HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014
27 August 2014
This below is Hossam response to my asking about reactions to the indefinite ceasefire declared yesterday. First have a look at the previous message. This will give you a sense of the significance of the ceasefire. We still don’t know what our partners, Theatre for Everybody, of which Jamal and Hossam are directors, are going to be able to achieve for our planned live exchange on Sunday 14th September at Rich Mix in London. They were to have had a two-week workshop with their actors leading up to this event and this was a part of our partnership development of a production of an original Arabic stage version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace produced in Gaza. Anyway the event will happen. There will be a live exchange with Hossam and Jamal. And our project will continue. This is just the beginning.
Dear Jonathan
We are fine my friend, we are safe (personally)
We (personally) survived this savage brutal attack
We (personally) do feel some relief
But, a big but, a very big but
I am not sure Gaza is fine
I am sure Gaza is not fine
Gaza is not fine at all
Yesterday evening Hamas celebrated victory
But Gaza is still bleeding
The end of the fight is not the end of Gaza’s agony
Many people who took refuge in schools will go back home
But at least 100.000 people have no home anymore to go back to
18000 housing units destroyed completely
In Gaza before the war there was a deficit of 4500 housing units
This is only one catastrophe
The 2200 killed, are dead, they have no pain any more
The pain is for those who are still alive, their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends ….
Among the 3000 children who were injured, according to WHO and OCHA, 1000 of them will live with lifelong disability
Among the other 8000 adults injured, according to the WHO and OCHA, 3000 of them will live with lifelong disability
50 days ago the unemployment rate was 43% in Gaza
Food insecure affected around 67% of the population
Today with the destruction of 15 local factories employing thousands of people with low salaries, poverty increases, daily suffering increases, food insecurity increases.
Yes I am fine, my dear
But Gaza is not fine
Hamas celebrated a triumph yesterday
But Gaza in still in huge pain
The deal is to open the crossings for humanitarian aid, (it was not closed for humanitarian aid, even during the last 50 days!!)
The deal is to allow fishing up to 6 miles, (this is no more effectively sufficient for fishing than the previous limit of 3 miles); moreover this is to start at the end of the year (and this is if Israel to be trusted)
I survived this war my dear, but Gaza did not
We are still in blockade, the agreement says nothing about freedom at all
Maybe one positive thing could be mentioned, that the Palestinian negotiation team was representing all the Palestinians; maybe this will start to end division between Palestinians, Maybe this might unite us (I pray)
Gaza is not fine, my friend More than 2.5 million tons of rubble spread all over Gaza needs to be removed
The huge destruction of the water system, of the sewage system, of the solid waste system, of the power system, needs hundreds of millions to repair
I really do not know what all this infrastructure has to do with this war, and why the Israelis had to bomb a water well, or the power plant or a water reservoir or a solid waste station or a sewage treatment plant (what do all these have to do with Hamas or rockets or resistance????????)
Or why a child of 4 years old should ask his pregnant mother to hide him in her belly with his brother inside her
What harm could such a child cause to the Israelis? (a potential terrorist???!!!!! )
According to Golda Meir (the former Israeli Prime-Minister in the 1970s): There is no such thing as Palestinians
They proved today that this is what every single Israeli government believed in
I am fine my friend, I survived this war, but Gaza is not fine, not fine at all, and will never be fine without freedom, freedom to Palestine, to Palestinians, to humanity
freedom my friend, this is what we need, this is what we want, this is what we cannot live without, this is what no man can live without
freedom.