CHICAGO - Sometimes it's the little things that reveal the horror of
oppression most vividly.
Dr. Mona El-Farra, speaking here recently as part of a 17-city U.S.
tour, related how recently a Palestinian woman in the Occupied
Territories had gone into labor and was heading to a hospital.
"She was about to give birth, but she was detained at an Israeli
checkpoint for three hours," El-Farra said. "Amazingly, she
eventually got through and was able to deliver her child."
"But it was only after she left the hospital and returned home with
her baby that she saw that her house had been demolished by Israeli
bulldozers while she was away."
El-Farra, a Palestinian physician in the northern Gaza Strip, noted
that over the past three years, 59 Palestinian women have given birth
while waiting to cross an Israeli military checkpoint.
"It's not just the numbers," she said. "It's a matter of human
rights. Just one case would be bad enough."
El-Farra certainly knows her numbers, however. As vice president of
the Gaza Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the U.S. Red Cross,
she has a firm command the grim statistics that define Gaza today:
140 square miles, 1.4 million people - one of most densely populated
areas on earth.
Sixty-one percent of the population is age 19 or younger. Nearly 1
million are officially registered as refugees. About 75 percent are
unemployed and nearly half suffer from hunger.
The situation facing Palestinians in Gaza only grew worse with the so-
called Israeli disengagement from the territory.
"It wasn't a withdrawal," El-Farra said. "It was a redeployment.
Israel pulled its troops out of Gaza but it still controls it. Gaza
is still under occupation. It is like a big, open-air prison" - a
prison that has only become more unbearable with the U.S.-Israeli
blockade of Gaza after the election victory of Hamas.
Although she was trained as a dermatologist, El-Farra's medical work
today is wide-ranging. In addition to her leadership in the Red
Crescent Society, she directs the Rachel Corrie Children's Center in
Gaza and works out of several clinics, ministering to Palestinians
with both physical and psychological injuries.
It was at one of the hospitals that she works at, Al-Awda Hospital,
where she helped receive Huda Ghaliya, 7, the only surviving member
of a family of eight who were victims of an Israeli bombardment of a
Gaza beach in June 2006. The shelling incident provoked worldwide
outrage, but it was not an isolated case.
"Our emergency rooms are overflowing because of the continuous
assaults," she said. "It's not an easy task for us to offer emergency
treatment or major operations. We are constantly working under fire."
Aside from direct injuries sustained by Palestinians in Gaza, El-
Farra pointed to the enormous human suffering caused by the
destruction of the area's infrastructure. "Bridges, buildings and
other structures have been destroyed by the Israelis in a form of
collective punishment," she said.
"Take, for example, the Israeli bombing of the largest electrical
power plant in Gaza last summer. Without electricity, there is no
refrigeration. Food and medicines spoiled in countless households,
including my own. With no electricity, there are no water pumps
operating - so there is an acute water shortage."
The U.S. government bears a heavy responsibility for the situation,
she said.
"We are being attacked by American weapons. The Israelis couldn't
attack us in this way without U.S. aid, money and arms," she
said. "At the same time, we clearly understand that there is a
difference between the U.S. government and the U.S. people."
The health and psychological well-being of children have been a major
focus of El-Farra's work.
"Children in Gaza today have no safe homes, no safe streets, no safe
atmosphere and no safe schools," she said. "My youngest son is 15
years old, and for the last three years, on each morning he leaves
for school, I wonder if I will ever see him again - if either he or I
will be killed."
The Rachel Corrie Children's Center, named after the 23-year-old U.S.
activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while she was trying
to protect a Palestinian home from demolition in 2003, provides
psychological counseling and therapy to traumatized children.
El-Farra said the center serves as a safe haven for some of Gaza's
most troubled children. "We encourage the children to do painting,
drama, story writing and other artistic activities," she said. "We
promote education through play, and give them a place of their own.
You can't imagine how much they appreciate this. It's like heaven to
them."
Noting the help of international volunteers, including from Australia
and Sweden, in her work, El-Farra said global solidarity with the
Palestinians "is an important part of our ability to keep on living."
"Solidarity gives us strength; it empowers us and it inspires us to
work harder." She said the Palestinian cause "is not a charity case,
but a movement to claim our inalienable rights to peace and security.
Support to us from abroad means a lot."
She also underscored the importance of worldwide support for the
right of return.
El-Farra expressed dismay over the recent events in Gaza. "Hamas won
the election; they were clearly the Palestinian people's choice. The
Israelis and the West immediately imposed an embargo and sanctions,
and taxes collected by Israel that were owed to the Palestinians were
withheld. The situation in Gaza changed from worse to worse, and one
could only expect there to be clashes."
"Certain factions were supported by the American administration," she
said, alluding to some of the leaders of Fatah. "But I blame both
sides for the strife, even as I understand the underlying reason for
it is U.S. interference in our internal affairs."
Upon completion of her 45-day tour of U.S. cities, El-Farra traveled
to Egypt with the aim of returning to Gaza by way of the Rafah
crossing. But like approximately 6,000 other Palestinians, she was
trapped on the Egyptian side because of the crossing's closure, now
nearly two months old.
While waiting, she learned that her mother was deathly ill in Gaza,
but she was unable to come to her bedside. "I cannot cross the
borders, I cannot cross the Rafah crossing," she wrote on her
blog, "From Gaza, with Love."
"In her last hours I cannot be there; my hands are tied," she
wrote. "My throat is dry, my eyes are full of tears. This is unjust,
inhuman. This is the occupation. ... Goodbye, mum. I hope you rest in
peace, a peace we do not enjoy in Gaza."
Her mother died on July 23.
malmberg@pww.org
//Dr. Mona El-Farra's June 23 appearance in Chicago was co-sponsored
by Arab American Action Network and Not in My Name, a predominantly
Jewish peace group. Her tour was facilitated by the American Friends
Service Committee. For more information about El-Farra's work with
children, visit the Middle East Children's Alliance,
www.mecaforpeace.org.//
People's Weekly World newspaper, Aug. 2, 2007
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