Against all odds, there are still blog posts coming out of Gaza, and bloggers are vividly describing the fear they are filled with in the face of ongoing Israeli attacks.
Exiled says he is no hero:
وقد اكون في اي لحظة على قيد الموت لاكون بخير
فالاموات وحدهم آمنون في غزة
تركت شقتي وذهبت انا وزوجتي الى بيت العائلة،ليس بحثا عن مكانا آمناً من القصف
احب ان اكون بجانب امي في هذه الاحوال
لست بطلا،كابن اخي الصغير ارتعش من الصوت المعدني المتفجر في الهواء القريب
ولكني اكبت رعشتي خجلا،فلست بطلا
And at any moment I may be within sight of death, and will be OK.
Only the dead are safe in Gaza.
I left my flat and my wife and I went to the family home, but not searching for a safe place from the bombing.
I want to be next to my mother in such circumstances.
I am not a hero; like my young nephew I am trembling from the explosive metal sound in the air nearby.
But I hold back my trembling in embarrassment; I am not a hero.
Laila El-Haddad, who blogs at Raising Yousuf and Noor, is in touch with her parents in Gaza:
My father just called to inform me he was ok – after warplanes bombed the Islamic University there, considered to be the Strip's premiere academic institution.
A little later I called my mother, only to hear her crying on the phone. “The planes are overhead” she cried “the planes are overhead”. I tried to calm her down – planes overhead mean the “target” is further away. But in such moments of intense fear, there is no room for rationality and logic.
Another Gazan blogger, Dr. Mona El-Farra is currently in the UK, and is watching what is happening in despair:
With an aching heart I continue to watch Gaza from a distance. I cannot turn the TV off, cannot detach myself from what is going on there. Not while my medical colleagues work hard under such extraordinarily circumstances. Not while my friends, my family, and the whole population of Gaza face such horrible atrocities and constant fear. The nightmare isn’t over.
Canadian human rights activist Eva Bartlett, who blogs at In Gaza, describes how she is trying to cope:
How to explain this feeling? I am physically numb to the explosions, not that I am in any way brave, but just physically unaffected. This is useful, it allows me to continue to write, to photograph, to speak. But it is my rational side which is continuing these things. Alberto, a Spanish journalist sitting next to me, helps me to recall that last night I told him: “I’m so focused on conveying the eyewitness account that I’m not thinking about danger.”
[…]
It’s nearly impossible to finish this entry…still more explosions are erupting every few minutes: a car in Al Bureijj camp, central Gaza, another hit in the Zaytoun residential area of Gaza City, another in the north… This time, it is not the electricity that prevents me from writing, nor certainly not want of words or information. It is that the appalling bombing at close range that Israel is unleashing on us here in Gaza, since just after 11 am on December 27th continues at full speed, full strength, despite over 300 dead and over 800 injured, by conservative estimates (1000 by other estimates), not including the victims and casualties from the latest and ongoing attacks. The outside world rightfully wants to know what is going on in Gaza, and I too want to know, even though I am here. Gaza has become isolated areas, where people are trapped in their homes for fear of being out on the streets. And, as it turns out, even homes are not safe. There is no where safe in Gaza. Any place can be a target. Any target can be justified as being a planned target or being closed to a planned target.
In a later post, she simply says:
For now…i prepare for no electricity, no internet, and the worst
i’m praying that you will do your part outside Gaza to end this horror
7 more killed, 10s wounded in latest attack in north of gaza
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