Like Father, Unlike Son

Gaza on the Ground

By Mohammed Omer

NOT A SINGLE FAMILY IN GAZA does not discuss the future of their besieged enclave. The narrative has changed over time: the fathers, in their mid- to late 50s, continue to share good memories of traveling to Israel to work, and had good relations with Israeli business owners.
Their children, however, do not share those same memories. Instead Gaza’s younger generation speak of the recent border protests, and their daily experience of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, contaminated water and disease. Indeed, the United Nations has warned that these conditions, the result of Israel’s decade-long blockade, will make Gaza uninhabitable by 2020.
Tahseen Sadi, 51, sits and debates with his 22-year-old son Mohammed, a photojournalist, who sees a totally different reality from the picture painted by his father. Tahseen worked in Ashkelon more than 18 years ago as a construction contractor, building some of the high-rises in the nearby Israeli city. Then Israel restricted the movement of Palestinians into the country, replacing them with workers from Asian and other countries.
“We should see the good people on the other side of the wall,” the father says. “You mean the ones shooting at children protesting their imprisonment?” his son asks.
“You do not see the decent Jewish people at military checkpoints,” Tahseen replies. “There are many ordinary Jews, decent people who want mutual peace and to do business again with Palestinians. Just like many other nations enjoy, we all want good health care, education, business opportunities and for everyone to be happy again.”
This discussion is not unusual—it is one that takes place daily between parents and their children in Gaza. Yet, Tahseen Sadi and his son agree on one point: “Gaza wants its life back—we just need that human right of a chance to live a healthy, peaceful life.”
“Just give us the chance to exist and live in dignity,” Tahseen says. “Either open the border with Israel or let us open up to the world and have mobility and trade with our friends and neighbors. We have been captives for too long.”
Nowadays, traveling outside Gaza requires a bribe of $6,000 to $8,000 to obtain a transit visa via Egypt. Like most of Gaza’s 2 million residents, neither Tahseen nor his children have that kind money.
But lifting the blockade and travel restrictions on Gaza would not just restore human rights to the people of Gaza. Mohammed and other members of his generation would be more likely to change their negative views of Israel if granted the freedom to move, seek an education abroad, and then return to improve and rebuild Gaza in peace. Unfortunately, Israel continues to fear a stronger, peaceful Gaza.
However, cautions a Gaza doctor who prefers to remain anonymous, “there are things you can’t undo.” He himself lost his clinic in a 2014 Israeli attack, but still works at Shifa hospital, on a half-salary from the Palestinian Authority.
“We are seeing rises in marasmus, which is a disease of severe malnutrition in infants and children,” he says. “Walk onto the wards of Shifa hospital, and you will be shocked. Our kids make no media headlines, as if ignored by all the squabbling political parties—Israel and the international community are blind to it all.
“We are seeing a huge increase in anemia, stunted growth and infant mortality,” he adds. “Gaza’s drinking water is a major problem: we drink contaminated water that kills us daily, that is not fit for healthy consumption.”
Gaza’s main aquifer has been increasingly contaminated over many decades by dumped raw sewage, agricultural pesticides and the intrusion of seawater from severe over-pumping.
According to Gaza Water Authority officials, 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking water wells are unfit for human consumption, and the U.N. cites the scarcity and pollution of water resources as being at the forefront of Gaza’s scourges.
Yet Tahseen and his son continue their argument on another cold night without electricity, the father defending his hopes of renewed friendship with the Israelis he knew 18 years ago.
“The people of Gaza want to be peaceful human beings again,” he says. Whatever human needs are, he tells his son, they are equally the needs of Gazans, too. “Then we can get on with our lives, enjoy our identity and find new meaning in life,” he continues to hope, “after losing so much and being locked down for so long.”