The Bombs that Blast Gaza: A View from the Ground

I have grown accus­tom to the loud blast of bombs being dropped around two kilo­met­ers from our fam­ily home this past night, as Israel launches its attack on Gaza. But as these new attacks reach our back­yards mere meters away the fear caused by the deaf­en­ing sound of the F-​16 bomb grows. It grows inside my body — inside my every nerve; inside my stom­ach; my blad­der; my back; my head and my soul. We run to the yard to see what has happened; there is smoke in the air and the smell is potent. I look up and see the neigh­bor­hood apart­ments filled with chil­dren peer­ing through their bal­cony rail­ings at the site of the most recent bomb dropped.

These chil­dren are too habitu­ated to the sounds of F-​16s and drop­ping bombs. If the Gazan child is older than four years old then this is the second war they will wit­ness in the span of their young life; and enshal­lah they will all sur­vive this most recent wave of attacks.

This most recent escal­a­tion in viol­ence began yes­ter­day after­noon. We were enjoy­ing a moment of nor­malcy in Gaza as a team from Nor­dic con­su­lates in Jer­u­s­alem arranged the screen­ing of sev­eral Swedish and Nor­we­gian films. The first of these films was inter­rup­ted with the news that Israel had just assas­sin­ated Ahmed Jabari (leader of the al-​Qassam Bri­gades) by blow­ing up his car and killing him and his secur­ity guard instantly. The scene of his mangled blown car cov­ers the news reports that even­ing. So the nor­malcy of a Gazan after­noon is inter­rup­ted by a dif­fer­ent nor­malcy; that of war. The young Gaza bod­ies know the routine; it is time to head home to be with their fam­il­ies. Their smiles don’t fade; their jokes don’t sub­side; their energy remains — it is simply time to head home.

The home is meant to pro­tect us. But the indis­crim­in­ate fall of the Israeli bomb is to be feared from any loc­a­tion. The aggress­ive res­ult of the Israeli obses­sion with war and destruc­tion is to be feared deep within one’s heart and mind. The for­bid­den peace at Israel’s hand is to be missed by us all who suf­fer under Israel’s war mon­ger­ing tac­tics. Yes­ter­day morn­ing a cease­fire was reached between Israel and Palestinian res­ist­ance frac­tions. Yes­ter­day after­noon Israel assas­sin­ated Hamas’s top mil­it­ary leader. Prior to this attack Hamas was not respons­ible for the rock­ets being launched into Israel. Hamas was try­ing to broker a deal in order to pre­vent an escal­a­tion in viol­ence. Such a deal was reached and such a deal was broken by Israel mere hours later. Israel achieved its goal, as it always does. It got to go to war on Gaza.

A war on Gaza is com­plete with all of Israel’s latest tech­no­lo­gical killing inven­tions. “The drone” flies high in the sky, filling the airy space with a con­stant deep buzz­ing, which does not sub­side the entire night. His buddy, “the F-​16” flies lower down mak­ing a most ter­ri­fy­ing roar­ing sound which tears out the heart and car­ries it down the lane, and which is always fol­lowed by the sound of a bomb blast­ing. “The Bomb”, which crashes down, breaks the sky, rattles the win­dows, moves the chairs, pierces the ear, stops the heart and causes a deep feel­ing of sor­row and pro­found fear. The bomb that we know is always fol­lowed by death.

Eleven Palestini­ans have been killed since yes­ter­day even­ing, includ­ing a preg­nant woman, a four month old baby and an eleven month old baby. Over a hun­dred bod­ies have been injured and rushed to hos­pital. I don’t know how many lives have been lost today. All I know is that the bombs con­tinue to drop down on Gaza and Israel con­tin­ues to jus­tify its attacks as self-​defence. Gaza is a land under occu­pa­tion and its people have been res­ist­ing this bru­tal siege on their lives for over sixty years. The homemade rocket launched into Israeli ter­rit­ory is a form of legal res­ist­ance by a people under occu­pa­tion. Their rock­ets, which are made from shit and sugar attempt to reach Israeli ter­rit­ory and some make it and some cause injury and death. Gaza is sur­roun­ded by hov­er­ing planes, encroach­ing war­ships, approach­ing tanks all super­vised by the drone. This is not a con­flict; rather it is the rou­tin­ized ter­ror­iz­a­tion of civil­ians who con­tinue to sup­port the res­ist­ance any way they can. And as I wit­ness the mother of the house­hold made embar­rassed by her tears or the father’s face light up as we return safely home I know that these are Palestinian lives who have suffered too much and have wit­nessed too much war. And here it goes again.

Cath­er­ine Char­rett, cur­rently in Gaza, is a PhD can­did­ate at Aberys­twyth Uni­ver­sity (UK).  Twit­ter: @CataWinnie