To Live and Die in
By Laila Al-Arian
January 2, 2009, The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090112/al_arian?rel=emailNation
On Sunday morning, I found out through a note my friend
wrote on Facebook, that the Israeli Air Force was
attacking my grandfather's neighborhood in
who lives near my grandfather in the densely-populated
"Asqoola" in
she spent terrorized by what she called "the constant,
ominous, maddening, droning sound" of Apache
helicopters flying above.
"Outside my home, which is close to the two largest
universities in
of young men, university students," Safa wrote over the
weekend. "They'd been warned not to stand in groups--it
makes them an easy target--but they were waiting for
buses to take them home. Seven were killed."
Laila Al-Arian: In compelling public testimony, US
soldiers and Iraqi civilians bear witness to the
horrors of combat. My family had been trying to speak
with my grandfather since Saturday, after
its onslaught on
him, perhaps not surprising since so many phone lines
are down. "Hold one moment," is all we hear. A
computerized directive from the phone company, one that
sounds increasingly strident the more it's repeated.
"Hold one moment." My mother hangs up in frustration,
unable to ease her anxiety or clear her mind from
worst-case scenario thoughts.
My grandfather moved to
living all over the
As far as he was concerned, it was always a matter of
time before he'd find his way back to his birthplace.
He was born in
died of cancer by his fifth birthday, so he was raised
by four older sisters. The
childhood was transformed by the establishment of
villages and cities across the country, hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians streamed into the tiny
coastal strip. Most of the refugees relied on
assistance from the newly-created United Nations Relief
and Works Agency to survive, and jobs were hard to come
by. My grandfather was thus forced to move to other
Arab countries so he could provide for his young
family. By 1958, he had married my grandmother, a
refugee from
killed by Zionist paramilitaries ten years earlier. My
grandfather took her and their 1-year-old son to Saudi
Leaving his beloved
grandfather, but he was left with no other choice.
Because he was never allowed to become a citizen of any
of the four Arab countries in which he worked and
lived, my grandfather never felt at home. In his mind,
they were transitory stops, temporary resting places on
the way to Return. He would save as much as he could
from his meager salary so he'd have enough money to
take his family to
of living modestly, he was able to buy a quarter of an
acre of land on
My grandfather was sitting in a cafe with a group of
friends in the coastal city of
when he heard that
1967 war. His face went pale and he fainted from the
shock. The Israeli Army's occupation meant
lost. But in practical terms the news had another
catastrophic effect: the Israeli military authorities
decreed that any Palestinian who was not in
the war was not recognized as a resident of the strip.
My grandfather became a
he passed his citizenship exam, his knowledge of
American history and governance rivaled my own. Three
of his children had moved here years earlier, and
started their own families. Though my mother begged him
to live here with her, my grandfather's dream of
returning to
American citizenship that helped him do just that.
When he finally moved back to
changed. He stopped a lifelong habit of chain smoking
and embraced the outdoors, faithfully tending the
garden in his courtyard. He drank mint tea in his
nephews' vineyard and ate from the fig trees he could
only dream about years before. But he was also dismayed
by the changes he observed. His hometown had become so
overcrowded that trees were cut down to make room for
more buildings. With more than 10,000 people per square
mile, it has the highest population density in the
world. (Considering
is hard to fathom how anyone can argue that Israeli's
aerial bombardment is focused exclusively on "Hamas targets.")
My grandfather, throughout his life, never belonged to
any political factions, but like many Gazans he hoped
that Hamas' election would bring back a semblance of
law and order. Palestinian Authority officials had been
dogged by allegations of corruption since they began
administering Gaza and the West Bank under the 1993
were no better than gangsters.
With
punishment for the election of Hamas and backed by the
US and
yet again. Medication to treat his diabetes was in
short supply and because of a shortage of gas and
electricity, his family was forced to use primitive
kerosene burners for cooking. Bakeries now had to
resort to baking bread with animal feed and sewage
treatment plants were crippled as fuel ran out, forcing
the water authority to dump millions of liters of waste
into the
with homes receiving an average of only six hours a
day. Unemployment shot up to 49 percent. Because of the
border closures, my grandfather's nephews, who used to
work in construction in
income.
the entire population, as malnutrition rates spiked
upwards of 75 percent among the strip's 1.5 million
residents. As in most siege situations, children
suffered the most from hunger and disease.
As missiles rain over
grandfather is thinking. Much of the territory's
civilian infrastructure, including police stations,
universities, mosques and homes, has been decimated. In
the Jabalya refugee camp, five sisters, the eldest aged
seventeen and the youngest only four, were killed on
Monday as they slept in their beds when an Israeli air
strike hit a mosque by their home. Their parents told
reporters they assumed they were safe, since houses of
worship typically are not military targets. The
cemetery where the girls were buried was filled to
capacity, so they were placed in three graves. A United
Nations spokesperson said the killing is a "tragic
illustration that this bombardment is exacting a
terrible price on innocent civilians." The bereaved
father expressed the sentiments of so many in
an interview with the
anything to do with any Palestinian faction. I have
nothing to do with Hamas or anyone. I am just an
ordinary person." A few days after the attack, I found
out that the girls were relatives of our family friends in
I asked my mother why my grandfather did not leave
while its gates were still open. Why he didn't leave
before the siege, before life became unbearable, and
before this latest bombardment. "Because that's where
he feels he belongs," she said. "He was always homesick
before.
where he wants to die."
Laila Al-Arian is a freelance journalist and co-author, with Chris Hedges, of Collateral Damage:
based on their 2007 Nation article "The Other War."
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