[News] My Father Died Alone in Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud04052008.html

Apri1 5 / 6, 2008


My Father Died Alone in Gaza


There are No Checkpoints in Heaven

By RAMZY BAROUD

I still vividly remember my father's face - wrinkled, apprehensive, 
warm - as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood 
outside the rusty door of my family's home in a Gaza refugee camp 
wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled 
my one small suitcase into a taxi that would take me to an Israeli 
airport an hour away, my father stood still. I wished he would go 
back inside; it was cold and the soldiers could pop up at any moment. 
As my car moved on, my father eventually faded into the distance, 
along with the graveyard, the water tower and the camp. It never 
occurred to me that I would never see him again.

I think of my father now as he was that day. His tears and his 
frantic last words: "Do you have your money? Your passport? A jacket? 
Call me the moment you get there. Are you sure you have your 
passport? Just check, one last time"

My father was a man who always defied the notion that one can only be 
the outcome of his circumstance. Expelled from his village at the age 
of 10, running barefoot behind his parents, he was instantly 
transferred from the son of a landowning farmer to a penniless 
refugee in a blue tent provided by the United Nations in Gaza. Thus, 
his life of hunger, pain, homelessness, freedom-fighting, love, 
marriage and loss commenced.

The fact that he was the one chosen to quit school to help his father 
provide for his now tent-dwelling family was a huge source of stress 
for him. In a strange, unfamiliar land, his new role was going into 
neighboring villages and refugee camps to sell gum, aspirin and other 
small items. His legs were a testament to the many dog bites he 
obtained during these daily journeys. Later scars were from the 
shrapnel he acquired through war.

As a young man and soldier in the Palestinian unit of the Egyptian 
army, he spent years of his life marching through the Sinai desert. 
When the Israeli army took over Gaza following the Arab defeat in 
1967, the Israeli commander met with those who served as police 
officers under Egyptian rule and offered them the chance to continue 
their services under Israeli rule. Proudly and willingly, my young 
father chose abject poverty over working under the occupier's flag. 
And for that, predictably, he paid a heavy price. His two-year-old 
son died soon after.

My oldest brother is buried in the same graveyard that bordered my 
father's house in the camp. My father, who couldn't cope with the 
thought that his only son died because he couldn't afford to buy 
medicine or food, would be found asleep near the tiny grave all 
night, or placing coins and candy in and around it.

My father's reputation as an intellectual, his passion for Russian 
literature, and his endless support of fellow refugees brought him 
untold trouble with the Israeli authorities, who retaliated by 
denying him the right to leave Gaza.

His severe asthma, which he developed as a teenager was compounded by 
lack of adequate medical facilities. Yet, despite daily coughing 
streaks and constantly gasping for breath, he relentlessly negotiated 
his way through life for the sake of his family. On one hand, he 
refused to work as a cheap laborer in Israel. "Life itself is not 
worth a shred of one's dignity," he insisted. On the other, with all 
borders sealed except that with Israel, he still needed a way to 
bring in an income. He would buy cheap clothes, shoes, used TVs, and 
other miscellaneous goods, and find a way to transport and sell them 
in the camp. He invested everything he made to ensure that his sons 
and daughter could receive a good education, an arduous mission in a 
place like Gaza.

But when the Palestinian uprising of 1987 exploded, and our camp 
became a battleground between stone-throwers and the Israeli army, 
mere survival became Dad's over-riding concern. Our house was the 
closest to the Red Square, arbitrarily named for the blood spilled 
there, and also bordered the 'Martyrs' Graveyard'. How can a father 
adequately protect his family in such surroundings? Israeli soldiers 
stormed our house hundreds of times; it was always him who somehow 
held them back, begging for his children's safety, as we huddled in a 
dark room awaiting our fate. "You will understand when you have your 
own children," he told my older brothers as they protested his 
allowing the soldiers to slap his face. Our 'freedom-fighting' dad 
struggled to explain how love for his children could surpass his own 
pride. He grew in my eyes that day.

It's been fourteen years since I last saw my father. As none of his 
children had access to isolated Gaza, he was left alone to fend for 
himself. We tried to help as much as we could, but what use is money 
without access to medicine? In our last talk he said he feared he 
would die before seeing my children, but I promised that I would find 
a way. I failed.

Since the siege on Gaza, my father's life became impossible. His 
ailments were not 'serious' enough for hospitals crowded with 
limbless youth. During the most recent Israeli onslaught, most 
hospital spaces were converted to surgery wards, and there was no 
place for an old man like my dad. All attempts to transfer him to the 
better equipped West Bank hospitals failed as Israeli authorities 
repeatedly denied him the required permit.

"I am sick, son, I am sick," my father cried when I spoke to him two 
days before his death. He died alone on March 18, waiting to be 
reunited with my brothers in the West Bank. He died a refugee, but a 
proud man nonetheless.

My father's struggle began 60 years ago, and it ended a few days ago. 
Thousands of people descended to his funeral from throughout Gaza, 
oppressed people that shared his plight, hopes and struggles, 
accompanying him to the graveyard where he was laid to rest. Even a 
resilient fighter deserves a moment of peace.

Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of 
Technology and is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745325475/counterpunchmaga>The 
Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle. He 
is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be 
contacted at: 
<mailto:editor at palestinechronicle.com>editor at palestinechronicle.com




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