Life In Rafah

Melissa of ISM Vancouver is currently in Rafa, located in the southern 
Gaza Strip. Rafah is the site of the Israeli Occupation Force's (IOF) 
most barabaric ongoing operation of invasions and massive destruction. 
The IOF destroyed more than 200 Palestinian houses in the last month and 
Amnesty International has declared that their actions are "war crimes".

Melissa has posted three new reports from Rafah in the last few days, 
one of which is included below to give you a sense of the horror. Please 
go to the reports page at <http://www.ism-vancouver.org/reports.html> to 
read all of Melissa's reports, complete with shocking photographs of the 
destruction.

-------------------
Normal Life in Rafah

Melissa

Rafah, Nov 22, 2003

Most of the time life in Rafah seems normal. A bustling city- taxis 
honking and speeding through the crowded streets, schoolchildren in 
their uniforms on their way to and from school, merchants of all types 
with their colourful wares lining the streets- fruits, clothes, 
household items- the perfume of life filling the air. Everywhere things 
seem normal, then all of a sudden something will happen and the fa￧ade 
of normalcy will disappear, and the ugliness of the reality will show 
through.
A few days ago I was walking down the street with a friend, going to 
visit his sister. We had just come from his familyﾒs house where we ate 
a delicious meal, breaking our Ramadan fasts. As we turned a corner and 
entered another neighbourhood the illusion of normalcy disappeared. The 
buildings beside us were punctuated with several bullet holes. A normal 
sight in Rafah, bullet ridden buildings are a constant reminder that 
life here is not normal, as you and I who make our homes in the West, 
who have never seen conflict, define normal.

Along with the bullet ridden buildings comes the reality of how they are 
created. Starting in the early evening and continuing until dawn there 
is regular gunfire- coming from any number of sources. Sniper towers 
surround Rafah, thereby controlling it almost completely. At almost any 
point in the city you could be shot and killed by a sniper. Bullets 
fired from the towers can kill for up to 5 kilometres.
One of my most surreal experiences is sitting on the ﾓpatioﾔ outside Abu 
Yunisﾒs house. The house is in the last line before the sandy 
nothingness that separates Rafah from the Egyptian border. It was once 
several blocks from the border however time and a great deal of 
bulldozing has left it next in line to suffer the same fate as its 
neighbours. Sitting on this patio I have shared many great moments with 
the wonderful family that call this home.
Around five hundred meters from the house is the wall that marks the 
border. Along the wall is a sniper tower. Between the house and the 
tower is only a wasteland of sand. As we sit and drink our tea, soaking 
in the remaining light of the day the soldiers watch us. At any moment 
any of us could be shot dead. However, this is the new reality, and we 
continue to drink our tea.

For the past few nights there has been a large military operation being 
carried out in Block O. This means that on top of the regular gunfire, 
as we eat our suhor the sounds of Apache Helicopters drowned out the 
advance of heavy armoured bulldozers and tanks. Large explosions 
frequently rock the house as more houses are demolished. One large 
explosion rocks the very foundation of my home. A tunnel has been 
discovered and destroyed maybe. I finish my food and go back to sleep. 
It has all become so mundane, so ordinary. The next night as we watch 
television the family and I can hear the withdrawal of the tanks and 
bulldozers, a long metallic procession from behind the wall.

Yesterday I sat on the roof of a friendﾒs home making Ramadan sweets 
that we would enjoy later in the day. The invasion was going on only a 
few blocks from her house. A few doors away a Shaheed Tent has been 
erected to commemorate the death of a martyr- a man killed by a heart 
attack while under fire from an Apache Helicopter. My friendﾒs house is 
surrounded by shooting. We make our sweets. Eventually it is time to 
move inside as the shooting begins to move in our direction and it is 
deemed to dangerous to continue sitting on the roof. Random bullets know 
no targets. A young boy was shot in the head while standing on his porch 
by a miscellaneous bullet.

This is life in Rafah. On the surface it appears normal, but at any 
second this fa￧ade can be wiped away with the opening of a new round of 
fire from the sniper towers. Maybe this is normal and I must redefine my 
experience of the word. Maybe I already have. Shooting, tanks, shaheeds- 
they have all become a part of daily life, like taking out the garbage 
or taking the dog for a walk. As my eyes sift through the crumbled 
remnants of yet another demolished home, yet another demolished life I 
know it is a scene that will be repeated again and again.
And yet I there is part of me that cannot fully accept this new reality, 
this new normalcy, for no one should experience normalcy in this way. 
Talking on the phone with people outside of Rafah brings my two 
conflicting realities to come to a head. As we talk about every day 
situations the sound of gun shots ring through the air and I am reminded 
that to the person on the other end of the line this is not normal, this 
is a completely foreign occurrence.
Normal means not being afraid to walk down your street at night because 
the tanks may shoot you. Normal means not being awaken by loud, earth 
rattling explosions. I can only hope that life in Rafah resumes some 
aspects of my idea of normalcy, especially before the people here forget 
about what it is like completely. Forget how their old photographs tell 
them life is supposed to be.
Normal.




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