Day 11 - May 31, 2009

Our last full day in Gaza began with a meeting with Sami Abedel Shafi, a journalist and an employee at the Carter Centre which works for Palestinian unification. He blames the the extremist views which have been developed within some groups in Gaza on the lack of dialogue between all parties involved. He believes that the conflict would be much more moderate if Hamas hadn't been boycotted, and pointed out that no one is going to be willing to compromise when the other party won't even talk to them. Sami said that in his view, the beginning of the solution is to talk to Hamas, not to continue to alienate the people and impose a siege. He said that there is a growing consensus in Gaza against the use of rockets, but that for as long as people are oppressed and deprived of the necessities of life, one can expect little other than militancy.
Our next excursion was to the Samooni family, which I had met once before. I was very hesistant to go as this was probably the hardest thing I have seen thus far. I learned more about them though - all the brothers and their families live in the same area, and of 23 houses in this area, only one was left standing, because the Israelis used it as an outpost (this was also the house where all the writing on the wall was found). I later got to go to the upstairs in the house where I hadn't been before, which had been burnt by white phosphorus and there had been a hole carved out in the wall where the snipers would sit. I also saw a new writing which I hadn't been able to read before, which said "this is written in blood, when he fell down the stairs." Beside it was some sort of symbol, which was clearly written in blood and had since dried to a brownish color.
The rest of the day was bittersweet, we prepared to leave but didn't want to. We had a bit of a party with all the youth we had met at a coffee shop overlooking the ocean, where we sang Backstreet Boys, a few songs in Arabic, and a few other randoms. A man at the shop told me that I had the most beautiful hair he had ever seen, but that he never sees much hair - I think that was a compliment? Afterwards in the late evening, a few of us went to a beautiful cafe on the beach and smoked our last sheesha in Gaza (we had planned to go swimming but I wasn't permitted to as a lone female with men). I'm going to miss this place!