Thursday morning at breakfast I met Adam and Rana.
Adam is a Palestinian who now lives in the US and has US passport. He says life became much more difficult after 9-11 and he changed his name to reduce the problems. He is trying to get to Gaza to visit his sister. He is here on short vacation from his job with IBM and the days are ticking by .... Israeli security keeps putting him off. "Call back tomorrow." Day by day his time is running out. He came all this way to visit his sister and in the end may be prevented.
Rana is an attractive young woman who works in Gaza. Her tightly wrapped head scarf indicate she is Muslim. She is fluent in colloquial English and I thought she might be the 'mother from Gaza' blogger! But no .... Rana works for Save The Children and is visiting the main office in Jerusalem plus meeting her friend Adam. Rana says she lives in Gaza and both exit and entrance are difficult. Because she works for an international organization with offices in Jerusalem she was able to exit. But she knows other women who have tried and are unable to leave. They are effectively trapped. Others cannot get in. They cannot get out.
Meanwhile Israel is still bombing in Gaza and on the news here yesterday they reiterated the Israeli threat that nobody in the Hamas government is safe from being targetted for assassination.
I took a photo of Adam in the St George's Cathedral courtyard. Unfortunately Rana preferred not to have a photo taken.
2 comments:
Thanks for your posts. I'm glad I found your blog. The detail about the Israeli wall being twice as high as the Berlin war was a good way to convey the trap in which the Palestinians are held.
From Erwin to Rick.
I heard about your blog from Elicha @ Lali's BD.
I am touched by your description of Palestinian people being unable to come in and out the Gaza Strip.
Keep up the great work Rick, the world must know the truth!
Erwin.
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