Gaza’s Cry: One Rainstorm Is Enough to Expose the World! (Afrasia)
Afrasianet - Jamal Zaqout - It didn't need a new bomb. One winter was enough to tear off the roof of "peace," sink promises, and leave people face to face with the truth: Gaza is in the wind, and the world is sleeping on the warmth of his statements.
In 12 hours, at least 70,000 tents have sunk, according to Reuters. A number that can be read in a news bulletin, and then move on to the weather. But beneath each tent is the life of a family trying not to extinguish: a child looking for dry cover, a mother lifting a sunken bed, and a father pulling a rope as if holding on to the last of his house or what remains on the ground.
Here, people don't ask if they've slept well. It's a question of whether they've found a roof or a place to sleep. Drying a blanket has become a family project, and finding a place where water doesn't leak is a commendable achievement. The house, the ordinary thing that people close their door when it rains, has become an ambition that needs intermediaries, guarantors, and an international conference.
The humanitarian catastrophe enters its fourth year, and winter returns to its schedule. Only the rescue is delayed. It is as if the chapters are required to wait for the outcome of the negotiations, as if the clouds had to review the terms of the agreement before it rains. But the rain does not read the data, and the wind does not respect the memorial photographs. You pass between the tents, and in minutes you experience what consumed months of speeches about relief, recovery and reconstruction.
The result is in front of us: a wet cover over a trembling child, and a raging sea in front of a people who have been narrowed by land.
It is not the rain that is to blame, but the demolition of the house, the one who prevents the establishment of shelter to protect its people, and the mere fact of obtaining a wooden plank or a housing unit that has made it a negotiating issue. The continued Israeli restrictions on shelter and building materials mean that families are facing the winter with their dilapidated tents.
Thus, the wind is left to tear apart what the bombs have left, and the water has the task of chasing people into the last space in which they have taken shelter.
Washington has its role that is not washed away by the rain. Whoever financed, armed, and provided political protection for the destruction of Gaza is not enough to declare peace to wash his hands of the blood of the victim and the destruction of his home.
What is the value of the American guarantee if it cannot guarantee a ceiling? And what is the meaning of a ceasefire if the survivor waits for another way to die?
As for Trump's "peace," he seems to need an umbrella. He showed up in his elegant suit in front of the cameras, and then let the people of Gaza fend for themselves with mud and torrents. A peace wide enough to accommodate speeches, too narrow to fit a dry bed. And if this is the promised peace, the first wind has waved to it: bye-bye.
Brokers may be waiting for the depression to calm down to see if the sinking of tents falls within their jurisdiction. Water has entered from all sides, and it can be difficult to determine who is responsible for each leak. Installing the stakes may need a new round, tents for additional understandings, and rescuing a child from the cold to agree on the "next day."
But the child needs a roof over the head now. It seems that, in the calculations of the decision-makers, he has chosen a timing that is not appropriate for their priorities!!
As for power, there is always room in the waiting dictionary for a new chapter: questions to be raised, answers to be expected, a government in Tel Aviv that may change, and an American midterm elections on which to hope that Trump's heart will be satisfied. It is as if our dilemma is that we are longing for the survival of power. The survival of the people and their tents can be added to the agenda later.
What is the meaning of an authority that counts its chances of being accepted, when its people have nothing to protect it from the rain? And what kind of policy is this waiting for the mood in Washington to change, while the bed in Gaza changes from wet to drowning with its owners?
After all this loss, the people have the right to ask about their ability to protect them, unify their decision, and open a path out of the disaster. It is not enough to keep the flag flying if the roof of the family is flying.
When preserving the site becomes more important than saving society, the wind of the factions is gone, and only the wind has the upper hand on the tents. The child will not feel warm because a statement described his steadfastness as legendary, and his garment will not dry if the factions agree to glorify his tolerance and disagree on everything that mitigates it. The "leaderships" disagreed on everything except how to deprive them of agreeing on a guaranteed path to save the people from disaster and lead to accountability at the ballot box .
Gaza needs no more praise for its endurance. It has consumed the lives of the people in heroism until some of them are dealing with their pain as if they were a running out resource. Whenever a roof falls, praise steadfastness; whenever a bed sinks, praise the clinging to the ground. Let people cling to their land from inside houses that protect them. They don't have to tremble to prove their Palestinianness.
What is required is known: how Israel is obliged to bring in shelter supplies, temporary housing and building materials, enable relief, and begin reconstruction that preserves the people's right to stay.
As for the Palestinians, it is a national decision that makes saving society its priority, and it holds itself accountable for what it achieves, before holding others accountable for what they say about it.
One Rainstorm exposed all this nakedness. The tents fell, the pulpits remained standing. The children's sheets were wet, and the agreement papers remained dry.
On the shore of Gaza, or she pulls the end of her tent so that the wind does not blow her children. This is the distance between the reality of the world's hypocrisy and what it says about itself: she holds a piece of cloth with both hands, and they do not hold cold words about human rights that have not withstood the wind.
