Palestinians Glued to News from Gaza
Fuad Abu Rumeileh stands behind the pears, apples and grapes at his fruit stand just inside the Old City of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. He had stayed open late the past few nights, usually a prime shopping time in the days before Eid A-Fitr, the four-day holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. But business is the worst it’s been in years because of the heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has raged on for three weeks. People are buying less than every before.
“Look at people passing here, nobody is buying anything,” he told The Media Line as friends stopped by to shake his hand and wish him a happy holiday. “It’s because of the situation in Gaza. Everybody is sad.”
Since the fighting began, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and at least 6,000 others wounded. Palestinian hospital officials in Gaza say the majority of the dead are civilians, with several hundred children among them. Israeli officials say some of the deaths are from Hamas rockets that didn’t reach their targets and fell short inside of Gaza; and that they believe the majority of those killed are Hamas fighters rather than civilians. They also charge that Hamas is using the population as human shields by firing rockets from mosques, schools and public buildings.
Abu Rumeileh estimates his business is less than a quarter of what it was last year. He bought a ton of large Anjou pears this year, he says, for $3 per kilo. He hoped to sell them for $3.50 each. But he’s dropped the price to $2.25, meaning he’s losing money, because sales are so slow. Abu Rumeileh is expecting his fourth child any day now – the first boy after three girls.
Palestinians in east Jerusalem hold blue Israeli-issued ID cards, as do all Israeli citizens, meaning they have freedom of movement throughout Israel. Last year, he took his family to the beach in Tel Aviv during the holiday but this time he’s not planning any outings.
“I am afraid that Jews could attack us,” he said. “There have been a lot of cases in which Palestinians have been attacked recently and I would be afraid going with my children.”
He was referring to anti-Arab riots in the streets of Jerusalem in the days after the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in June. They were later found dead, and a young Palestinian was killed in a revenge attack.
His co-worker, Raed, who asked not to give his last name, said the Palestinian mood is very sad.
“We are all part of the Arab people,” he told The Media Line. “When young children are being killed, little boys and girls, how does anyone feel?”
In the West Bank, many Palestinians are holding subdued celebrations.
“People are doing the religious aspects of the holiday like going to the prayers and visiting cemeteries,” Ghassan Al-Khatib, a former Palestinian government spokesman told The Media Line from his family’s village of Beit Iba, north of Nablus. “But the mood is very depressed and there is no feeling of joy. There is just a great deal of sadness and anger.”
None of these men have any immediate relatives in Gaza, but Khatib says he has friends who have lost relatives in the current round of fighting. He says that Al-Aqsa television channel, which is run by Hamas, and which is broadcasting images and reporting from Gaza 24/7, has become more popular in the West Bank.
“Along with the sadness there is a feeling of pride,” he said. “There is an impression that the resistance in Gaza is doing well which makes people feel proud.”
Khatib, who has also run a Palestinian polling organization, says that Hamas, which until recently controlled the Gaza Strip, has always been more popular in the West Bank, while Fatah, the dominant party in the West Bank, has always been more popular in Gaza. The two rival organizations established a unity government earlier this month that was meant to pave the way toward elections, but the fighting in Gaza has pushed the government to the sidelines. Israel is also unlikely to offer permits to Palestinians from Gaza to enter the West Bank until the fighting ends.
Khatib says the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas has sent donations of food and medicine to Gaza, but has not exerted enough diplomatic pressure on the international community to press Israel to stop the fighting.
“The Palestinian Authority is being seen as weak,” he said. “Hamas is definitely gaining strength in the West Bank.”