HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014
10 August 2014
I have just spoken on the telephone to Hossam Madhoun and Jamal Al Rozzi in Gaza. They are the directors of Theatre for Everybody with whom our company, Az Theatre, is in partnership. Our latest project, conceived during the relaxation of border restrictions at the Rafah crossing to Egypt, is to create and produce an original contemporary stage adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in Gaza. It is based on international cultural interaction and we have an event organised at Rich Mix in London on Sunday 14th September when we are planning to present a live ‘skype’ exchange with Gaza focusing on the outcomes of a two-week workshop there.
We are raising the money from institutions and individuals for this work. In doing so we are emphasising that we receive no government money (no Arts Council, no heritage lottery) and that all Az Theatre’s work is on a voluntary basis. All the money we raise goes to the work in Gaza.
We cannot tell at the moment whether this workshop in Gaza can take place there. Hossam told us that contact with the theatre practitioners is difficult. For example one of the actors has lost his brother and his brother’s son.
I wanted to make direct contact with my friends because the intensity of the Israeli offensive has abated and the Israelis are saying that their objectives have been achieved. It is clear from all accounts that their aim was the wholesale terrorisation of the population of Gaza to get people there to reject the leadership of the resistance movement. Jamal told us that people are extremely tired and desperate. At the beginning of the ‘war’ there was a widespread feeling of hope that at last the siege would be lifted and that there would be a beneficial outcome but now people, especially those who have been displaced, are humiliated and bereft. People may not be able to see what has been gained after so much death and destruction. Half a million people from the outlying areas – some of which, like Khusaa, Shejaiya, Rafah, Khan Younis, have been devastated, have resorted to temporary shelters in or near the centre of Gaza City. Hossam said: “It’s like the whole population of the UK crowding in to the London area. 170,000 are sheltering in UNRWA schools where you will find 20 families living in a room 8×4 sqm. No NGO or government department can meet even 10% of the needs of these people. And there are approximately 200,000 people taking refuge in the houses of relatives, empty buildings, wherever – because the UNRWA schools have no more space – all these people who have fled, ‘have come with nothing, only their souls’.”
This is putting an extraordinary strain on the resources of this area. 10,800 homes have been destroyed leaving 65,000 people homeless and Hossam told us that people are wondering whether to go back to these townships to rebuild their homes.
“This is how it is: you grow up, decide you want to marry, your mum finds you someone suitable or you meet someone at university – and you marry and you are happy – you have children and bit by bit you save enough money to start building a house – over years you are careful with the money – if your wife wants to spend a little extra on a new dress- she can’t, if your kids want a new game, they can’t have it – just so in the end you can build your house – penny by penny – and then in 30 seconds with a minute’s warning, it’s all gone”
This has happened thousands and thousands of times in Gaza over the last month. It is very difficult to calculate what the social impact of this devastation might be.
The Israelis simply have to wait now. They have destroyed the agricultural areas of the strip. In large areas every living thing, sheep, cows, chickens are dead. There is insufficient natural resources of water. Tens of thousands of people have been injured. The children cannot do their school work. They have been particularly affected and their ability to concentrate has been impaired. There is no space to study. Jamal told us that his family hover round each other and there is a kind of silence between them. The Israelis will occasionally bomb and when they do people will immediately return to a state of panic and fear. How will the children be able to return to school in September when they are full of displaced people or destroyed by the Israelis?
No attempt by a state to occupy another people’s land has ever succeeded. In the long term the Israeli project is doomed to failure but what is the timeline here? Jamal told us:
“It’s the worst we’ve suffered! What do we do? What now? Just fall back into what it was like before? How can we? We are humiliated, undone. Fix our houses stone by stone and wait for them to be destroyed again in a year or two? Flee, emigrate? What? Yes, there are demonstrations in Chile, the UK, South Africa…”
Desmond Tutu at the large solidarity demonstration in Cape Town yesterday proclaimed that people are made for freedom. Hossam reiterated this.
“But really no one is OK. 450,000 kids are completely traumatised and 1.8million Gazans are completely traumatised. (Note: 43% of the Gaza population is under the age of 14 years, male 394,108/female 372,897 source: Index Mundi ) But people cannot live like slaves, it is a basic essential thing about being human. They can try to stifle their need for dignity and freedom but they cannot destroy it – ‘the only solution would be to kill us all’. You cannot keep people in a cage forever.”
Tomorrow he will be a part of a team getting a generator to the town of Khusaa in order to get the pumps working and restore some of the water supply.
Jamal told us that in a way it was worse now that the bombing had diminished. At least then priorities were clear. When the attack was at its most intensive the pity of the world was provoked but it feels like it is now that the Gazans need international solidarity more then ever before.
Hossam:
“There is a kind of calm. The killing has quietened down a bit, but everyone is gripped by a fear and panic, not knowing when the next hit will come. And the killing is still going on. A friend, a human rights activist, yesterday went home to Beit Hanoun to check on his family’s home and he was killed by a bomb walking down the street. It’s beyond words.
Every few years there’s a new reality and you have to cope. That’s what human beings do. When the (Palestinian) authority came things got better for a while, things opened up and we lived with that. Then there was the Second Intifada (2000) and the checkpoints and endless harassment and we accepted and coped with them. Then Hamas was elected and the blockade was put in place, and we coped with that. Then there were the attacks in 2008/9 and 2012 we lived with it although thousands of homes and institutions were destroyed.
Israel wants to make it so bad that people will blame the resistance, but they will not turn against the resistance. The resistance is in a critical position. They cannot to go back to the status quo – they will lose the people. Of course people are afraid that the Israelis will succeed in their goal: our giving in, our acceptance – and that the world will let them, indeed help them get away with it.
We are fed up with coping, we have nothing anymore and we won’t go back to the status quo, Israel wants us to just accept and cope. We will not accept.”
Our Gaza Drama Long Term project, started in 2009, is aimed at undermining the blockade and creating cultural exchange. And this is a personal thing. It’s person to person, like theatre. I can’t pretend that the contact that I have had with my friends, Hossam and Jamal, will have helped their resilience nor that the resistance of the Palestinian people to the occupation will have been advanced by our communication. It is much more evident to me how much my contact with them helps me to live more vitally and fully in the reality of my world.
Read Hossam’s messages from Gaza. Next.