the Cage that is Gaza

After reading this excellent article by Ethan Bronner and Michael Slackman in the NY Times - "Trapped by Gaza Blockade - Locked in Despair" - I became engrossed in some of the words they used. I found myself pulling quotes, each one I found poignant in expressing the despair of the Gazans that they interviewed.  I also wondered what I would say if I was one of them.  How would I express my frustration and rage? The following are a collection of quotes from the article.  Please also see this collection of photographs from Gaza that accompanied the article.

“scars have accumulated like layers of sedimentary rock, each marking a different crisis — homelessness, occupation, war, dependency”

“talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair”

“there is a paradox at work in Gaza: while Hamas has no competition for power, it also has a surprisingly small following”

“Hamas and Fatah are two sides of the same coin…”

“since Israel’s three-week war 18 months ago here aimed at stopping Hamas rockets, their children frequently wet the bed. The youngest, Taj, 4, is aggressive, randomly punching anyone around him”

“my own children tell me it is better to die”

“when she visited her mother, her two brothers fought bitterly because one backs Hamas and the other backs Fatah. Recently they threw bottles at each other. Her mother kicked them out.”

“Israel is never far from people’s minds here. Its ships control the waters, its planes control the skies. Its whims, Gazans feel, control their fate.”

I guess there isn't much more to say. As I look out my window at the blue sky of Ramallah, I find it incomprehensible that only a few kilometers away are over 1.5 million people trapped in an open-air prison. What makes me crazy is that there is nothing anyone seems to be able to do to help, other than sailing more ships.