Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2006, pages 22-23

Gaza on the Ground

Lebanon and Gaza: Pawns of Power

By Mohammed Omer

IN LATE JULY, Israeli occupation forces telephoned residents of Beit Hanoun, a village in the northern Gaza Strip. “Hello, this is the Israeli army speaking,” said an officer in broken Arabic. “Evacuate your house in one hour.”

The IDF was planning to bomb 450 homes in northern Gaza—forcing another 3,000 Palestinians out of their homes and into the streets. No matter that destroyed along with their homes was their final vestige of security and dignity as well.

Time ran out for Hajj Ali Al Sarakani and his wife, Kefayah, both 75. Now homeless, their golden years in limbo, Hajj Ali tried to comfort his wife as they sat together in the hastily created shelter of an UNRWA school. His own face was fractured in disbelief and incredulity, his stunned expression broken only momentarily by the sound of an Israeli tank shell exploding nearby, its reverberation shaking windows. Startled, both husband and wife jumped, as renewed tears streamed over the weathered hands hiding Kefayah’s face. Overhead, the constant guttural flutter of a helicopter gunship punctuated the silence between shots.

“We evacuated as the shelling escalated. We saw tanks and bulldozers approaching our home,” Hajj Ali explained quietly, pointing out the window to where his home still stands precariously. “A small suitcase is all we could grab.”

Reaching the UNRWA shelter proved difficult, as Kefaya is handicapped and moves slowly. Adding to the anxiety of escape, Israeli soldiers continued shooting at the fleeing and terrified refugees. For the Al Sarakanis, today is a replay of 1948, when, as teenagers, the couple escaped a similar assault in Israel, to then-safe Egyptian Gaza. Today they join hundreds of families—several headed by young parents, as they once were—fleeing Beit Hanoun.

In the Safe House

As is Islamic custom, women congregate in one portion of the room, the men in another. The pale gray walls, soiled from days of bombing, cast an ashen hue on the hanging pictures and maps hanging in the converted schoolroom. In an attempt to clean, Aisha Al Kafarneh swept between the desks. “They [the Israelis] claim they strike at members of the resistance,” she stated, her broom pounding at the dust. Her brush strokes quickened as she lashed out.

“When an Israeli is killed, the world stops. Hundreds of us—silence,” she said in disgust. “They cut our water, our electricity…we live in dark houses and now they take these too? Where do they want us to go?”

Jamal Mussa, his wife and six children struggle for normalcy. Beside him, his wife comforted their infant as Jamal described the family’s escape through the artillery shelling and razing of Beit Hanoun.

“The bulldozers attacked during the night,” he explained. “With bulldozers they began demolishing the streets. We stayed until 7 o’clock, escaping out a back door as our front fell to the tanks.”

But Gazans are not alone. Now Lebanon, too, finds itself in Israel’s cross hairs.

Gaza and Lebanon

Israel’s land invasion of Gaza began June 28, on the pretext of Hamas’ capture of an Israeli soldier during a military raid. On July 12 the world’s attention moved north as, according to Israel, Hezbollah fighters “entered Israeli territory” and captured two additional Israeli soldiers.

This is a lie.

The Israeli soldiers were captured within Lebanon, in the town of Aitaa al Chaaba, where they were part of a covert undercover mission. At the time, Israeli military aircraft already were flying over Lebanese territory.

Just as in Gaza, into which Israel fired over 5,000 missiles between October 2005 and June 9, 2006—despite the fact that Hamas was observing a unilateral cease-fire—Israel continued to sporadically fire into Lebanon and breach its borders following its “withdrawal” in 2000.

Israel’s invasions of Gaza and Lebanon are similar in execution, context and purpose. Both Hamas and Hezbollah aim to end Israel’s illegal occupations and land grabs. Hezbollah defends the Golan Heights, Lebanon and the border area, where Israel continues to steal topsoil, water and land while infringing upon Lebanese sovereignty. Hamas seeks to protect the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel continues to steal land and assets, build settlements and expropriate resources for the exclusive use of Jewish Israelis. Both resistance groups prevent Israel from annexing its illegally occupied territories and expanding its control over the land of others it covets.

Israel was quick to include Syria and Iran in its accusations against Hamas. One might almost think Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was familiar with “A Clean Break,” the 1996 paper written by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and other American neocons for then-incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Among other recommendations, the paper advocates “weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.” And for the past 18 months, Israel and the neocons have continued to push for an invasion of Iran, against the wishes of the American and Israeli people. Attacking Lebanon and blaming Iran provides such a pretext, and the capture of Israeli soldiers provides cover under which Israel insists it has a “right to defend itself”—thereby camouflaging the real reasons for its all-out assault on both Lebanon and Gaza.

But it is Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli civilians who are the victims of these attacks, pawns in an international chess game played out on a blood-checkered board. The root causes of Israel’s problem are its illegal occupations of Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights and its unceasing infringement on Lebanese territory.

Fighting, after all, is a symptom. No man is an enemy of another if he treats him with dignity, fairness and respect. Occupation, the razing of homes, invasion, destroying a nation’s infrastructure constitute neither dignity nor defense. Quite the opposite: it is how enemies are made.

Mohammed Omer reports from the Gaza Strip in occupied Palestine, where he maintains the Web site <http://www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >.

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