December 27 2009: A year ago, the sky fell in

1 year on, remembering (pic from www.ingaza.wordpress.com)

I would like later to write something about my own thoughts one year on. But more importantly, I would like to ask you to read Eva’s blog about this one-year-on anniversary, because she’s still in Gaza, telling the tales of Gaza folk themselves.

If you would like to send this press release below out to media local to you or journalists you have contacts for, please post a message asking me for the phone numbers to go with it as some are private numbers.

Freedom March to Gaza: Egypt, let them in!

Dec 27 in Cairo city centre (pic from rabble.ca)

You can see the breaking news on the Gaza Freedom March here…
I just spotted that Hedy (American Holocaust Survivor) from our FreeGaza boats is on it too, bless her… hope I have her energy at 85!

I got a few determined texts from my friend A (aiming for 6 months in Gaza doing the kind of thing I did) yesterday, the anniversary of the first day of last year’s Gaza attacks; she, Italian Vik from our original gang who’s been outside on his European Gaza book tour, and about 1300 other Freedom March participants were in the centre of Cairo last night, demanding to be allowed to enter Gaza.

Gaza: Beneath the Bombs book tour

Sharyn’s book tour for Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, the book based on the writings from this blog, is coming together. Below is a list of currently confirmed events, and there are many more in the pipeline. For up to date details, keep an eye on this page.

Thursday 14^th January, 7-9pm

Location: Manchester

Presented by: Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Venue: Cross Street Chapel

Featuring: clips from “Erased:Wiped off the Map”, film made during the Gaza attacks by Alberto from our ISM group

Fri/Sat 22/23 January

Location:Norwich

Details to be confirmed

Friday 29^th January

Location: Manchester

Venue: greenroom

Featuring: Single Cell Bands

Sat 6^th February

Location: Hebden Bridge

Venue: Trades Club

Sat 13th? February

Location: Worthing

Details to be confirmed

Thurs 25^th February

Location: Huddersfield

Details to be confirmed

Sat 13th? March

Location: Brighton

Venue: Cowley Club

Details to be confirmed

Sat 20 or 27th? March

Location: Southampton

Details to be confirmed

If you want to organise a speaker event with Sharyn do get in touch, although dates are limited

It’s now coming up to a year since the start of the ‘Operation Cast Lead’ attack by Israeli forces on Gaza. Despite the massive weight of information in reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and of course the UN’s Goldstone Report, the siege of Gaza and Israeli aggression against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank continue. Today, 11^th December, the news broke that the British government has launched a ‘voluntary code of conduct’ for the labelling of goods from West Bank settlements, indicating that they aren’t products of Israel. But the code is, of course, voluntary, and the Israeli embassy in London has been busy complaining on the news about ‘unfair’ and ‘political’ treatment, so whether dates, cosmetics, bedlinen, sweets or many other products produced on stolen Palestinian land will still get the preferential tariffs allocated by the EU to Israeli products remains to be seen. In all likelihood they will.

Despite the continued support of most of our governments for Israel’s occupation, there are plenty of actions planned to commemorate the dead of the 22 days of bombing last December and January. In the UK, these include a vigil on 27^th December in London and one in Sheffield organised by the PSC, and 22 days of vigils, pickets, awareness-raising and direct action in Manchester.

I’ve never contributed to this blog before – I won’t be doing it regularly – but I just wanted to finish by introducing myself as Sharyn’s helper on the Gaza book. My name’s Sarah and I’m a freelance writer and have been involved in Palestine solidarity with ISM, Olive Co-operative and many other organisations since 2001. It’s a privilege to be Sharyn’s friend and co-writer. And I want to leave you with a poem by the late, wonderful Mahmoud Darwish, which – written several years before the carnage of ‘Operation Cast Lead’ shows how the kind of events of which the international community has been aware since that particular attack have been regularly scarring the lives of Gazans for much longer. The poem is from his posthumous diaries and collection, A River Dies of Thirst:

The Girl / The Scream

There is a girl on a sea shore

And the girl has a family

And the family has a house

And the house has two windows and a door.

And at sea there’s a warship playing a game

of targeting those taking a stroll on the shore.

Four five seven drop to the sand.

The girl is spared by a sleeve of mist

a certain celestial sleeve came to rescue her.

She calls out: Dad, my Dad, let’s go home, this sea is not for us.

And the father does not reply.

He lies there in an agony of absence, wrapped in his shadow in an agony of absence.

Blood in her palms blood in the clouds,

Her scream flies away with her far from the sea shore and higher.

She screams in the night of a wilderness

The echo has no echo

And the girl becomes the eternal scream of a breaking news event made obsolete by the planes return

to bomb a house with two windows and a door.

Talestotell is getting published in Jan 2010!

From the book’s back cover:

‘An honest, forthright account full of compassion and insight. It plunges the reader into Gaza.’
JEREMY HARDY

‘Moving and understated. … By sharing in the vulnerability of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the crowded killing fields of the Gaza Strip, Sharyn Lock manages to humanise the inhuman. … Unforgettable.’
RICHARD FALK, from the Afterword

The Israeli offensive in Gaza was described by Amnesty international as ‘22 days of death and destruction’. Defying an international press ban, Sharyn Lock’s eye witness blogs became crucial reading for anyone following the conflict. Gathered here, they are a unique account of the reality of life in Gaza beneath the bombs. Sharyn Lock arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement, making it past the Israeli sea blockade in a fishing boat. Soon afterwards, Israel attacked Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants by land, air and sea. With others from the International Solidarity Movement, Sharyn volunteered with Palestinian ambulances, assisting them as they faced overwhelming civilian casualties.

Sharyn’s candid and dramatic accounts provide an important glimpse behind the media black-out of a people who face their oppression with courage and humour.

Sharyn Lock has been volunteering in Palestine since 2002. She writes for New Internationalist, Red Pepper and the Big Issue North. Sarah Irving is a freelance writer whose work appears in New Internationalist, Big Issue North and Electronic Intifada. She has been reviews editor at Red Pepper and Peace News, and features editor at Ethical Consumer. She has been an active campaigner on Palestinian issues since 2001.

All the stories you have read here are going out into the world, when Gaza: Beneath the Bombs is published in January by Pluto Press. Please post a message here if you’d like to order a copy or two. In fact… I’ll make you a gift voucher if you would like to give the “promise” of a copy to someone for Christmas. Let me take the chance to say thank you, from me and Gaza, to all those of you who read this blog. Pluto took into account the large scale of readership when they decided to publish – so you helped make it happen – and as a thank you I’d like to make copies available to you for £10 instead of the £12.99 it will be in the shops. Any money raised will go on further Gaza projects, maybe involving me or maybe not!

Info about book events is available here and will be updated as more comes in…

Defend the Rescuers

Some of us are currently working on setting up a blog called Defend the Rescuers, as part of  a new International Campaign of Solidarity with Palestinian Emergency Workers. It’s a work-in-progress but I wanted to tell you about it. You can see what emergency workers face in Gaza in the following short film, “One of…” made by Emad Badwan, which won the World Health Day Short Film Competition. It features footage taken by my colleague Alberto of the shooting of medic Hassan, with a voice over by my colleague Eva.

Emad asks us the question – What if it was “one of” your family that needed emergency help, or whose work it was to try to deliver this help? This is 22 days telescoped into a few minutes. This is what we witnessed.

May 25: Back home in England

Mona Samouni - both parents lost, but still someone to love

I’m back in the UK. It is nearly a year since I left here to be part of making the FreeGaza project happen, pretty much expecting to end up in Israeli prison – the one thing that didn’t happen! Instead, we reached Gaza and it became inextricably part of my life. I don’t really have the words to thank you all, old friends and new both, for the emotional, financial and political support you have given both me and my Gaza friends over this year.

April 16: Visiting Al Assria Cultural Centre

Right to Return mural in Al Assria Centre, Jabalia camp

In one of my last Gaza days I went to visit the Union of Health Work Committee’s Al Assria Cultural Centre . I’d meant to get there ages ago, on request of Sheffield Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who have been supporting various projects Al Assria have run for years now, but the Israeli attacks had gotten in the way.

April 20: Kafka’s Border

Rafah Border: the wrong side of the fence

This is an excerpt from a post I wrote in September 2008…

The outdoor restaurant overlooking the sea has been nicknamed “Casablanca without the alcohol” by Dr Bill. Here, we internationals and Palestinians alike sit, looking out over the moonlit water, sharing argeelah and rumours about the Rafah border. Will it open? If so, when? And for who? People tell each other about what documents they have obtained, what connections they have made, which consulate may be arranging a visa for them.They show pictures of the husbands, wives, children, lovers who are waiting in other lands.

April: Kids on wheels in Jabalia & other farewells

Here again are the children of our Jabalia friends, one of the many lovely families I spent last week saying goodbye to. The wheelchair belongs, not to any of the kids thank goodness, but to the father of the oldest boy, who lacks both legs, yet continues to tackle life with humour and enthusiasm. It made me smile to watch them use the chair for their games. But it reminded me of something I saw recently; two young friends, boys of about 12, going down the street side by side. One was on his bike, the other in his motorised wheelchair. This is Gaza.

April 20: a world without bullet holes

…after two days at the border, I managed to exit Gaza via Rafah into Egypt. I feel a bit stunned at the shinyness of this world outside. Give me a day or two to adjust, and I hope to share some final Gaza writing with you.