Iman Sourani | Gaza (21-08-12)

You can find perhaps no better example of the injustice and gross human rights violations being perpetrated by Israeli apartheid in Palestine, than in Gaza.

Usually people look for a way of experiencing the world that they think of it good enough to eventually acclimatise themselves within it. However, Palestinians like myself were forced to experience a way of living that prematurely imposed itself upon them. The previous mentioned isn’t a myth but rather a reality; an ugly reality called occupation, colonization or to be accurate enough; a reality of apartheid.

Working as a humanitarian project coordinator for five months taught me that Gaza doesn’t get a wink at night, not because drunkenness made its people lose the pleasure of sleeping. Not because it’s enjoying the boring romantic speeches people worldwide usually tell about Gaza without taking any real action. Gaza can’t sleep because it’s wounded; feeling the pain of many unwell children who dream of nothing but a life.  I’m writing this to tell the story of an 8-years old dreamer; a little girl called Shahd.

Shahd lives in the besieged Gaza city, her misery started when she felt very sick and with her many physical examinations doctors discovered that she suffers from a disease called “ Classic Homocystinuria”  . The disease represents a group of hereditary metabolic disorders that includes the disorder of the connective tissue and muscles and it gives no way to drive the body poisons away. The only effective lifetime medicine for her case is called “Betaine” this would help in preventing the complications of the Homocystinuria, but her father explained that she got it only twice when he asked for a help from the government in Ramallah but then they stopped it because it’s so expensive.

When he was talking about this all, I wondered about the issues that some international institutions or agencies are working on! Do they truly believe that when they provide people with a basket of food they are changing lives? No! Siege isn’t only about not getting humanitarian aids but also and most importantly about losing lives.  “Shahd’s body is being destroyed every second. My daughter now lost one of her eyes completely” Shahd’s father mentioned, his eyes full of sorrow. The father now waits for any opportunity to assist him in getting the required medicine so as to circumvent the agony of watching his daughter being tortured with a slow death.

In Gaza, children’s language might not be ripened well enough to explain the pain they feel, but the days of their life recounts it all.

Iman Sourani

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine.