Life and Death on the Sea

An Israeli tank recently crushed Mansur's livelihood, his taxi. Photo: Christopher Rooks/Mercy Corps

Wadi Salqa, Gaza Strip — Despite dire living conditions, Gazans are known for their warm hospitality. But when Mansur Al Saleem invited me to visit his family home last Wednesday, it was not so much an invitation as an explanation.

Mansur's family was among more than 300 impoverished families accepting emergency food aid from Mercy Corps workers that day. I accompanied the aid trucks in my role as a Middle East program officer for the agency, temporarily based in Jerusalem. Since mid-May, when the United Nations first warned of a "deteriorating humanitarian situation" in this narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, we've provided critical food and medical supplies to more than 6,000 of the most vulnerable Gazans.

Two weeks ago, Mansur told me, the ominous rumble of Israeli tanks interrupted a lunch he was enjoying at home with his parents, wife and five small children. It turned out that the Israeli Defense Forces, as part of their stepped-up campaign against terrorists in Gaza - who killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnapped another in June - had decided to base their local operations in the three-story building next door. Trouble was, Mansur's family home stood in the way of their tanks.

So one of the Israeli tanks was used to flatten all but one room of Mansur's modest house. His taxi was also destroyed, leaving the family without a livelihood. Mansur's wife's jewelry is now the family's lone asset.

"I'm not a farmer, I'm a taxi driver, and my car is like my soul," an anguished Mansur told me. "I can rebuild the house, but my car … how can my family survive if I can't work?"

Mansur's story of loss, humiliation, bewilderment and anger sounded distressingly similar to others I heard in the three towns where Mercy Corps delivered boxes of two-to-four weeks' worth of staple food items - including rice, sugar, oil and tea. Many of the recipient families are part of growing demographic known here as the "new poor." These families depended on the salaries of teachers, health workers, police officers and other government employees - more than a third of Gaza's workforce - who haven't been paid since February. That's when the United States, European Union, Great Britain and Russia suspended payments to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas' victory in legislative elections.

Israel responded to the Hamas win by virtually sealing its borders with Gaza, which has prevented workers and moneymaking exports from getting out and vital supplies like fuel from getting in. Israel says the tightened security is needed to protect innocent civilians from militant attacks. Since then, Israel's "Operation Summer Rain" - touched off when Hamas militants brazenly apprehended the Israeli soldier - has made things worse for ordinary families in Gaza.

Livelihoods lost

Hamad's uprooted orange groves supported 52 of his family members. Photo: Christopher Rooks/Mercy Corps

In Al Maghazi, site of a recent Israeli incursion that left at least 12 dead and more than a hundred injured, 53-year-old Hamad Abu Saeed showed me the remains of his orange grove. I saw uprooted trees buried in piles of brown dirt, bits of wood and leaves sticking out at odd angles, and small, unripened oranges scattered about.

Hamad recounted the destruction of the orange grove, which he owned with three of his brothers. As he talked, artillery shells exploded like thunderclaps in the distance. It is such a common sound that no one even reacts anymore.

"This food will help for a few weeks, but then what?" Hamad asked, explaining that jobs and income from the orange grove supported 52 extended family members. "We are refugees, we are farmers. We didn't do anything."

The last distribution was the coastal refugee camp of Dier al Balah, where several hundred small, weathered fishing boats lay on the beach. It's the height of fishing season, but no one in Gaza has been allowed to fish offshore since the Israel military operation began in late June, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. This edict has wiped out innumerable jobs and a good of source high-protein food at a time when both are in short supply.

Worse yet, many of the beached boats were riddled with bullet holes; Ibrahim Alquran's boat had 30. Thankfully he wasn't injured, unlike 16-year-old Naief, who showed me the wounds on his leg, reportedly from Israeli navy guns fired at his boat while he was fishing last year.

"Like any state, we need fishing rights and unobstructed access to the sea," explained Nezar Ayash, head of the local fishermen's union. "We just want to be normal fisherman, to educate our children and have a happy and good life."

Oceangoing restrictions keep these boats on the beach at the height of fishing season. Photo: Christopher Rooks/Mercy Corps

A mounting toll

I wished the fisherman well, hoping to be back someday to share a meal of fresh fish with them. But events a few hours later dampened my optimism. At the Erez checkpoint into Israel, I learned from waiting journalists that 16 Gazans, including at least three children, had been killed that day. That number would later reach 24, making it one of this summer's deadliest days in Gaza.

Israel has suffered casualties, too, although far fewer recently. Since June 28, one IDF soldier has been killed and 12 Israelis have been injured, according to the UN, mostly by homemade rockets fired from inside Gaza.

Beyond the horrific loss of life on both sides, it is the widespread destruction of Palestinian livelihoods that is so heartbreaking and so crippling to Gaza's development - from the bombing of infrastructure, to the export-halting border restrictions, down to Mansur's mangled taxi cab, Hamad's bulldozed orange grove and Ibrahim's bullet-riddled fishing boat. It's taking a severe toll on the incomes and dignity of Gaza's 1.4 million people, the vast majority of whom want the same things we do: a peaceful life, a productive livelihood and opportunities for their children to learn and prosper.

As we shook our heads at this profound cost of violence, shells started whizzing by overhead and the intensity of machine-gun fire picked up dramatically. A loud clap followed each shell, and then a violent shaking of the earth.

I imagined a giant judge slamming down his gavel near the checkpoint. Please come to order, indeed.