sweet Palace a number of new shops have been established since then.

My friend Hassan is still fuming after what he has seen: the amount of money spent this year on the occasion of Ramadan and El-Eid for food, sweets, clothing, presents and the cash money given to the children, sisters and mothers. So is the tradition when there is money and if you like it or not you are obliged to follow the trend.

Given it is not possible to stay all the time with the living stars of Gaza, you could find yourself towards the end of Ramadan 2010 among a different kind of Gazans and it is another occasion to witness how the yoke of the occupation is not distributed and shared equally.

The bulk of the conversations was about buying clothes and accessories for El-Eid and the new academic year and how much money was disbursed. The 15-year old girl in this home living with her brother and grandmother was offered by the latter three different kinds of clothing - one for every day of the festival, like a bride. Before the arrival of visitors coming to wish a new good year and to distribute money, the girl put on her face make up. But when the girl has to write "for you", it is like this: "four yow".

The 72-year grandmother too renewed her clothes and lingerie. Further, she also spent a lot for her daughters and their children. And in the process you too were forced to spend for them even if you couldn't.

I saw a form of craziness. Selfishness and egoism among certain families are plagues of Gaza... but alas not the worst.

They dont' feel ashamed. There were Gazans during the same period who were looking after the poor, the homeless, the orphans, the 800 political prisoners from Gaza in Israeli jails, the disabled and the double-leg amputees thanks to the special smart Israeli missiles which started to cut Palestinian limbs in 2006.

The others don't feel ashamed. You think after getting the nausea about the foreign volunteers who come to Gaza and face the Israeli troops at the border with local militants to protest against the expansion of the security belt inside the Strip. You think about people who write for free on the plight of the Gazans. You think about a website like Uruknet.Info which over night posts news, including many on Gaza, while we are sleeping. You think about Fathi, a jobless father and unknown talented artist, who endures poverty with great dignity in the Beach RC.

I then saw a young man who came to visit his ailing mother from Egypt via tunnel because during the festival the Rafah crossing was closed. He had to pay 1,500 dollars for only one way. Another one returned from his trip abroad through the Israeli crossing of Erez (Beit Hanoun) with a USAID-Israel coordination. He got a VIP treatment.

One hour after a sheikh announced on TV the end of Ramadan, on Thursday 9 September, at precisely 22:00 we heard a very loud explosion in Gaza City in the area of El-Ansar-El-Muntada. The Israeli air force was in action. During the 3-day holidays the entry to the fishing port was forbidden, for fear of new bombardments.

On Sunday 12 September, the third day of El-Eid, by SMS a Palestinian news agency informed us about the killing of three people and 30 sheep in Beit Hanoun, at approximately 16:45 by 5 shells fired by Israeli Occupation Forces at farmers and shepherds. The victims were: Ibrahim Abu Es'ayed, 91, from Jabalya RC; his grandchild Husam, 16; and Ismail Abu Oda, 17, beheaded by shrapnel. They were 600 meters away from the border.

Nevertheless, for the festival the people filled the Unknown Soldier Square and its park in center town from morning to night. The area is located in the middle of Omar El-Mukhtar St - the grand boulevard of Gaza City. In the night the area was in the dark because of the power cuts, but the shops on both sides of the street were lighted. A few minuscule stands of beverage and food in the garden gave some light thanks to gas lamps or small generators.

The traffic was so intense that on the second night the police closed the street at 20:00. Omar El-Mukhtar St and the adjacent streets were jammed with cars, motorcycles, bikes, donkey carts, three or four original horse-drawn carriages - including one with two old magnificent lanterns. There were disabled on wheel chairs and disabled on electric chairs; boys and youth riding horses or donkeys who traditionally gather every year two steps from the Square on the occasion of Eid El-Fitr and Eid El-Adha.

Furthermore, there was a novelty: the Gaza Train. It was all red, beautiful, with three compartments and plenty of lights. Its name was written also in English, but the Gaza Train was moving on wheels.

In the night, in the Square and in the Park, there were very few families, women and girls. It became the realm of boys and youth, called in Arabic shabab. Surely, it was the highest density of population per square meter on earth. Till late boys and shabab were still converging from all directions toward the Unknown Soldier Square. However, once there there was nothing to do, except to roam in the dark if one could find the space to move. Their number was impressive.

The older were in their mid-twenties. We saw a number of them aged around 17 smoking in these days in the street. They have a girl friend. They love the clothes. They dress in the height of fashion. At present they wear very tight T-shirts and buy perfumes. They glue their hair with gel. They are weak in English. All of them have a mobile phone. Most of them have at home a laptop or a computer and possibly even two. Usually, they are tall and handsome. But the shabab are bored and unhappy.

The last day of the holydays I finally found some friends I was looking for. They were sitting under eucalyptus trees in the YMCA garden (Youth Men Christian Association). They gathered for El-Eid and offered tea, coffee, candies and chocolate. They were nineteen. They belong to the generation between the intellectual group of Khamis Abu Shaaban in El-Hashemiya Bookshop - almost all over 70 - and the shabab of the Unknown Soldier Park. Among them were writers, poets, a musician, a writer-poet-expert in Kor'an, a photographer-designer, men of culture and political men, a sculpture, a thinker. They discussed about the political situation and then about the Kor'an.

Later, a friend told me: "The young boys and shabab you have seen for the festival gathering at the Unknown Soldier Square are the soldiers of Palestine". In fact, they look exactly like the boys and teens who threw stones to the occupation troops during the 1st and 2nd Intifada. They are the small brothers of the Children of the Stones.

The second day of El-Eid the wedding parties resumed to be held after a pause during Ramadan and new babies will come. There are women in Gaza who have twins and triplets naturally, without injections as they say.

We understand why Israel is worried about the Palestinian demographic bomb. Israel is right, it is very serious. Indeed, Israel should be very worried about the Palestinian demographic bomb... because slavery has a beginning, but also an end!

- Flora Nicoletta is an independent French journalist living in Gaza. She is currently working on her fourth book on the Palestinian question.





:: Article nr. 70147 sent on 26-sep-2010 20:50 ECT

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