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<span class="post_date" title="2016-01-27">January 27, 2016</span>
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/27/gaza-speaks-this-is-what-the-decade-long-siege-has-done-to-us/"
rel="bookmark">Gaza Speaks: This Is What the Decade-long Siege
Has Done to Us</a></h1>
<p> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/ramzy-baroud/"
rel="nofollow">Ramzy Baroud</a><br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/27/gaza-speaks-this-is-what-the-decade-long-siege-has-done-to-us/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/27/gaza-speaks-this-is-what-the-decade-long-siege-has-done-to-us/</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span></p>
<p>Whenever Mariam Aljamal’s children hear the sound of thunder at
night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive,
and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza
Strip.</p>
<div class="post_content" itemprop="articleBody">
<p>Mariam’s three children – Jamal, Lina and Sarah – were all born
a few years after the Gaza siege was first imposed in 2006, and
all of them have experienced at least one Israeli war.</p>
<p>“My kids feel scared when the electricity goes off, which is
most of the time,” says the 33-year-old mother from Nuseirat
Refugee Camp, who has a degree in Communication and is currently
pursuing her MA. “They are still living the trauma of the 2014
offensive. War is still haunting my family, and life has become
so hard for us.”</p>
<p>Indeed, after years of trying, Mariam is yet to find work.
Unemployment in Gaza is the highest in the world, according to
the World Bank.</p>
<p>The siege on Gaza was imposed in stages, starting January 2006,
when the Hamas movement won the legislative elections in the
Occupied Territories. Donors’ money was immediately withheld, so
the new Government could not pay the salaries of its employees.
The conventional wisdom, then, was the new Government would soon
collapse, and Hamas’ rival, Fatah, would quickly resume its
control over the Palestinian Authority (PA).</p>
<p>The Israeli hope, which was reinforced by the US and also
shared by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and many in his party,
never came to fruition. To speed up the projected collapse,
Israel began sporadic bombardment of Gaza and carried out a
sweeping campaign to arrest many of its elected MPs, coupled
with a Fatah and Hamas dispute, which eventually turned into
street battles in the summer of 2007.</p>
<p>It was then that the siege became complete, now ongoing for ten
years. During this time, Fatah resumed its control over the PA
in the West Bank, reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah largely
failed, the Rafah border has been mostly sealed, and Israel has
launched three major wars that have killed thousands.</p>
<p>The destruction in Gaza as a result of three consecutive wars
(2008-9, 12 and 14) has been so severe, it has affected almost
every aspect of the Strip’s already dilapidated infrastructure.
Power outages, for example, have become part of life in Gaza. If
all goes according to plan, Palestinians here have only 8-10
hours, per day, to utilize electricity, and for the rest of the
day they suffer in darkness. The UN had already declared that
life in Gaza will become ‘uninhabitable’ by 2020.</p>
<p>But there are aspects of this drama that do not receive a fair
share of attention, such as how the siege is hindering human
development for an entire generation.</p>
<p>When the siege was imposed, Ahmad Ghazal was only 13-years-old.
Now, he is 23 and works at a local library in Gaza City. “Life
here is not pleasant,” he says. “In the last ten years my family
has suffered the lack of food, clean water, proper medical care
and the most basic of human needs. But what frustrates me most
is the fact that I am not able to move freely. The
Israeli-Egyptian shut down of border crossings has brought our
life to a standstill. I feel trapped.”</p>
<p>Maher Azzam is 21 years of age and he, too, feels imprisoned.
He teaches English at Smart International Centre for Languages
and Development and aspires to be a writer. However, he sees
life in Gaza as a slow death.</p>
<p>“The number of martyrs in the Strip over the course of 10 years
has exceeded 4,000, but those innocent people only died once,”
he says. “People who are still alive in Gaza, have been dying
every day for a whole decade. But we must stay optimistic and
hopeful. We have learned to be creative to survive, to express
ourselves and to carry on without submitting, despite Israel’s
ongoing crimes and the silence of the international community.”</p>
<p>Heba Zaher, a 21-year-old graduate from the Islamic University,
also understands the centrality of hope to the Gaza narrative.
She says, “We have survived all of these years without losing
hope, we certainly can’t lose it now. Ten years of hardship have
taught us to be stronger, to cope with life and to defeat the
siege.”</p>
<p>But defeating the siege is not an easy endeavor, as it has
“affected all aspects of our life,” according to Heba. “Many
students have lost their opportunities of studying abroad. Many
patients have died, waiting for the crossings to open so that
they may get proper treatment. Construction is tied to the
crossings, and life is now more expensive than ever.”</p>
<p>The consequences of the siege are far-reaching to the extent
that Anas Almassri, a student-intern at the Euro-Mediterranean
Human Rights Monitor in Deir al Balah, says that whatever
remained of Gaza’s middle class is now dwindling. “The middle
class in Gaza continues to shrink as a result of the diminishing
economic opportunities, and this affects the income of families
terribly, who cannot send their kids to universities and,
therefore, cannot maintain their standard of living.”</p>
<p>For Ghada Abu Msabeh, 20, also from Deir Al-Balah, the siege
has now become so rooted in the collective psyche of Gazans that
it has grown to become the new norm. “I think that we have come
to the point that the siege has become a part of our daily life
and routine,” she argues. “I honestly cannot imagine what life
would be if we are able to move freely or even go for an entire
day without power outage. It is honestly difficult to remember
how life used to be before the siege.”</p>
<p>Hana Salah, 25, a writer and humanitarian worker with Oxfam
Italy, tried to seek an opportunity outside Gaza, but she was
not successful. “I didn’t try again because seeing others’
attempt and fail was enough to depress me,” she says. “I feel
that we are living in a cage and have no idea what is
transpiring outside this cage. I don’t know what will happen,
but can only hope and pray for God’s mercy.”</p>
<p>Some of those who were able to leave to pursue their education
outside Gaza, were stuck when they attempted to return for a
visit. Rafaat Alareer, a writer and lecturer, embarked on his
PhD studies at Universiti Purra Malaysia in 2012, but has been
trapped in Gaza since 2014. He came to visit his family as the
2014 offensive destroyed their home and killed his brother.
“It’s been a year and a half now, and I cannot go back because
of the siege and the closure of the Rafah crossing,” which has
been practically shut down for a year.</p>
<p>The same was experienced by Belal Dabour, a young doctor at the
Shifa Hospital, who is unable to leave Gaza to gain more
experience and attend conferences, which he had hoped could
bolster his academic qualifications. “I had just graduated when
the 2014 war started,” he says. “It was very traumatic. What I
have experienced in one month at Al-Shifa is more than what
other doctors would experience in many years of their practice.
But now I have no job and like many of my colleagues have no
source of income.”</p>
<p>Walaa Al-Ghussein, a 23-year-old student at Al-Azhar
University, concludes that, although more people now acknowledge
the existence of a cruel siege on Gaza, life for Gazans remains
the same. “We need more than just protests; real pressure needs
to be exerted on Israel so that this siege ends. Hundreds of
patients are dying, students are losing their opportunities of
studying abroad and a whole people are stranded.”</p>
<p><em>(With reporting from Yousef Aljamal in Gaza.)</em></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>Dr. Ramzy Baroud</strong>
has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He
is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media
consultant, an author of several books and the founder of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a
Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
His website is: ramzybaroud.net</em> </p>
</div>
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