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Israeli jetfighters, mainly
F-16s, continue to air-strike many areas in the
'recently-evacuated' Gaza Strip, in which several Palestinians
have been killed, dozens others wounded, severe damages inflicted
to buildings and a great deal of panic caused to men, women and
children.
"Suddenly, at 2:30am, in the early hours of Saturday 24, 2005, I
woke up suddenly from my sleep, finding my three little kids,
Ghadir (9), Rewan (6) and Fadi (4) , crying fearfully in my room,
calling "Dad, Dad".
Israeli jetfighters were making a sonic booms in the Gazan skies,
terrifying tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the area.
Abu Ghadir 30, from Maghazi refugee camp, talked about his
'new-old' experience with the Israeli raids.
Ghadir, his eldest daughter, spoke in a hushed voice about her
shock at that night. "I was sleeping in my room along with my
sister and brother when I heard a very terrifying sound. I thought
it was a bomb. Myself, Rewan and Fadi got up together and rushed
fearfully to our parents' bedroom."
"I wonder why the Israeli planes do this to us! Haven't they gone?
My teacher in school told us that the Israelis have gone from our
lands, so we were very happy. Haven't they gone from our land?",
Ghadir asked.
"I was very frightened when the bomb sound roared," Rewan added,
"so I stuck to my mother and father."
"The planes, the planes," Fadi whispered, "I was frightened".
"Let me ask a question," their father Abu Ghadir asked. "Suppose
the Israeli settlers were not evacuated. Would Israeli warplanes
rip through the Gazan airspace so repeatedly and at the most
sensitive times, when every man, women and child happens to be
sleeping deeply?"
"When Israeli settlers surrounded Palestinian areas in Gaza," he
explained, "such heavy Israeli raids were much fewer than today
because Gaza is free of settlers now."
"It is racism that Israel is practicing against us. I wonder as to
the way Israel is punishing the Palestinian people's children,
women, and men. What have children got to do with such bombs? Are
they terrorists that need to be terrified?"
"For how long our children will remain obsessed by the roaring of
Israeli fighters which continue to fly in the Palestinian sky?"
Abu Ghadir asked after the latest Israeli raids died down.
Written for the Eleictronic
Intifada
Rami Almeghari, a
31-year-old Palestinian, lives in Maghazi Refugee Camp, central
Gaza, and works as deputy director of the Translation Department
of the Gaza-based State Information Service (SIS) and is former
editor-in-chief of the SIS-linked International Press Center
English website.
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