My son and daughter writing their homework at the light of the candle!!!

Motasem A Dalloul

London, February 19, 2012

At last, I could conduct a video call with my wife and children in Gaza after a halt lasted more than ten days.

All means of contact, except, sometimes, mobiles are off because of the loss of electricity resulted of the shortage of fuel that is resulted of the strict siege on the Gaza Strip, where I come from.

The first word my little daughter told me was: “Bring us lights with you, daddy!”

Of course, she misses the lights at home and writes her homework using candles which her mam faces many difficulties to afford them.

My little daughter misses watching TV and playing games at her PC. She weeps for her mam everyday because she is obliged to wear her school uniform not ironed. She weeps and weeps because she cannot even dream, but see nightmares while she is asleep.

Her mam told me that she and her brothers and sisters gather around a small stool, in the hall, writing their homework at the light of a candle which she suffers too much to afford it.

She complained to me that they always keep crying as they cannot play games or watch TV after doing their homework. They have to sleep early, but they are obliged to wake up at midnight because of the long time of sleep.

When they asked their mam that they wanted to call me, she told them that they need electricity for the PC and the internet router. So that, they brought their savings and bought an electrical extension to have their PC and router run on electricity of their neighbour’s generator.

So that, at the end they could call me. But after some minutes, they were obliged to end the call because their neighbours told them that they wanted to stop the generator because the fuel was going to finish and they did not have more.

And now, I do not know when the next chance to speak with them is going to be! May be after the world wake up and put an end to the Israeli aggression! I do not know!!!!!!!!!!!

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The remains of my cheese factory in Gaza after the Israeli F16 bombardment 2010

Motasem A Dalloul, London, February 17, 2012

The third anniversary of the Israeli bombing of my own diary is approaching, so that, I am rethinking of myself more and more. May be I am another person and I do not know this fact!

It seems that it is my fault to be born for a couple who live in the Gaza Strip, the border line Palestinian city adjacent to Egypt. I have spent years and years when I was young working hard before and after school and during the breaks of my BA study. I had my own business and at the same time I had my BA certificate. That was more than wonderful for me.

Two sources of income for a young man in his early 20s. I was consent of that and started building my own house and enlarging my business. I had a very nice two story house with an area of 240m square. In the first store was my cheese factory and in the second floor were two apartments; one for me and the other for my precious parents.

The repercussions of my fault

During the aggressive Israeli war against the Gaza Strip, an Israeli F16 bombed my house and my cheese factory with two rockets that left everything a pile of useless rubbles. Thanks for God, none of my family or me was even injured.

I did not spend much time think what to do. I directly decided not to surrender to the Israeli oppression, but to go on and resurrect again from under the rubbles.

I started my business again and continued working in the field of journalism and teaching. But a couple of months later, I have just went to bed to have a restful sleep, but 15 minutes later, a sound of a big explosion aroused me. I found dust everywhere in my makeshift house. I thought that my house which was the target and thanked God that my wife and all of my eight kids were at their grandmother’s house that time.

I went out to see that my new diary has been destroyed again by an Israeli ware plane. Nothing remained. The building, the pasteurizer, the homogeniser, the boiler, the compressor, the van, the cheese, etc… Everything has gone.

Next day, my colleagues, journalists, came to visit me and report about what happened. A foreign journalist was a mong them.

The foreign journalist asked me: “Why do you think that the Israelis bombed you diary?” I answered: “You can ask them.” He said: “They say that you make rockets!” I replied from among about five tons of white cheese spread everywhere: “You have your own camera. You can take shoots for everything and show the whole world what you have seen. If you see rockets, you can shoot them and show the world.”  He shook his head and continued his work.

No more business

At that time, I have nearly left the work in media as I was busy in remaking my business. But, my mother who knew that I have lost all my property and I will not be able to go on asked me to stop working and to travel here or there to have a break.

I have decided to go back to the university seats again. I had an offer for a journalism course in from the University of Westminster in London in 2006/2007 and could not attend. I renewed the application and went on in this way.

I am not sure whether I am going back to do business or not, but may be. This is not what I wanted from all of this account, but I want to say that the world must look at the Israeli aggression and put an end to it, not to look at the countries that utilise the modern technology to afford luxurious life for their people. I mean Iran and the nuclear power.

However, I absolutely and completely oppose what is Iran doing, but at the same time, I ask the world to dismantle the Israelis from their WMD which is not a responsible entity. And it was tested during the disproportionate war against Gaza. It used white phosphorous against civilians.

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The Palestinian children's bus hit by an Israeli lorry driver

London, February 15, 2012

An Israeli lorry driver hit a Palestinian students’ bus killing at least 8 and one female teacher in a busy junction in the city of Ramalla, West Bank.

Resources confirmed that there are at least 30 others injured, seven of them critically.

Medical resources said that the number of casualties is expected to rise as the bus, which was carrying about 50 children, was severely damaged.

“The accident resulted of a huge fire set in the bus that resulted in the big number of cuasalities,” witnesess said.

Palestinians started a three day of mourning to mark this sad incident and flags to be lowered during these three days.

It is common that cars of Israelis settlers hit Palestinians in the West Bank. Many NGOs and human rights organisations have called for the end of such kind of accidents, but no response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t6ibWSyXOfE

An Israeli settler hits Palestinian children in Jerusalem last year

Settlers teach their kids how to use guns

My sons use old candles to light in order to study

Motasem A Dalloul, London

Feb 14, 2012

Gaza children took to street today night holding candles to mark the valentine day in the dark as the main Gaza electric plant stopped.

Authority of energy announced the halt of the plant generators as a result of the shortage of fuel resulted of the strict Israeli siege against the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza electric plant needs 600,000 litres of industrial fuel a day to operate well and support the 1.7m population.

A senior official in the ministry of health in Gaza said that the shortage of electricity threatens the life of hundreds of patients in hospitals. “Patients are already in pain because of the shortage of medicines and medical equipment,” the health official said.

The Gaza Strip has been living under a strict Israeli siege since 2006 and the electric plant was attacked several times by the Israeli wareplanes.

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UN: some 660 demolished houses and more than 1100 Palestinian homeless in 2012

London, January, 2012

The Israeli demolition of the Palestinian houses and other buildings in 2011 has resulted in displacing more than 1100 citizens, UN report said Saturday morning.

UN demanded a direct halt of such activities of the Israeli occupation and asked it to bear the responsibility of protecting the Palestinian citizens.

“Israel as the Occupying Power has a fundamental responsibility to protect the Palestinian civilian population under its control and to ensure their dignity and well‐being,” Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the occupied Palestine, said.

“The current policy and practice of demolitions cause extensive human suffering and should end,” Mr Gaylard added.
He also criticised the policy of destroying the Palestinian homes and their livelihood and said that increases their misery. He confirmed that all those actions are not acceptable.

“The wholesale destruction of their homes and livelihoods is not consistent with that responsibility and humanitarian ideals. The current policy and practice of demolitions cause extensive human suffering and should end,” he said.

The report mentioned: “For the year 2011, some 622 homes and livelihood structures belonging to Palestinian families were similarly destroyed, forcibly displacing almost 1,100 people, over half of them children, and compromising the livelihoods of several thousand more.”

Mr Gaylard noted that these figures represent a dramatic increase compared with previous years, and that a much greater number, in the tens of thousands, remain under threat of dispossession, demolition and displacement.

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Tens of thousands of landmines spread along the Palestinian lands

London, January 7, 2012

A local Palestinian official confirmed that the Israelis have been refusing to clear a landmine field in Hosan, to the west of Bethlehem, for years ago.

A report of an American organisation confirmed the existence of tens of thousands of landmines in different areas of the Palestinian lands.

Jamal Sbatin, the head of Husan Municipal Council, told Quds Press news agency that an international campaign has decided to clear the mines which were planted in 1950 in Husan.

Mr Sbatin confirmed that the Israelis refused to leave out the mines which resulted so far of the death of six Palestinians and wounding 16 others.

According to Mr Sbatin, an American organisation called, The Roots of Peace, has recognised a plan to leave the mines out. However, the organisation’s convoy who had visited the area said that they will be unable to carry out their plan without the Israeli consent.

Husan is a Palestinian border area which lies between the occupied Palestine and Jordan.

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A little Palestinian child killed by the Israeli shelling against the Gaza Strip

London, January 1, 2012

Israeli aggressive forces killed 124 Gaza residents and wounded 600 others during 2011, medical sources said.

Those residents were targeted by different kinds of Israeli destructive warplanes and artillery missiles along that year.

A group of Palestinian children killed when the Israeli war planes attacked their house in Gaza

“Those number are distributed among the whole months of the year, but the last ones were the most misery,” Dr Ashraf al Qedra, MOH spokesman, told Quds Press news agency.

He said that the last martyr was Momen abu Daff, 21, from Johr al Deek, eastern Gaza, who was killed in the last night of the past year.

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Israeli bulldozers demolishing Palestinian houses under the protection of the Israeli forces

London, January 1, 2012

Israelis announced that they are intending to demolish 500 Palestinian buildings varied between homes, schools, water wells and makeshift tents, human rights resources said.

Those premises are located in the “C” area which according to the Oslo Peace Accord is considered a buffer zone under the Israeli jurisdiction.

Sources said that the buildings are to be demolished under the pretext of not having construction licenses. Israelis do not allow except Israeli settlers to have building in such areas.

Among those buildings to be demolished, there are 32 schools which should be razed several months ago. Palestinians have previously petitioned to Israeli courts to cancel demolition measures, but this time, they will not be excluded.

Hundreds of families will become homeless after carrying out those measures and more than 10 hundred students will be unable to pursue their education.

Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported today that extremist leaders of the Israeli settlers have been urging the Israeli government to accelerate carrying out demolition measures. Sources said that they fear any new move in the peace process that will hinder it.

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As the New Year rolls in, and many are speculating on whether or not Israelis and the west will go to war with Iran, Israelis have confirmed that they are preparing for a large-scale offensive in Gaza.

The timing coincides with the third year anniversary of the aggressive Israeli war against, which resulted in the deaths of over 1400 Palestinians.

Israeli news columnist, Gideon Levy, questions the wisdom of the coming offensive in light of Hamas‘ overtures toward peace with Israelis.

Also, how will the recent ‘Arab Spring’ influence the reaction of Israelis’ neighbours like Egypt, which now has a new and unpredictable leadership?

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Hundreds of children were among the war victims during the Israeli aggressive war against the Gaza Strip in 2008/2009

London, December 30, 2011

The Israeli massacre of five Palestinian girls of the Balousha family in 2008 was remembered by their parents who said that they are still seeking justice to punish the killers of their beloved daughters.

On December, 29, 2008, the second day of the vicious Israeli war on Gaza, an Israeli F-16 war plane dropped a heavy bomb on a local mosque in Jabalya district, north of the Gaza Strip, leveling it to the ground and destroying home of the Balousha family that was located three meters away from the mosque killing five of his daughters under the rubbles.

Pictures of the five daughters, Tahrir, 18, Ekram, 15, Samar, 13, Dina, 8, and Jawahir, 4, were hanged on the walls of the main room of the house that the family had rebuilt again with the feeling of sorrow and grief still engulfing the family every time they recall what had happened.

“I feel that the house still empty, my five beloved daughters indeed left a big gap in our life, and although I like to always feel that they are present with us, but the fact would remain there and we feel that we lack something precious in our life,” the bereaved father, Anwar Balousha, said.

Although equanimity of Anwar and the expressions of his face try to hide the suffering that his family had passed through as a result of the massacre, yet, his words clearly tell of the deep scar the loss of his five daughters had left on him and on his family.

“My wife was deeply affected by the calamity. Indeed she cried too much as she recalled the war when she saw a team of UNRWA workers yesterday removing the rubbles of one of the destroyed homes beside us,” Balousha pointed out.

He said that he is spending a lot of his time standing before the graves of his daughters telling them details of his daily life. “I miss them too much, and this makes me return back to the house and search for them, even for a moment, before I realize that they are dead,” he added.

Furthermore, Balousha asserted that the massacre of his daughters has affected his eldest daughter and his only son, saying, “My eldest daughter Iman, 20, was brilliant at school before the incident, but now she is always absent minded and her performance at school deteriorated because her sister Dina died between her two arms, and my son Mohammed always searches for new friends to play with.”

Balousha filed a case against the Israeli occupation forces in Israeli courts since the incident without any result so far. He said:” If they (Israelis) give me all the money of this world they will never pay for my daughters. I don’t need the money; I need my five daughters back”.

The incident made Balousha and his wife live in fear over the future of their remaining children every time the Israelis carryout a raid on Gaza Strip.

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