Rami Balawi, 26 years old, teaches history in Gaza City. His house has been destroyed. He lost dozens of friends during the 51 days of ‘Protective Edge’ military operation in which 2.136 Palestinians have been killed. He’s also the author of a letter sent to Italian media to commemorate Simone Camilli, the videoreporter killed by an unexploded bomb in Gaza.
Rami, your house has been destroyed by the Israelis
Fifty families including my uncle family have no shelter now after IDF warplanes bombed Al-thafer 4 buildings of 14 stores in Gaza City. Everything has been destroyed. I’m actually living in my aunt house.
During this war I lost my cousins, my house has been destroyed and many best friends have keen killed during the airstrikes. Despite all this we went out in the streets to celebrate victory.
How can people survive in Gaza after this war ?
You can’t imagine how hard it is. Everything has been destroyed in Gaza. It’s a tragedy. There are often power cuts and you can’t get the water easily because Israel bombed all water reserves and destroyed power plants.
How about food? Is it difficult to find it during these days?
There’s a little food in Gaza because Israel destroyed all farmlands and bombed chicken farms, cow farms and dairy factories. Food is also very expensive.
The majority of people living here depends on aid coming from international organizations.
Schools have been used as shelters for refugees during this war
Sadly, hundreds of Gazan students won’t return to their schools this year even if the war has ended because they were killed or wounded or lost their houses or members of their families. But Gaza will never break. The situation in the schools during the war was even worst than one can imagine. There were over 50 person crammed into each classroom and around 1.500 persons in any school with no health services.
Israeli spokesperson indicated the group thought to be responsible of the killing of 3 Israeli teens a “lone cell” and may not have been under direct orders from Hamas’s leadership. So in your opinion, what is the real reason for this war?
I don’t think that there is a real reason for this war.
None of us heard something reasonable about the reasons or goals of this war but it seems that Israel has been planning this war for a long time.
I just want to say that Hamas did not start this war but for Israel it was a big trick to destroy Gaza.
I’m really amazed about the silence of international community concerning war crimes in Gaza because Israel targeted hospitals, schools, mosques and houses and killed 577 children. I think that our demands aren’t impossible. We just claim our right to live as everyone else in the world.
Israel must end its siege on Gaza, open our seaport and airport.
These demands are not new but previous agreements were broken by Israel.
While at least in Europe and around the world there have been protests in the streets against this war and call for boycott of Israel economy, Arab countries remained silent
This is right. We are amazed by Arab countries silence. For example, Greece opened its hospitals to receive wounded people while Arab countries close their borders in the face of Gazans.
What about media? There’s also a war of propaganda between Israeli and Palestinians sources.
Many Palestinian journalists have been killed
because they were trying to show to the world what was going on in Gaza. An example, the journalist Ezzat Dheir has been killed with some members of his family after an Israeli airstrike targeted his house in the north of Rafah the 29th of July. He was also one of my friends. I hope all this tragedy will wake up the world about the situation here because we are humans.
« Stay human » as Vittorio Arrigoni said…did you know him?
Yes. He was one of heroes. He lost his life for us. He didn’t want to live in other place but wanted to live in Gaza and feel our suffering and help us.
You wrote also a letter to commemorate Simone Camilli, the Italian videoreporter
killed by an unexploded bomb
Yes. I wanted to give his family our support.
How do you see the future in Gaza ?
We still have hope in the future.
I really will stay here in Gaza to teach to my students because life can’t stop. Life must continue whether I am still alive or not. But the most important lesson for my students is that Israel could not break Gaza.
Rami Balawi, 26 years old, teaches history in Gaza City. His house has been destroyed. He lost dozens of friends during the 51 days of ‘Protective Edge’ military operation in which 2.136 Palestinians have been killed. He’s also the author of a letter sent to Italian media to commemorate Simone Camilli, the videoreporter killed by an unexploded bomb in Gaza.
