Gaza Blog: Flashes from daily life in the Gaza Strip

A few days ago, we finally managed to get school books to all the kids at the SOS Children’s Village in Rafah. It was really hard at first because books were not allowed to get into Gaza Strip. The shelves in the book shops and the printing companies are almost out of printing supplies due to the shortage of supplies in  the Gaza Strip. In the streets, a state of eagerness and anxiety prevails due to the failure of the peace process which was announced by the Palestinian President.

Several days ago, a few explosions were heard during the night in the nearby areas where I live. My family as well as the SOS Children’s Village woke up and were disturbed by a loud bang. My daughter “Farah” began to complain of pains in her joints as a result of her fear and terror from the sound of bombing, which lasted for few minutes. In the next morning “Farah” woke up tired, but forced herself to go to school and continue as usual. But at the SOS Children's Village, the picture was more complicated, the children woke up at the sound of bombing; some of them went into a state of shock and many of them shouted too, they all stayed awake until the next morning.Apparently, the sound of bombing had brought to them the old image of the war on Gaza.

All the people in Gaza Strip still have distress regarding the cross points and the troubles of travelling. The cross points are still closed, sometimes they open once every month or two for two or three days at the most, but not many can travel because of the security actions at the cross points. “Fatima”; is a young woman living at the girls Youth’s House at the SOS Children’s Village. She has been trying for several months to travel to her husband on the Egyptian side, which is not far from where she is now. But she was unable to travel and is now experiencing severe situations of fear that she may not be able to travel completely.

These days in the Gaza Strip, people are getting ready “Eid al-Adha”, which will take place during the next ten days. On this religious holiday, people slaughter cattle to sacrifice, but because of the siege; it will remain very limited due to widespread poverty among Palestinian families, also due to the lack of cattle in the market.

Kamil Shamil

In general, the situation in the Gaza Strip has not changed since the start of the siege and people are living in a predicament, there is still a severe shortage of all kinds of supplies in the markets, maybe food is available but the price is double or triple times the regular price.More than 1500 kind merchandise are still banned from entering the Gaza Strip, and the most important ones are building materials, because the construction segment is totally frozen, people are living in tents because they cannot build or renovate the thousands of destroyed apartments and houses, which it was done by the vicious war on Gaza Strip.