I was surprised to see the following (see below) article in the New York Times. It is a extremely rare that the Times provides a Palestinian perspective of events. Even rarer that it does so without any “balancing” comments from Israeli spokespeople. When Yasser Arafat died, for example, there was a whole article of comments by analysts – every one an Israeli or American Jew.
Will Israeli Settlements Serve Them, Gazan Refugees Ask By STEVEN ERLANGER
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza – From the farthest edge of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, Palestinians can see the Israeli flag flying proudly over the settlement at Neve Dekalim, atop a huge cement watchtower that commands the line of fire across a wide no man’s land.
Israel plans to pull out of Neve Dekalim late this summer, and the refugees at Khan Yunis, like the Abu Reziq family, tell one another tales of what lies inside – beyond the watchtower, behind the tall cement wall, over the netting that tops the wall and now hides their view of the sea.
Zidan Abu Reziq, 50, used to work in the settlement, until the latest round of the intifada. Asked to describe it to his family, he said: “Ah, it’s paradise. Very modern buildings.” He paused, shook his head. “It’s beyond your imagination.”
What does he want most to show his family? “A garden I built for their kids,” he said. “When I got back home, I felt grief. I was thinking how I’m building such gardens with swings to comfort the Jewish boys and not mine. If I’m allowed to get in, after the withdrawal, that’s the place I want to take my family.”
Israel is to withdraw from Gaza in two months, but Palestinians like the Abu Reziqs have mixed emotions. They want to see their own flag over the houses they built and the greenhouses where they worked.
But no one knows even now what will happen to those structures, and the Palestinians worry about the prospect of chaos.
In September 2004, the Abu Reziqs got 10 minutes’ warning from the Israelis to evacuate their original house in the refugee camp. Islamic militants were firing mortars and homemade Qassam rockets from Khan Yunis into Neve Dekalim, and the Israeli Army wanted to clear a wider buffer zone by demolishing houses.
In the rush, 5-year-old Ahmed, asleep in his bed, was left behind, but he was retrieved safely an hour later. A brother, Muhammad, 16, was hit by a large-caliber machine-gun bullet as he ran. He was saved by his uncle, Ahmed Abu Reziq, 42, a nurse.
Muhammad showed the knotty cyclone of scar tissue just above his thigh. His uncle said flatly, “He was lucky I was next to him.”
Israeli officials say clearing the houses of noncombatants has been necessary, given the range of mortars and rockets.
But such action is considered illegal by much of the world and by B’Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, which has said that doing so “flagrantly violates international humanitarian law,” “cannot be justified on the grounds of ‘pressing military necessity,’ ” and “constitutes collective punishment.”
Israel pays no compensation to families like the Abu Reziqs.
The family rented another house for a time, but United Nations refugee aid was slow to come and so is work, even at less than $7 a day. “Nobody’s happy these days,” said the elder Ahmed. “Anyone here who tells you they’re happy is a liar.”
So with winter over and a new period of relative calm between Palestinian militants and the Israelis, the Abu Reziqs decided to move back into their half-demolished home.
The wall that separates them from the buffer zone and the Israeli guns is missing, but has been replaced by a makeshift barricade of ribbed asbestos roofing sheets, rusted metal doors and chunks of wood.
There is a foot-wide space at the top for light and ventilation; atop the barricade sits a single mint plant, for tea.
The walls are full of holes from bullets and shrapnel. There is no electricity, and at night they use candles; a trench has been dug for sewage through a mound of rubble out into the buffer zone.
Lubna, 14, her eyes bright and her hair covered in a white scarf, described how she and her sisters did the digging. “They won’t shoot at women,” she said.
She showed a visitor the trench, then pulled him back from walking too far into the buffer zone to take a picture of the Israeli flag atop the cement watchtower, which is a huge sewer pipe set on end.
“I dream about the Palestinian flag replacing the Israeli flag there,” Lubna said. “I want us to be happy and to be a developed nation, with the right to live in safety.” She wants to be an engineer.
Her cousin Sanaa, 16, was also dressed for school in a white head scarf and long black cloak, the ankles of her blue jeans visible when she walks. “The most important thing for me is that the Israelis get out of here,” she said. “Then I hope we’ll have a future.”
The girls’ grandmother, Fatma Abu Reziq, 70, came here in 1948 as a refugee from a village near Haifa; she remembers running, and a long ride on a truck. “I lost my home in 1948, and now I’ve lost it here,” she said quietly. What does she think when she sees the Israeli flag from her broken house? “What do you think I think?” she asked.
A few yards away through the narrow alleys of the camp, Muhammad Abu Reziq, 24, lives with his wife, Asma, their two children, and his parents and siblings. There are 13 people in a house where the kitchen has been cut in half by a blanket to allow the young couple to sleep with a degree of privacy. There are bullet holes in nearly every interior wall.
Muhammad was wounded in Nablus in 2000, at the beginning of this second intifada, and he now works for the Palestinian Authority making $265 a month, working 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. to patrol the camp and stop Palestinian militants from shooting mortars and rockets over the wall into Neve Dekalim.
“I work all night, and for this great sum I’m looked at by my people as a collaborator,” he said bitterly. “I come home and all I can say is, ‘Where’s the mattress?’ “
He expresses disdain for the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. He said that Hamas would take better care of him and his family if he should be hurt or killed than would Fatah, the dominant political faction.
He misses the authority of Yasir Arafat. “Abu Ammar used to shake the floor,” he said, “and he never compromised.” He considers Mr. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, weak and without charisma.
Muhammad’s mother, Tamam, 48, broke in. “Abu Ammar is gone and Abu Mazen is our president, he’s our fate,” she said. “I know he’ll do things for the people.”
Muhammad pointed to his son, Zidan, 3. “This kid will sit drawing a machine gun,” he said with disgust. Tamam said: “When he hears bullets, he cries, ‘I don’t want to die.’ This 3-year-old knows about death. What kind of life is this?”
Tamam gestured to her family. “These kids have never been to an amusement park or seen a zoo,” she said, as they teased her for describing her own visit to the Cairo zoo, 30 years ago.
A few weeks ago, Israel celebrated its 57th independence day. Every year, Tamam said, “the Israelis have their feast, and we look forward to it so much.” Really? Why? “We go to the roof at midnight, and I tell my kids: ‘Look!’ And it always happens – the fireworks and the lights over the sea. It’s beautiful,” she said. Referring to possible Palestinian independence, she added, “It’s something they’ve never seen.”