E-mail from a girl in Gaza

In June, I asked one of my friends why people weren't talking about the situation in Gaza. Knowing that it's always bad in Gaza, it had gotten ludicrous in Gaza in June. To the point where I had decided I wasn't going to move into the Palestinian refugee camp in the Dahiye, at the end of the summer, to volunteer with Olfat's organization, just because I was an American. And all people talked about in Lebanon was the Mundial, the World Cup.

I found this at

http://www.movementstudio.org/category/network/

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This email was sent by a young girl in Gaza to a friend in Europe. I’m reposting the original without cleaning up the English. If you think you know what’s happening in Gaza, think again.

LENA
THEY WILL NEVER STOPP DPOIN THIS WITH US AND BRITIAN SUPPORT, THEY CUT THE ELECTRICITY AND SOON THERE WILL BE NO WATER TO DRINK AT LEAST, SONIC BOBS IS SOME THIN MAKES U FEEL LIKE GOIN CRAZY, PLZ DO SOME THING
HELD DEMONESTRATIONS OR WHAT EVER,I DONO WHAT TO SAY LINA, THEY WILL DESTROY HOUSES AND DO MANY MANY NASTY THINGS AS USUAL
U CAN COME HERE AND WORK WITH US ITS SOME PPLS JOB LINA, U MUST COME HERE TO EVALUATE THE TRUTH AND THE FACTS, BELIEVE ME, THEY R NOT DOIN THIS 4 THE SAKE OF THE KIDNAPPED SOLDIER, CUZ B4 THAT THEY KILLED FAMILIES TRYIN TO HAVE FN ON THE BEACH, I KNOW THAT UR HAPPY WATCHING THE MONDIAL, BUT THERE R SOME PPL HOPE THAT U WOULD SUPPORT US, CHILDREN R EVEN MORE AFRAID TO LOSE THEIR PARENTS,MOST CHILDREN THINK THAT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GRL ON THE BEACH WILL HAPPEN TO THEM ANY TIME AND IN ANY PLACE, I EVEN CANT REACH GAZA THEY DESTROYED THE BRIDGES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH OF THE GAZA STRIP
PLZ AT LEAST PRAY FOR US, I REALLY KNOW THAT U WANT TO DO SOMETHIN BUT U CANT, BUT I ALSO WANT TO TELL ABOUT WHAT IS GOIN ON HERE, THEY MAN ENVEY MA VILLAGE TODAY NIGHT AND IM TRYIN NOT TO IMAGINE WHAT CAN HAPPEN
IM WRITIN THIS E MAIL VERY FAST CUZ I DON WANT THE ELECTRICITY TO BE CUT B4 I FINISH IT
BYE

There is only one power plant in Gaza and the Israeli military blew it up. Workers say it will take 6 months to repair, however no repair work is starting while this invasion and bombardment continues, so who knows when it will be restored? That power plant fed electricity to wells throughout Gaza that provide the bulk of the drinking water.

Palestinians in Gaza are going without water in July.

Jan Egeland, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, recognizes the coming humanitarian catastrophe:

“They are heading for the abyss unless they get electricity and fuel restored,” said Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, who also urged the Palestinians to free the soldier and clamp down on militants firing rockets into Israel.

Without clean water in the hot summer weather, “we would in days see a major humanitarian crisis,” he said. Military action targeting innocent civilians violates international humanitarian law, he added.

“I am confident that neither of the two [Israelis/Palestinians] want to see a massive increase in mortality in the Gaza [Strip],” where children make up about half of the area’s 1.4 million people, Egeland told a small group of reporters. (Haaretz)

Children. Gaza is covered in children who couldn’t have possibly been involved in armed attacks or capturing Israeli soldiers. Israel is punishing the children of Gaza for the acts of a small handful of adults.

Virginia Tilley writes of the staggering reality eclipsing Gazans right now:

No lights, no refrigerators, no fans through the suffocating Gaza summer heat. No going outside for air, due to ongoing bombing and Israel’s impending military assault. In the hot darkness, massive explosions shake the cities, close and far, while repeated sonic booms are doubtless wreaking the havoc they have wrought before: smashing windows, sending children screaming into the arms of terrified adults, old people collapsing with heart failure, pregnant women collapsing with spontaneous abortions. Mass terror, despair, desperate hoarding of food and water. And no radios, television, cell phones, or laptops (for the few who have them), and so no way to get news of how long this nightmare might go on.

But this time, the situation is worse than that. As food in the refrigerators spoils, the only remaining food is grains. Most people cook with gas, but with the borders sealed, soon there will be no gas. When family-kitchen propane tanks run out, there will be no cooking. No cooked lentils or beans, no humus, no bread the staples Palestinian foods, the only food for the poor. (And there is no firewood or coal in dry, overcrowded Gaza.)

[…]

The Gaza aquifer is already contaminated with sea water and sewage, due to over-pumping (partly by those now-abandoned Israeli settlements) and the grossly inadequate sewage system. To be drinkable, well water is purified through machinery run by electricity. Otherwise, the brackish water must at least be boiled before it can be consumed, but this requires electricity or gas. And people will soon have neither.

Drinking unpurified water means sickness, even cholera. If cholera breaks out, it will spread like wildfire in a population so densely packed and lacking fuel or water for sanitation. And the hospitals and clinics aren’t functioning, either, because there is no electricity. (Counterpunch)

Write your representatives and demand that they take action to stop this Israeli invasion, pull out of the Gaza Strip again, and focus on diplomacy instead of violence to solve this situation!